Asda Arnova 8 tablet July 2011

What is the Arnova 8?

The Arnova 8 is an inexpensive tablet sold exclusively at Asda. Whereas market leaders such as the Apple iPad 2 and BlackBerry PlayBook start at around the £400 mark, the Arnova costs just £99. Like other cheap tablets it uses the Android operating system, but not the tablet optimised version known as Android 3.0 or 'Honeycomb'.

Although not a stunner, the Arnova 8 looks quite sleek - surprising for a cheap tablet. The front and sides have a smart metallic look, but the tablet’s casing is entirely plastic. It has no kickstand, but it’s easy to hold and reasonably light at about 0.5kg, as opposed to Apple’s iPad 2 at a whisker over 600grams. However, the lighter weight seems to be the only thing in its favour over the Apple…

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What’s the Arnova 8 like to use?

The Arnova’s touchscreen is nowhere near as sensitive as its more expensive rivals. You need to apply a substantial amount of pressure before the tablet detects your touch. This makes navigation and typing difficult and slow, with options on the navigation bar at the top of the screen being particularly difficult to select. Not only this, but it also lessens the gaming thrill. The lack of responsiveness to touch can make many games lag.

The Arnova 8 runs on Android 2.1, an old version of the popular operating system. The Google search bar at the top of the home page is very useful, but again it would be even better if the interface was more responsive.

As with other versions of Android, apps can be easily moved from the menu to the home page automatically by holding them down, and can then be arranged further by holding and sliding them to where you wish. Also, holding your finger down on an empty space on the home screen will give you the opportunity to add shortcuts or change the wallpaper.

If you change your mind, holding down any app on the homepage will cause a bin icon to appear, where you can drag any app to in order to remove it from your homepage. It works like other versions of Android, but not quite as well.

The Arnova 8 has access to AppsLib, a library of around 40,000 downloadable apps. This is smaller and less user-friendly than Android Market, the full Android collection of apps.

Watch our Android 3.0 Honeycomb video review to see what the Arnova 8 is missing.

Is it good for videos and photos?

Transferring photos and videos to the Arnova 8 is quick and simple, as is the case on most tablet devices. The USB connection allows you to connect the device to your computer, and files can be transferred easily by dragging and dropping. The small internal 4GB memory may not allow for much of this, but there is a micro SD card slot for additional storage space.

Viewing photos, however, is not so impressive. The swiping action causes the photo to simply change, without any transitions like sliding on Apple’s iPad. There is a photo frame app, however, which has a slide-show feature turning the tablet into a digital photo frame.

Is the Arnova 8 a bargain?

All in all, Arnova has produced a basic, lightweight touch-screen interface tablet, which would be useful to anyone on a strict budget of under £100 who wishes to simply access the internet and e-mail occasionally. On the other hand though, it would not be so suitable to someone who used this for other features such as sharing photos, social networking, gaming, or a user who required their tablet to complete complex tasks at speed.

Arnova have definitely created a technology which is affordable for consumers of most income levels, although whether or not it is ‘the best in technology’ as it claims is certainly up for debate. We'll be putting those claims to test in our full review.

In the full review...

We haven't tested the Arnova 8 yet, but when we do you'll get the definitive verdict on the following:

• Screen quality – A good quality on-screen image is vital to how a tablet performs. As tablets can be used inside and out, we rate the quality of images in a range of different lighting conditions. We measure the viewing angle, too, to find out how well the image holds up if you're not looking at it face-on. This aspect is particularly important if more than one person is looking at the screen. We also examine how reflective the screen is, its ability to resist fingermarks, display colour fidelity and the amount of fine detail shown or lost.
• Battery life – After first conditioning the battery as per the manufacturer's instructions, we observe the amount of time the battery lasts while browsing the web via a Wi-Fi connection, and separately via a 3G internet connection. We also examine battery life when playing back HD video. We supplement all this by measuring actual power consumption and seeing how fast it charges.
• Usability – The user interface, including touchscreen response, ease of typing on the virtual keyboard and the operating system's features and ease of use, is given strong focus by our lab as it is so fundamental to how a tablet performs overall. We also examine the type, amount and accessibility of connections as tablets are often used in conjuction with other devices. This is just a flavour of the type of testing we do to examine tablet usability.

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