Monday, October 15, 2012

The Aurora II's Not Ainol!

Finally! After exactly one month of waiting, I took delivery of the Novo7 Aurora II Android tablet by Ainol.

First impression, the tablet is quite thin (compared to the Optus MyTab), and lighter. It looks smaller, but that's only because it doesn't have dedicated softkeys. It comes with a set of earphones, USB cable, and an AC charger. Does it mean I always have to use the AC charger to charge it? Fortunately, no. USB charging is supported via the mini-USB port.

The 7" 1024x600 IPS display is gorgeous. There's only one small slit at the back for a mono speaker, but audio is load and clear. I have no use for the built-in Chinese apps, so I flashed in a CM10 custom ROM to replace the ICS OS that it came with. After some time on the slatedroid.com forums, I decided to go with  Christian Troy's CM10 ROM. Upgrade procedure is pretty straightforward.

  1. extract the CWM zip file and copy the two files to an external microSD card
  2. copy the CM10 ROM, gapps, and the A2 compatibility zip files to the same microSD card
  3. boot the tablet in CWM recovery mode (Power + Volume- at the same time)
  4. do a backup just in case
  5. select "wipe data/factory reset" and confirm the deletion
  6. select "install zip from SD card", then select "choose zip from SD card", then select the CM10 file
  7. next is gapps
  8. last is the A2 compatibility zip
  9. reboot the tablet

The tablet is surprising snappy and responsive. 1.5GHz dual-core Cortex A9! Did I mention the display is awesome? My only gripe is that the plastic back doesn't seem removable, and tends to get warm after a while. Overall, this is a nice little tablet. Awesome value for the price. Too bad I'm not the one who's going to be using it.

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