The JingPad A1 Linux Tablet, Full Review!

[Music] in the linux community we could be accused of many different things but unfortunately being a priority isn't often one now when it comes to desktops and laptops the situation is a lot better than it used to be because we have companies like system 76 and tuxedo computers that are dedicated to providing linux on the desktop in addition to that we also have various thinkpad models that ship with linux dell has a few as well so we definitely have a lot of options when it comes to pcs but when you start to get into the territory of mobile computing that's when things unfortunately fall over but that might be about to change because right here in the studio i have the jingpad a1 tablet from jingling which is aiming to be a consumer level tablet which is a bold claim a consumer level tablet that runs linux and the jingpad tablet has seemingly come out of nowhere literally earlier this year i reviewed the rasppad which was a really cool device that could turn your raspberry pi into a linux powered tablet but the chassis was really thick and it's definitely not something that you would put head-to-head against an ipad and shortly after that video came out i had another tablet in the studio the pre-release version of the jing pad i reviewed the beta of that product back in august and i came away very excited because even though it was unfinished it was still closer to a consumer level experience than any other device i've ever used when it comes to a linux powered tablet i was very impressed with the jingpad when i took a look at it back then and i found that the build quality was especially impressive and in the studio today i have the final version of the gene pad a1 tablet and i can't wait to give you guys my thoughts now the thing is the manufacturer claims that this is the world's first linux powered tablet that's consumer ready and that's a really bold claim but since they've made that claim that's what i'm going to hold them to now before we get into the actual review there's a quick disclaimer that i need to get out of the way first jingling sent this tablet over to the learn linux tv studios for review but just like everybody else i don't allow them to screen review videos before you guys get to see it so they're watching it for the first time the same day that you guys are watching it for the first time and as always i'm going to give you guys my unbiased opinion about this tablet and i'll let you guys know exactly what i think because the policy here at learnlinux tv is if a company sends me a product for review they do so at their own risk so without any further ado let's answer the question if the jing pad a1 is truly the world's first consumer ready linux tablet so first of all what the heck is a jing pad well the jing pad is a tablet like i mentioned that aims to be the world's first consumer level arm-based linux tablet according to their website anyway my preview video for the beta version of the product was uploaded back in august and in that video i concluded that it was a very impressive device especially considering that it wasn't even finished yet so first of all let's take a look at the unboxing jingling sent over both the jingpad a1 tablet as well as their keyboard case accessory so i actually had two things to unbox for the jing pad the packaging is a bit minimalist it just doesn't call too much attention to itself now that doesn't mean that the packaging isn't good it's definitely professional there's no question about that after you remove the shrink wrap your standard components are inside the box you'll get a usb cable a power brick and of course the tablet itself it also came with what looks like an ejection tool for a sim card but i didn't have a chance to test cellular connectivity during this review the jing pad also comes with a matching case inside the box which is the case you'll use if you don't order the keyboard case which is sold separately there's also a pencil included in the box as well which acts as a stylus now when it comes to the keyboard case i would say the packaging was also somewhat minimalist as well other than the case itself there really wasn't all that much inside and when you connect the tablet to the case it actually has a very firm grip so it's definitely not going to fall off now like i mentioned earlier the metric that i'll be using today for this review is whether or not the jing pad is truly consumer ready so in regards to packaging is it a consumer ready packaging does it give you the retail experience that you might get from a name brand tablet i would say yes it does now of course the packaging isn't on the same level as well apple or something like that but considering that amazon's kindle tablets are sold in a package that's basically newspaper then it's really hard for jingling to fail in this category but overall i do think the packaging was pretty well put together so i can't complain so now let's move on to build quality and this is where i think the jing pad a1 really shines the build quality is absolutely consumer level it's literally the exact same build quality as i would expect from a tablet purchased from a retail store there's no flex in the chassis at all it's very solid the a1 features an 11 inch amoled multi-touch display with a resolution of 2368 by 1728 and the brightness of the display is measured at 350 nits the bezel is also very