If you are looking for a mid-range laptop and you don’t prefer a big display, then Notion Ink Able can be a partially perfect (read the verdict to know) device for your Windows 10 laptop needs. Notion Ink Able is the younger brother to the popular budget Windows tablet, Notion Ink Cain 10. Notion Ink Able is a budget Windows tablet with some great features added in one single device.
Unboxing
Notion Ink Able comes in a beautiful white box with Notion Ink Able branding on the top. Inside the box is a tablet containing a letter with greetings and contact information. As you pick the tablet, you’ll find two compartments; one for the charger and the other for the documents and microfibre cleaning cloth. Documents include a warranty card, a quick start guide, and a gift card with a coupon code for Notion Ink tablet accessories.
Build and Design
The Notion Ink Able tablet feels rugged and premium with the matte finish all over the body. You can see Notion Ink branding at the back of the tablet with a 2MP rear camera. On the right side, there are the dual stereo speakers with silver grill. All the ports are on the left side; starting from the top, there is a 3.5 mm headphone port, mini HDMI, full USB 2.0, micro USB, full USB 3.0, a SIM slot (support full-size SIM) and the micro SD card slot. The power button and volume rocker are on the top left.
Notion Ink Able tablet feels rugged and premium with the matte finish
The weight balance of the tablet is weak, and it’s hard to operate the tablet for long hours holding in your hands. If you are a right-handed person, then the buttons and ports are hard to reach while in tablet mode. While working on Notion Ink Able (holding it with one hand), you cannot connect flash drive because the ports get blocked by your palm. The workaround is to use the tablet upside down; the user interface rotates automatically, but now your hands are blocking the stereo speakers.
The laptop side of the device is good, and it gets better when you open it, and the keyboard elevates to a comfortable position for typing. The Keyboard looks fantastic with chamfered edges and black matte finish. Four rubber feets at the bottom of the keyboard keeps the laptop steady on a table. You will notice two indicators on the keyboard; caps lock and trackpad lock.
Display
The 10.1 inches IPS LCD with 1280 X 800 resolution and 10 points multi-touch is bright, but it doesn’t hurt your eyes even when the brightness is full. Watching videos on the tablet from different angles is good and playing games is a great experience, just you need to increase sensitivity in some first person shooter games like Modern Combat 5 to play it on 10 inches screen.
The capacitive home button below the 10 inches display worked every time I tapped it. The touch response is good but using the touch screen while charging missed some (not much) touch input. Overall I am quite satisfied with the touch screen experience of this tablet in comparison to other budget Windows tablets which I am using personally.
Performance
Let’s talk about the good stuff first, the tablet harnesses the full power of the 1.4 GHz Quad Core Cherry Trail processor bundled with 4 GB DDR3L RAM and performs tasks with ease. I installed Asphalt 8, GT Racing 2 and Modern Combat 5. Although these are mobile games but still GT Racing 2 ran with low frame rate, and I noticed some lags during gameplay.
Notion Ink Able is good for multimedia but only if you are sitting in your room alone with headphones. The display is not as bright as it should be and the stereo speakers do not serve the purpose. My audio experience with Notion Ink Able was not that good, and the worst part is that both speakers are on the same side. To watch movies on this tablet, you have to keep a pair of headphones handy every time.
The tablet performed well at software and processing front but the hardware especially the keyboard was not up to the mark. The keyboard looks good and feels even better if you have small hands. Others will take some time to get used to this keyboard. My small hands took some time to adjust to the keyboard.
The trackpad doesn’t support soft touch; you have to press your finger hard to move the cursor on the screen. The click keys are good and zoom gesture is really helpful while surfing pictures and websites. The right and left edge swipe on the trackpad brings up action center, and task view is another useful feature to save a bit of time.
Camera
The camera quality is not up to the mark. It might take some time for you to figure out who you are chatting with. The pictures we took with the camera are grainy even with good light exposure; both cameras revert the same quality photos. I should write no more about the camera; you decide quickly keeping in mind that it’s a budget tablet).
Operating System
Notion Ink Able comes preinstalled with a 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows 10 Home edition. Windows 10 comes with both side of computing; tablet and laptop, so whenever you remove the tablet from the keyboard it switches to tablet mode automatically. Tablet mode is easy to use, and onscreen keyboard comes up every time you tap on a text field.
You can download thousands of apps and games from the store and run them in tablet mode or desktop mode. The tablet itself comes preinstalled with the mobile version of MS Word, Powerpoint, and Excel. Notion Ink Able added some UI for tablet mode to select and modify the text and made it easy to select the text while in desktop mode.
Battery
The 8100 mAh battery performed well and gave me a decent multimedia and working time. With 100 percent battery, I started working on this tablet as I usually do with my other windows tablet; browsing on Google Chrome browser and playing music using the music streaming app. I used this tablet for approximately two and a half hours and the battery dropped to 50%. After some serious work, I played some games and movies for two more hours and got the low battery warning.
It took me almost three hours to charge the battery to 100%, tablet charges quickly while it’s off. But while you are working, the charging is slow and almost stops while doing some processor burning task like Photoshop or playing games.
Specifications
- Intel Cherry Trail (Quad-core), X5-Z8300 1.84GHz (burst)
- Microsoft Windows 10
- 4GB DDR3L
- 64 GB Flash storage
- 10.1inch IPS 1280x800p display
- 2 MP front and 2 MP rear
- 8100mAh Lithium Polymer Ion battery
- Full USB 3.0; Full USB 2.0; microUSB 2.0; MicroSD Card slot – expandable up to 128GB; Micro HDMI Slot; Audio-Jack (supports mic input too)
Pros
- Full USB ports; 1 X USB 2.0 and 1 X USB 3.0
- Mini HDMI ports for external display
- Battery performance is good
Cons
- Keyboard (and trackpad) experience is poor
- Poor weight balance
- Power button and volume rocker placement
Verdict
The tablet performs great in tablet mode, while its performance was dull in the laptop mode (keyboard and trackpad). The only use of keyboard is to connect your tablet the other way and use it in “Tent Mode.” Notion Ink upgraded the chicklet keyboard to a full fledged hard keyboard, I am not a big fan of a hard keyboard in Windows tablets. Notion Ink should have kept the chicklet keyboard because of its lightweight feature.
We were already not expecting much from its camera, so the camera is good for this price range. Battery backup is decent; I used this tablet with full brightness and battery saver off so if you use it with battery saver and minimum brightness, it will last longer. The tablet is a perfect deal for your money if you already have a Bluetooth mouse and USB keyboard ready for this tablet. This tablet costs you Rs. 22,490 on Amazon with one year of warranty.
