Wammy Magnus Review

WickedLeak is known for offering the cheapest Android smartphones and tablets in the market for a while now. This time we have in our hands the Wammy Magnus, which is one of the first quad-core processor Android-based tablets from the manufacturer. While there are a few other manufacturers who have been in the quad-core tablet space, WickedLeak seems to turn heads with its price. Let’s check out what the Magnus is all about, the hardware within and the performance it offers. 

IPS display with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution

Design and build

The Magnus looks neat and appealing with its all white and silver dual-tone shell. The chassis is built using plastic while the rear panel is completely made of metal. The rear panel and the sides are coated with a silver matte-finish paint while the front panel is a white-bordered display. There are absolutely no buttons on the front, but they are present on the sides, as is usual with most tablets. The top sports the volume rocker with the power button while the home, menu and back buttons are available onscreen in the user interface itself. The right side features the power socket, the micro USB PC interface, a mini-HDMI out, a micro SD memory card slot and the 3.5 mm audio output jack. A miniature red LED is also visible on the same side, which is always illuminated while the tablet is charging or in use. The front panel features the IPS display panel with a front camera. The rear panel is clean, sporting only the rear camera and the stereo speaker grilles. 

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The metal rear panel sports the 2MP camera and the stereo speakers

Features  

The Wammy Magnus is a 10.1-inch Android tablet featuring the latest Android Jelly Bean v4.1 operating system which is upgradable to version v4.2. WickedLeak will be giving out upgrades for the new operating system on its website for this tablet within a week or two since the current installed OS is not fully compatible with the chipset to tap the resources of the powerful hardware within. The tablet is powered by the Allwinner A31 SoC featuring ARM Cortex-A7 quad-core processor clocked at a speed of 1.5GHz. The processor is presently set to 1GHz due to the operating system limitation of JB v4.1. Version 4.2 will tap the complete potential of the A31 chipset and the processor will be running on higher speeds thereafter. Moving on, the tablet  features 2GB of RAM, of which 1.5GB is available for the system while the rest is allotted to the graphics processor. The graphics processor onboard is an 8-core PowerVR SGX 544MP2, which is capable of handling 4K videos with 30 fps and 1080p videos at 60 fps provided the display supports it. 

2GB RAM, 16GB storage, Wi-fi b/g/n, 3G via dongle

The display is a 10.1-inch IPS panel featuring a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. The storage on the Magnus is 16GB of which 13GB is available for the user to store his/her data while the rest is reserved for  the ROM and app data.  

Connectivity options are Wi-Fi- b/g/n, 3G via an external dongle and micro USB PC interface. The micro USB slot can also be used to charge the tablet apart from using its own charger. Missing features are Bluetooth and GPS option, which is a downside of the Magnus. There are two cameras equipped on the Magnus. The rear camera is a 2MP while the front camera is a 0.3MP. The tablet is powered using an 8000 mAh battery that can give you around 7 hours of battery life. To wind up the features section, the tablet measures 80 mm in thickness and weighs around 620 g.  

Quad core processor @ 1.5GHz, 8-core PowerVR SGX 544 GPU

Performance

We do our battery of tests on every unit that reaches our hands. The Magnus was no different. We were disappointed to see the processor clocked at 1GHz and the operating system installed with Android Jelly Bean 4.1 when the A31 chipset actually is compatible with Android 4.2 and above. After a few words with WickedLeak, we were told that the Android kernel for v4.2 is in final test stage and the JB v4.2 will be out in a week or two. Users will be able to update their tablets by simply downloading an app from the manufacturer’s website and upgrading the operating system OTA. Well, we carried on our tests with the review product we received and here are the results. AnTuTu gave us a score of 12743, Quadrant scored 3147 while Nenamark2 scored a frame rate of 58.9 fps. Linpack resulted in 30.821 MFLOPS and 100.457 MFLOPS in the single-thread and multi-thread tests respectively. Comparing the tablet to a quad core phone, we did not find it any faster, but as far as the comparison with a dual core tablet, the scores definitely hit higher by around 30-40 percent. However, the tablet has yet to get the OS update (v4.2), which should be able to give us better scores as the present installed OS is not compatible with the hardware it runs on. We hope it will be a big difference. 