reasonable with a screen to body ratio at around 90 percent it looks really really good and sure i would prefer no bezel at all but honestly it's fine i have no complaints about the bezel size at all whatsoever now combined with the keyboard case it's even better the jingpad keyboard features a touch pad and the keys have some decent key travel even though the case itself is a bit on the thin side like i mentioned before the keyboard case grips the tablet with some serious cling so the tablet will not fall off the case anytime soon also there's an included prop on the case as well that'll keep it from tipping over so when it comes to hardware quality i would say yes the jingpad a1 is definitely consumer level and the build quality is actually what has me the most perplexed i mean how can this even exist previous linux tablets although decent weren't anywhere near as good as this and from what i understand this is jingling's first attempt at a tablet so how did they create something so good the first time around that's so much better than anything that's come before it is there a time traveler that brought a linux tablet from five years from now into the present i mean that would be cool although impossible but it does kind of seem like it i mean we linux users haven't really had the best of luck when it comes to mobile computing at one point ubuntu touch had a lot of promise only to end up getting discontinued the pine phone and the pine tab are great devices but they're mostly considered to be for developers early adopters and enthusiasts when i reviewed the rast pad i really liked it but one downside was that it was very thick and now we have the jing pad it shouldn't exist but here it is in my opinion the build quality has eclipsed all other linux tablets that i've used how the heck did they do this it usually takes years and several model refreshes to get to this point but here we are but even as good as the hardware is hardware isn't everything when it comes to a tablet a good tablet needs a good operating system as well the jingpad a1 is powered by jing os a custom linux distribution that uses ubuntu 2004 as its base jing os itself is what's known as a convergent os meaning that its interface changes to adapt to the platform that is being run on traditionally a convergent distribution means that if you install it on a pc you'll end up getting a user interface that utilizes desktop paradigms if you install a convergent distribution on a tablet then it's going to have a more tablet-like interface basically a convergent distribution changes depending on the device that is being installed on and jing os is actually a convergent distribution now i didn't have a chance to test it on a pc to see what the desktop side of things looks like for this review i'm focused on the tablet itself not as much the operating system but even though jing os is a convergent distribution its primary focus is still on the tablet and i mentioned that i didn't have a chance to try out jing os on a pc so yes you can actually download jing os and install it on a pc now i didn't have a chance to test that out before record time but i wanted to mention that because genos is not actually specific to the jing pad it exists oven by itself but it definitely fits in very well on the jing pad and you know what jingle wes is actually pretty good it's easy to use and it stays out of your way when you're running apps the interface is very similar to ipad os in my opinion not to the point where i think it's a downright rip off but it does give me the impression that ipad os might have been an inspiration for its design on the home screen you'll have an icon for each app that you have installed tapping an application icon with your finger or with a pencil will launch it and all apps launch full screen other than the top bar which shows the time wi-fi status and battery level the entire operating system is hidden when an app is running to switch between running apps you can pull up from the bottom just slightly and then slide your finger to the left or to the right to cycle between apps that you have open if you want to go back to the desktop maybe you want to launch another app then all you have to do is swipe your finger from the bottom edge of the screen all the way up to the top and the desktop will appear while you're there at the desktop you can swipe up from the bottom part of the screen about a few inches and a screen will appear that shows each app that you have open lined up almost like a grid here you can swipe an app off the screen to close it or just tap on an application to switch to it on the bottom of the interface there's a panel there with three icons by default a terminal the store and settings respectively you can add a new app to the panel by simply dragging its icon into it which is pretty similar to ipad os in fact even the multitasking motions are similar to ipad os as well so if you have experience using an ipad then i think you'll adapt to this operating system quite quickly as far as performance is concerned jing os is quite responsive i don't remember it slowing down a single time during my tests since this tablet features an 8 core cpu and 8 gigabytes of ram that makes sense apps open reasonably fast the os is responsive and switching between applications is very smooth i can't really ask for more than that now let's talk about the integrated camera the pad a1 features a 16 