Gemini JoyTAB 8 review

Gemini Devices is a new name in the UK tablet market, and the first model to reach us is its 8in JoyTAB 8.

This budget Android tablet makes a very good first impression. We’re used to tablets at the lower end of the price spectrum feeling cheap and plasticky, but the JoyTAB is different. The rear panel is constructed from stiff aluminium that’s finished in an attractive, anodised dark grey, and on the front is the polished glass of a capacitive touchscreen.

Ports and sockets include a mini-HDMI output, a microSD slot for supplementing its 8GB of storage, plus a 3.5mm audio output and a mini-USB socket. There’s no rear camera, but you do get a front-facing VGA one for video calls.

The JoyTAB’s major weakness is it isn’t blessed with the latest CPU technology. In fact, its single-core 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 is now three generations old, and that age really showed in testing. In the SunSpider JavaScript test, the JoyTAB recorded 7,759ms – very slow indeed.

It’s clearly no speed demon, yet it isn’t all bad news. In fact, the presence of Android 4 helps it run much more smoothly than you might expect. Menu scrolling and web page zooming and panning felt usable and responsive. Even gaming wasn’t a complete disaster.

There’s one big problem, however: the display is poor quality. We measured brightness at a mere 195cd/m[sup]2[/sup], and contrast at 197:1, and narrow viewing angles mean colours shift significantly when viewed away from head-on. The 600 x 800 resolution, meanwhile, makes everything look heavily pixellated.

With mediocre battery life of 5hrs 27mins in our looping video test, no Bluetooth or GPS, and that terrible display, it’s impossible to rave about the JoyTAB 8. For those on a severely restricted budget, Google’s Nexus 7 is a far better bet.