Micro USB PC interface, mini HDMI and audio out on the right

User interface

Since the tablet is not running on the latest compatible Android operating system, we did find the user interface a bit buggy. The system would behave erratic at times and the touch sensitivity would either hold up or act too quickly at certain times, making you think that the tablet is sluggish. But we shall blame it on the incompatible operating system installed. We did have a word with WickedLeak and they have assured that the new OS update will release on their website in March itself. Since the tablet is pre-rooted, we had to install a superuser app in order to gain permissions to certain rights. We then installed a CPU frequency tuning app to get the tablet running on 1.5GHz, but the tablet would simply freeze at any given time. Hence, we had to keep the frequency on 1GHz itself in order to gain proper stability.

Power and volume rocker on the top

Moving on, the A31 chipset claims to have an 8-core GPU capable of decoding UHD H.264 4K ×2K videos @30fps. This is true and the tablet did manage to play 4K videos with ease. None of the dual-core tablets and phones we reviewed till date could playback the format—either the frame would freeze with hiccups in the audio or the video would simply not play. The Magnus played the 4K videos as we expected, but not without a little jitter. This, hopefully, will be resolved in the next OS update. A 4K Video Player app is pre-installed on the tablet for playing 4K videos, but we also managed to get MX player and MoboPlayer to play the videos as usual. Full HD 1080p videos are crisp and fluid with no complaints whatsoever. Standard definition and 720p videos need not be talked about here at all. The Magnus sports the usual tablet launcher and there is nothing different worth mentioning here. There are no pre-installed free apps, which makes more room for additional user apps. 

80 mm thickness, 620 g in weight

Display and media 

The GPU cannot show off its actual power on the given IPS display panel with an HD resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. The GPU can actually decode 4K videos and support a display resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels @ 60 fps. But since the cost of such a display would presently be exorbitant, the manufacturer would not be able to get the price to an affordable amount. The future tablets will definitely be able to sport higher resolution displays as there are a few tablets being launched in China which can support this resolution on the same chipset. 

Stock tablet UI from Jelly Bean v4.1

The display being an IPS type has a good viewing angle. The display quality is crisp and the colours have a decent balance. The brightness and contrast levels are also appropriate. Watching HD and full HD movies is definitely fun. We tested a few SD, HD, full HD and 4K videos on the tablet and had no complaints except for a little jitter in the 4K videos, but as we mentioned, this should be taken care of in the next OS update. 

The audio from the onboard stereo speakers is loud enough, but lacks clarity. Being a bit shrill, the vocals are not extremely clear. Casual video playback is good enough, but it will be more enjoyable using a decent pair of headphones. What’s missing is the Bluetooth interface, which could have enabled wireless data and audio capabilities to benefit the user.

Other media types compatible are AVI, RM, RMVB, MKV, WMV, MOV, MP4, DAT, VOB, PMP, MPEG, MPG, FLV, ASF, TS, TP, 3GP, MPG along with standard audio and ebook formats.  

No pre-installed apps means enough room for installing more apps

Battery life

We did a standard battery test by running a regular SD movie in a loop till the battery gave way. We did receive a whopping 6 hours and 45 minutes in total in this test. Playing higher definition movies or using the wireless network for surfing and streaming could decrease the battery life accordingly. Overall, the 8000 mAh battery giving out around 7 hours of battery life on a average is good enough for a tablet with a 10-inch display.

Android Jelly Bean v4.1 installed, V4.2 to be released soon

Verdict and Price in India

To sum up the whole experience with the Wammy Magnus, we would state that the tablet could cause a wave in the market as it is the first one to sport an Allwinner A31 chipset with a quad-core processor. It is definitely one of the fastest and cheapest Android tablets out there, but the actual performance and the stability of the tablet is still to be revealed and this lies in the next operating system update. The OS update will definitely tap the true performance of the tablet and the user should benefit the most from the hardware. As of now, at Rs 15499, we definitely recommend opting for the Magnus if you are looking for the fastest and cheapest quad-core tablet featuring the Android operating system.