The Curtis "Klu" Tablet

[cpd2009]

This was posted in the Spam Thread, and it was moved here once, but I figured that I may as well put it here again since it's more fitting.

We went on a day trip yesterday, which involved a moderately sized South Dakota town, lots of driving around, a casino, and fireworks at dusk. I'm going to get to the part that involves the tablet.

I was casually strolling around Menards hoping to find some little gadget, but stocked in a section with electronics items was the Curtis Klu tablet. It was on sale for around $90, yet not being included in any recent sales flyers. I took a look at it, and to my surprise, it comes with Android 4.0! It also claims a 3-core 1.2ghz CPU with a GPU and 1080p media support. Seeing as how I discovered some issues with my old tablet (Use it for a few months, and it starts taking a horribly long time to boot up, occasional freezes, Android 2.3 without any Flash support), and the low price, I decided to pick it up.

I have been playing with the Klu tablet today, and it's very nice. In a couple ways, it's better than the old tablet, the first being Android 4.0. Android 4.0 seems to be far more polished than the older 2x versions in both functionality and appearance. The Klu also comes with an actual stylus, which I think makes resistive touchscreens more easier to use. I also notice that the Amazon AppStore behaves much better than with the old tablet, as there is actually room to unpack and install apps because the Klu's internal memory is partitioned a lot better. Oh, and I don't have to use QuickPic anymore for pictures. The default Android Gallery has improved a lot since the 2x versions, and it's nice to use. Oh, Flash is already installed.

As for performance, it's good for a device at this price. The Klu has a Quadrant score of "1,279". The old Polaroid did have a higher score in the 2,000's range, but the Klu still seems to be very responsive. As for the box claims of a "1.2ghz 3 Core" processor, it's pretty much a lie. The system information presented in Quadrant reads that the Klu only has a single-core ARM7 processor and the max frequency is 912mhz. The GPU is decent. Games like Angry Birds play good despite that there is some minor stuttering at times. Strange, since both the Polaroid and the Klu both have a GC800 GPU. Another thing I noticed is that another tablet, the Coby Kyros MID7016 is exactly the same as the Klu...except for Android 4.0. (the Kyros has Android 2.2 IIRC) The case design and button layout between the two are identical. Kyros tablets tend to go for much higher prices than what I got the Klu for.

As of now, I'm still playing around with it, and soon, I will fully customize the background image to my liking and finish up all personalization. I'm also continuing to test the battery life. It seems to be around 3 to 4 hours of general use so far. Once the new tablet is personalized and set up, I will post more pictures of it. I do already have a name in mind for the new tablet, but I'm not revealing it just yet.

[cpd2009]

No pictures yet, but I have discovered a couple things about the Klu, now named "Herman"..

The Android 4.0 OS is very basic right from the get-go. There wasn't even an introductory screen calibration sequence or setup wizard. Fresh out of the box and at first boot, you are presented with a very stock Android 4.0 ICS, minus Google Play, the phone functions, and with some strange flowery pink desktop background. You do have to go into the settings and set the time up yourself since there was no setup wizard.

As for preinstalled apps....not a lot compared to the old Polaroid. Herman came with a third party scientific calculator called "RealCalc", and some Google apps...namely Google+, Google Books, and Google Talk. As mentioned, no Google Play, and the rest of the preinstalled apps are basic things like a web browser, photo and video galleries, a no-name eBook reader (which works quite well), a sound recorder, SlideME Market, some strange 3D globe thing called "Global Time", Facebook and Twitter, ES Task Manager, a file explorer and an APK install tool. Among the apps is a link purporting to go to an online help site from Curtis International, but it just takes you to the front page of their website.

This is the Coby Kyros...but far more bare bones and basic. And with Android 4.0 ICS.

Battery life is rather good, coming in at around 4 to 6 hours, depending on what you do. Games and Wifi drain the battery the most while simply viewing pictures or watching videos with WiFi off tend not to drain the battery that fast.

Here are some interesting bits from the manual, like my old tablet, Herman has the ability to read from USB flash drives and to use a mouse or keyboard with the appropriate adapter, which I have. It also claims to be able to use a direct ethernet connection or 3G data using a USB dongle.

[cpd2009]

Here is an interesting thing about Angry Birds and Herman...



Here is the Angry Birds title screen. On top is the Polaroid PMID700, and below is Herman. Look closely.

It seems that with Herman, some Angry Birds graphics appear small and compressed, like the title screen graphics, as if they were meant to be displayed on a higher resolution display. Both Herman and the Polaroid tablet have the same (or nearly the same) screen resolution, and the Polaroid renders the title screen graphics at the right size. Odd. No other game I tried with Herman doesn't have resolution issues like this.

I think I need to get a clearer example of this, as it is most apparent in the post-level scoring graphics.

[huckleberrypie]

I think it might have something to do with the taskbar appearing on the bottom tablet.

[cpd2009]

I think it might have something to do with the taskbar appearing on the bottom tablet.

Could be, but I can't seem to find a way in the settings to disable Herman's task bar from appearing when full screen games are played. Apparently Android 4.0 ICS changes the behavior of the status bar in full screen apps...

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Another thing that could be causing the Angry Birds issue is Herman's HDMI output. Yep, he has a mini-HDMI connector, so if I wanted to, Anna-Lena could be his display! I need to test this sometime. The HDMI Settings alow you to change the resolution, but you have to have an HDMI cable connected in order to do so, which is fairly standard practice.

Actual Angry Birds gameplay isn't affected by the compressed graphics issue. The gameplay sprites are the same size on both tablets.