Reviewed: don't buy the CUBE WP10!

Published by at

With the ever-increasing trand towards larger and larger phones, well into what was previously considered 'phablet' territory, it occurred to me to at least wonder about 7"-screened Windows 10 Mobile devices - I thought these were a 'thing' and yet we haven't seen many. Zac Bowden over at WC managed to import a likely contender, the CUBE WP10, but it turned out to be something of a disaster, there are some quotes below. Anyone know of another 7" Windows 10 Mobile (or even just W10) phone/phablet/tablet that's worth considering here on AAWP?

I found the Snapdragon 210-powered CUBE WP10 here, by the way, priced at $130 and shipping worldwide:

CUBE WP10

Some quotes from the Windows Central review:

The CUBE WP10 is the first, and as far as I'm aware, the only Windows 10 Mobile tablet on the market today. It's available for sale for around $120 from online retailers such as GearBest, but I wouldn't recommend buying one. As you'll come to see in this review, the CUBE WP10 gets more wrong than it does right, which is unfortunate, to say the least. I was so looking forward to giving Windows 10 Mobile a go on tablets, but this attempt by CUBE is simply not something I can recommend to anyone.

Before we dive into the good and bad, however, let's lay down some groundwork for what this device really is. The CUBE WP10 is actually a phone, with cellular connectivity meaning you can stick a SIM in it and take phone calls. So in reality, it's more of a phablet than a tablet, but I hate the word 'phablet,' so we'll stick with tablet throughout this review...

...One thing the CUBE WP10 does get right, and surprisingly so, is its design. It doesn't feel bad at all in hand, and in my opinion, it certainly fits the bill as a $400 mini-tablet. It's rocking glass on the front and back, with metal surrounding the sides, which means it doesn't creak or feel cheap at all. I was honestly surprised by how nice it feels in the hand, especially for its price tag....

...Let's move around to the screen, which is nothing special to begin with. It's a standard HD IPS screen, so you can clearly see pixels especially at 7-inches. Considering this is a low-end device in the first place, this is to be expected. It's a bright screen that at this price tag I can't fault... unless the screen actually sat where it's supposed to.

I kid you not, the screen on the CUBE WP10 is in the wrong place. It sits below the viewable area by just a few pixels, leaving a noticeable gap at the top of the display and cutting off the bottom of the navigation bar and apps. This appears to be an issue on all CUBE WP10 devices, and is something I can't seem to fix....

This sounds like a firmware bug and something that can be fixed, though of course if CUBE was on the ball enough to work on updates then you'd hope they would have picked up this showstopping issue back at the factory?

Zac also took issue (rightly) with resolution and scaling:

...The main reason I found the CUBE WP10 so interesting to begin with was because it was powered by Windows 10 Mobile, and I was curious to see how the operating system would work on a tablet-sized device. To my dismay however, CUBE have done absolutely no optimization to Windows 10 Mobile at this screen size. At 7-inches, you'd expect Windows 10 Mobile to scale accordingly even at a resolution of 1280 x 720. Windows 10 Mobile on the CUBE WP10 makes no attempt at even pretending it's on a tablet. It simply blows up the standard 4-inch phone UI.

You can read the full review here.

Personally, I'd still recommend picking up a clearance or second hand Lumia 1520. It's still more or less top-spec and runs Windows 10 Mobile beautifully on a full 6" Nokia-quality display. And probably wouldn't work out much more expensive if you strike lucky?

Source / Credit: WC