Gemini Devices JoyTAB! 9.7″ Tablet PC review

The battery is big enough, meanwhile, that you should be able to get a few viewings in before you have to find a mains socket. In our continuous video test with flight mode enabled, this tablet lasted 9 hours and 48 minutes, which is very impressive for a tablet so cheap.

The Joytab 9.7” runs Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich, and generally, its UI responded in a smooth and fluid fashion to taps, swipes, pinches and flicks. Browsing the web is mostly pleasant as well – there’s a little lag in the reaction of web pages to pan, scroll and zoom gestures, but this doesn’t get in the way of general usability.

There are problems, though, and the biggest is typing lag. As so often afflicts budget tablets in this price bracket, the keys of the onscreen keyboard respond a fraction of a second after your finger hits the screen; this isn’t a problem if you keep the typing speed down, but as you get more confident it becomes irritating, with keys tapped in quick succession often failing to register. Another oddity concerns the tablet’s accelerometer, which we found worked on Temple Run, but not Asphalt 7. This could be an isolated incident, but it’s nonetheless a worrying one.

Our review unit also arrived with no out-of-the-box access to Google Play, nor any of the standard Google Apps – Maps, Mail, Gmail and so on. Fortunately, we were able to add Google Play by manually downloading the install file, and Gemini assured us that tablets sent to customers will have the software pre-installed.

Those issues aside, the JoyTAB! is a decent buy. Although the big name tablet manufacturers have introduced low-cost 7in tablets, none have yet produced a standard Android 10in tablet at this sort of price, and even among bargain units the Joytab 9.7in stands out. Its smooth, fast performance, good battery life and excellent screen make it a great Budget Buy.