megapixel rear camera and it has an 8 megapixel camera on the front the cameras are accessed by the built-in camera app which gives you an easy to use interface to take pictures and record video now i'm not a photography or a camera expert the only research that i've done on cameras was for this channel but the photos taken with the jing pad look well pretty good to me so as far as i'm concerned i'm satisfied with the quality of the camera now to be fair i don't really think a tablet is going to become a primary camera for anyone i think on tablets taking pictures is more of an aside than a core feature but the pictures look really good and the camera app is very easy to use so no complaints there now when it comes to the audio quality the built-in speakers are actually pretty good in fact the audio level on the jing pad at full volume was actually higher than a tuxedo notebook that i had sitting right next to it and even when i cranked up some music nothing became distorted i could hear each individual instrument very clearly and overall it sounds good to me so at this point in the review if you were to ask me whether or not i thought the jingpad a1 actually was a consumer ready linux tablet i would say well yeah the build quality is really good the screen is very beautiful i just love everything about it even the operating system is easy to use it has all the features that you would expect in a tablet but when we start to look at application availability that's when my opinion started to become a little mixed first let's take a look at the store app which is where you'll go to install new apps after launching the store app you can take a look through the various categories and when you find an app you like you simply click on the get icon and once the app is installed an icon for it will appear right on the desktop so the process of installing apps is quite easy however the jingpad is a relatively new platform so it's not going to have a massive app library that can contend with the likes of android or ios at this point but it does appear as though the application library has grown since the last time i checked out the gene pad so i could definitely see some progress between the apps that are pre-installed or can easily be installed through the store we have developer tools such as a terminal and visual studio code for general productivity we have wps office thunderbird chromium and more even though we have some great apps in the store the jingpad doesn't really have a huge library of apps so that is a bit of a downside now like i mentioned it is growing and it's still early days for this platform however even though we don't have a massive library in the store app that doesn't mean that we don't have access to more apps other than those qing os is based on ubuntu after all so you can install standard ubuntu apps as well for example i was able to install libreoffice writer via the package manager from a terminal now libreoffice isn't mentioned at all in the store which i think is kind of a shame but there's nothing stopping you from installing it and even though i bypassed the store app to install libreoffice writer jingles still showed an icon for it on the desktop and libreoffice itself works very well on the jing pad so i guess i don't understand why it's not featured in the store then again it is a monumental task to try and test every single app that's available for linux so i'm sure with time it's going to grow the initial app selection in the store does have some really good apps but eventually i would like to see it be more populated than it is as of the time i'm recording this video it has a majority of the things you'd need but there's still room for improvement another feature of jing os that's worth talking about is its ability to run android apps now at the time i'm recording this review though android app support isn't fully realized just yet currently it's more or less a proof of concept there's some android apps that you can install that are provided as debian packages but the wider library of android apps are missing my understanding is that android app support is an important goal for the project so i'm hopeful that they'll leverage this more in the future and the thing is android app support could potentially be a game changer here reason being most new mobile platforms fail to compete and the reason for this is kind of a catch-22 developers won't create apps for a platform that doesn't have that many users and users won't adopt a platform that doesn't have many apps this is the hurdle that defeats most platforms that have tried to compete in this space if android app support is fully taken advantage of in the future that alone could put the jing pad over the top after all access to popular android apps will definitely fill every void in the jingos app store if the jing pad had access to the greater library of android apps that would give everyone access to things like countless games entertainment apps and more so the fact that the jing os supports android apps has me well quite excited there's just a lot of potential there according to the developers android app support is expected to be out of beta in march of 2022 which isn't even a year away so it's promising for now though there are some use cases that aren't served as well with a jing pad as i would like and entertainment app support seems to be the biggest downside so far there's