Well , has anyone? Would you recommend them or not?

I bought this

http://www.lazada.co.th/cube-talk-9x-tablet-phone-octa-core-97-inch-retina-2048-x-1536-3g-gps-bluetooth-40-edr-fm-2gb-496219.html

last year 6.230B. Used sporadically for a month, left Thailand and used heavily for another month, then it died (maybe 2Gb RAM was inadequate).

I am sure a replacement could have been arranged if I were still in Thailand....

I guess the thing is, whatever you do, get a replacement guarantee when you buy. AA

I kind of collect these cheap chinese tablets (both Android and Windows-based but I'll assume you mean Android here?) so I have quite some experience with them.

The two biggest issues you have to pay attention to are:

- the screen

- the internal storage (flash memory)

Some cheap ones have LCD screens so bad that they're barely usable. Low contrast and extremely narrow watch angles.

Go for IPS screen if you can (will be a tad more expensive)

4 Gb internal storage is not enough. Go for 8 Gb minimum or more. Even though for someone who uses only a handful of apps 4 Gb might be enough, the way internal flash memory is partitioned on most of these tablets makes only ~1 Gb available, which is less than usable. And don't expect to extend storage with an SD card. On most tablets, apps can't be moved to the "real" SD card, only to an internal partition that emulates an SD card.

512 Mb RAM is tight but usable with Android 5.x. I'd prefer 1 Gb though (2 Gb is ample memory IMHO)

Don't expect much more than 2 1/2 hours of continuous use on battery on cheap models. A bare minimum battery capacity is 5000 mAH on a 10 inch tablet. More than this is good.

Basically, you get more or less what you pay for on average and there's a lot of good and bad surprises lurking for you.

I bought one called a Pipo. It was one of the more expensive models, I think about $250. It was powerful and I was very impressed with it. It did everything you could think of including being able to use a regular mouse. We used it for a year or more then one of her nephews dropped it and broke the screen. Of course no one dropped it! I had warned my wife about her nephews abusing it but it got broke anyway. I was irritated and threw it away without trying to have it repaired.

I bought one off Ebay for about $100

pile of junk , and I am not picky ,

screen was bad , colors off and hard to see at a small angle

WiFi was bad and the router is 10 ft away

3g reception was bad , 20% of what a phone next to it would get ,

and the screen shattered when I grabed the tablet one day ,

Returned to ebay seller who is very slow refund

Buy an older generation samsung or iPad

I had battery problems with 2 mid-priced ONDA tablets. In both instances, after 2 years use, the batteries outgassed and puffed up so much they split the cases. This seems to happen often with cheap batteries. BTW, they were totally inactive at the time, stored on a shelf.

Cheap Chinese tablets rarely get updated and even when they do, the updates can be problematic. Often, manufacturers websites are entirely in Chinese.

I did buy a Chuwi 8" Android tablet ($90) for my gf about 2 years ago. she uses is almost 100% for games and it has held up. Just need to clear junk files periodically.

TECLAST tablets are inexpensive, widely sold and seem to get a lot of good user feedback. Several of their models have both Android and Windows.

If you are "Googling" tablets, you will get a much larger selection if you use "9.7" rather than "10" as that is the more popular metric dimension.

I had battery problems with 2 mid-priced ONDA tablets. In both instances, after 2 years use, the batteries outgassed and puffed up so much they split the cases. This seems to happen often with cheap batteries. BTW, they were totally inactive at the time, stored on a shelf.

Cheap Chinese tablets rarely get updated and even when they do, the updates can be problematic. Often, manufacturers websites are entirely in Chinese.

I did buy a Chuwi 8" Android tablet ($90) for my gf about 2 years ago. she uses is almost 100% for games and it has held up. Just need to clear junk files periodically.

TECLAST tablets are inexpensive, widely sold and seem to get a lot of good user feedback. Several of their models have both Android and Windows.

If you are "Googling" tablets, you will get a much larger selection if you use "9.7" rather than "10" as that is the more popular metric dimension.

I also have a 9.7 inch Onda Dual Boot tablet and agree with you about the very poor battery. Have had it less tahn a year, but even when it's running with the charger connected, the battery still runs down....

I have a Teclast 7.9 inch. Same size as iPad mini.. Excellent little tablet. It's currently running Windows 10 (for some reason cameras stopped working on update)

IPad mini2, what a machine man, love it. If I ever wanted a 10" it would be an IPad again. I don't want their phones or PC's but boy the tablets are good.

I had battery problems with 2 mid-priced ONDA tablets. In both instances, after 2 years use, the batteries outgassed and puffed up so much they split the cases. This seems to happen often with cheap batteries. BTW, they were totally inactive at the time, stored on a shelf.

Cheap Chinese tablets rarely get updated and even when they do, the updates can be problematic. Often, manufacturers websites are entirely in Chinese.

I did buy a Chuwi 8" Android tablet ($90) for my gf about 2 years ago. she uses is almost 100% for games and it has held up. Just need to clear junk files periodically.

TECLAST tablets are inexpensive, widely sold and seem to get a lot of good user feedback. Several of their models have both Android and Windows.

If you are "Googling" tablets, you will get a much larger selection if you use "9.7" rather than "10" as that is the more popular metric dimension.

I also have a 9.7 inch Onda Dual Boot tablet and agree with you about the very poor battery. Have had it less tahn a year, but even when it's running with the charger connected, the battery still runs down....

The chargers Onda provides are very poor quality and that may be part of your problem. If yours has a standard micro-USB connector, try another charger. Harder to do if yours is one of the models that has a round pin connector, tough to find matching chargers.

As I mentioned, do be careful when you put the tablet away for any extended period of time. In all the incidences of battery outgassing I have known, it has occurred when the device has been inactive. Fortunately, in all these cases, the battery containment envelope held so no gasses escaped but the force of the expansion was strong enough to split the tablet case and stretch out the leather case containing it.

TECLAST tablets are inexpensive, widely sold and seem to get a lot of good user feedback. Several of their models have both Android and Windows.

If you are "Googling" tablets, you will get a much larger selection if you use "9.7" rather than "10" as that is the more popular metric dimension.

My experience matches this. I've been using a dual-boot (Windows 8.1 and Android 4.4) 8" model from them (can't recall the model number and I don't have it close) for a while and I have nothing but good things to tell about it.

Well, apart from the screen being too small for Windows. At least for my eyes that are over half a century old now. I should have bought the 10" model.

It was cheap too, 100 euros or so.