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Binatone HomeSurf 705 review

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Verdict

Yes, it’s cheap, but that’s literally the only positive. Outdated, tacky and painfully slow

Review Date: 5 Aug 2011

Reviewed By: Mike Jennings

Price when reviewed: £83 (£99 inc VAT)

Overall Rating

Features & Design
2 stars out of 6

Value for Money
3 stars out of 6

Performance
1 stars out of 6

We thought we’d scraped the bottom of the summer tablet barrel with the £160 Storage Options Scroll, but merely weeks later Binatone’s HomeSurf 705 has arrived at the bargain price of only £99. To say that the budget price is clearly evident is an understatement.

Unlike the Scroll, the Binatone’s 7in screen is a resistive TFT, and with the same uninspiring native resolution of 800 x 480. Quality is poor, with pallid colours and a grainy finish, and its measured brightness of 189cd/m2 is very low.

The screen is surrounded by flimsy, cheap-feeling plastic, with its black bezels and chrome-effect border gently and unsuccessfully aping the iPhone 4’s design. There’s a microSD card slot that can add up to 32GB to the 2GB of onboard storage, a USB 2 socket, a power button and a small jack for its AC power supply.

The bargain exterior is matched by the hardware inside. The HomeSurf 705 is powered by a Rockchip RK2818 running at 600MHz – 40MHz slower than the chip’s maximum speed, and several hundred megahertz behind most of today’s tablets and even smartphones. Its ARM9 architecture also underpins such powerful devices as the Logitech Squeezebox, Chumby and the Sony PSP’s wireless chip. It’s paired with only 256MB of RAM.

It’s a generation behind the curve, so it’s no surprise that performance is appalling. The Binatone wheezed through the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark in 41 seconds – almost twice as long as the Scroll, and four times slower than the budget HTC ChaCha smartphone. The Binatone then took 28.7s to load the BBC homepage, which makes web browsing about as much fun as reading blank paper.

Using the HomeSurf in anger only confirmed our fears. Even Android’s unlocking slider takes a couple of seconds to respond, and navigating the app drawer and some of the OS’s menu screens is horribly sluggish. The combination of screen and hardware is especially poor: firm touches are required to make any impact, and it regularly takes a couple of seconds for the OS to recognise that you’re interacting with the device at all.

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Comments

User comments

but can its £99 Android tablet take on the iPad?

You're comparing a £99 bargain basement device with one costing 4 times as much and it's found wanting?

Quelle surprise!

I know all roads lead to Cupertino for you guys but really, this is hardly a fair fight.

By Lacrobat on 6 Aug 2011

40mhz slower?

i think you mean 400.
However its not fair at 1/4 of the price.
I dont understand why you would buy one, just spend a bit more

By jamieostrich on 6 Aug 2011

Samsung???

Hi
How about not fooling around with any more terminally cheap and cheerless underpowered tablets and review a proper machine for us?
Im referring to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 which is now for sale as of last friday!
Ive already bought one, after being generally impressed, save for some occasional sluggishness issues here or there, plus a distinct lack of being able to find good, fast, powerful Android 3 apps - they might be in there amongst all the rubbish.
I would love to know how you guys perceive it and Im frankly a little surprised youve not reviewed it already after giving the S 2 smartphone such a rave review (of which I also own!)
P.S. I dont work for Samsung btw Im just appreciating their admirable Apple challenging efforts.

By Heliosphan on 7 Aug 2011

Balanced Review

I'm sorry but I disagree with the comments about comparing this device to ones that are more expensive.
First of all, it does say in the review that it gives it credit for being cheap.
Also, have we an expectation that things are always worse when they are cheaper? Some products have been notably cheaper and better than their counterparts (AMD for example in the all too distant past)
Also, while it's reasonable to expect a company to try and offer a device with a little less functionality at a lower price, what we don't want is a company releasing a really rubbish device that is nothing like the more expensive devices.
Even if the device were only a quarter of the price of an Ipad 2 and a quarter as fast it would be reasonable but it isn't.
The review for this site gives the Ipad 2 loading BBC homepage in about 5 seconds which is almost six times as slow.
If the functionality were really based on speed then we'd see a price reflecting that ie £399 / 5.7 = £70
So in real terms it's not relatively cheaper but relatively more expensive!
I like PC Pro being prepared to review devices that could be good, giving companies the benefit of the doubt.
I think that (rarely) a PC Pro review misses the mark I just don;t think this is one of those times.

By simontompkins on 7 Aug 2011

meant to say "Ipad 2 loading BBC homepage in about 5 seconds which is almost six times faster"

By simontompkins on 7 Aug 2011

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