no dedicated app for things like netflix and spotify and that's a shame considering that on the website it calls out both as supported now to give the developers benefit of the doubt i'm sure netflix and spotify will be working eventually but as of the time i'm recording this video i wasn't able to get either of those services to work but when it comes to watching youtube videos that works just fine through the default browser so at least we have that now normally on most linux desktops you could traditionally install the latest version of firefox and after a few tweaks i shouldn't have any problem watching netflix content but part of the problem here on jing os is that the version of firefox that's available via the command line is actually very out of date and that version is so old that well netflix doesn't work at all you'll just get an error message if you try to watch netflix through firefox on the jing pad i really hope they get that updated at some point in the future the default browser on the other hand is chromium and that doesn't work with netflix either on my end the lack of entertainment apps doesn't really bother me all that much that's not really a use case for me i have a dedicated television for streaming as well as a music player here in the studio so my needs are met when it comes to multimedia for my needs things like configuring linux servers managing virtual machine hosts taking notes checking email browsing the web all those use cases are plenty supported on the jing pad so i guess at the end of the day whether or not the lack of entertainment apps is going to bother you just depends on how important that is to you but keep in mind that's easily something that can be improved in the future so it may not be a problem for very much longer so the overall question again is whether or not the jing pad a1 is truly a consumer ready tablet and my answer is yes but with asterisks it really depends on your use case and which apps are important to you as of the time i'm recording this video like i mentioned there's really not a huge amount of apps available now you could sideload ubuntu apps and that does work for me but some apps may not so it's a little hit or miss now with android support expected to improve in march of 2022 the jing pad actually is the best possible contender for a linux powered consumer ready tablet and it has the best possible chance of any tablet that i've seen at taking that crown already for my use cases it meets all of my use cases so if you were to ask me personally is it ready for prime time i would say yes i don't really care that netflix isn't present because that's not really something that i care about on a tablet at all that might be something that you care about but it's not something that bothers me so when it comes to myself i can already use the gene pad for everything that i want to use it for i have no complaints at all but at the end of the day it depends on which apps you want to run when it comes to pricing the jing pad starts at around 699 us dollars so it is a bit of an investment and it'll cost a little bit more if you add a keyboard case to it as well so what this means is that the price for the gene pad is right in between the ipad air and the ipad pro so it is a premium price but it's also a premium product and i really like it in my opinion the best part of the gene pad is that we linux users we finally have a flagship quality product when it comes to a tablet and that's not something that i thought we'd have until well several years from now but we have that today in the jing pad and even though the tablet is a bit on the expensive side it might be exactly what you're looking for if you are after a linux powered tablet and you want to avoid apple and android and chrome os devices this is definitely a great pick the jing pad is absolutely a winner in that category like i mentioned whether or not it's a good fit for you depends on which apps are important to you but i do recommend the jingpad a1 take a look at its capabilities if you have any questions you can let me know in the comments down below and i'll try my best to answer them and then you can decide for yourself if this is something that you want to explore now if a particular use case that you require isn't currently being served by the jing pad then definitely subscribe to my channel and be on the lookout for future content about the jing pad because i do hope to do additional videos if there's any developments especially those that increase application compatibility so just be on the lookout on my channel for future content on the jing pad and maybe you'll see some major developments before too long either way thanks for watching guys i really appreciate it and i'll see you again very soon [Music] this [Music]

Channel: LearnLinuxTV

Views: 12,371

Keywords: Linux, Review, Howto, Distribution, Distro, Learn Linux, open-source, open source, gnu/linux, LearnLinuxTV, linux tablet, tablet, arm, arm tablet, jingpad, jing pad, a1, jingpad a1, jing pad a1, jingling, jing ling, jing os, jingos, jingpad a1 linux tablet, jingpad a1 linux tablet review, jingpada1 linux tablet, jingpad a1 linux tablet features, best linux tablet, linux tablet pc, first linux tablet, linux tablet distro, linux arm, linux tablet 2021, jingpad review, jingpad a1 linux

Id: eiSSAaLSwhA

Length: 21min 32sec (1292 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 16 2021