Le Pan II Tablet Review
Le Pan II ( TC979 ) Tablet Review
Le Pan considered a new comer to the Android tablet market has definitely made a splash with the announcement of their latest release the Le Pan II. The New $279.99 tablet has already caused a lot of buzz as its first shipment (Estimated to be 35,000 pieces) at its initial launch in December, lasted only 2 days before it sold out thru e-tailers like Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Tigerdirect.com, and Newegg.com . That being said, lets take a closer look ;
Info:
Product Name: Le Pan II
Author: Nicolas Villalobos
Provider: Le Pan
Price: $279.99
Equipped with Android 3.2, the latest Android operating system on the market and armed with a dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, The new Le Pan II Shows everyone who is boss. The Le Pan™ II measures 9.29 ” wide by 7.44 ” high by 0.48 ” deep. At 1.6 pounds it is much lighter than its previous version the Le Pan TC970 .
FORM FACTOR:
The Le Pan II measures 9.29 inches wide by 7.44 inches high by 0.48 inches deep. At 1.5 pounds it is the lightest performance Le Pan tablet to date. It feels almost the same in my hand as my 1st Generation IPad, but it is a bit Lighter and has a much different style to it. Unlike the Ipad where It might be difficult to hold it one handed and read a book for an hour or watch a movie the Le Pan II seems to be just the right weight and more importantly design as its curvs provide the perfect setup to hold it for hours while reading a book or watching a movie. The back of the tablet is made of a Black brushed aluminum, providing the business feel with a style that makes you think high end performance with out the high end price.
DISPLAY:
The high-resolution, 9.7-inch LCD-backlit IPS display delivers crisp and vivid, allowing you to enjoy movies and videos to their fullest. The display technology called IPS (in-plane switching), provides a wide, 178° viewing angle. Allowing you to hold it up to someone across the room, or share it with someone sitting next to you, and everyone gets a brilliant view. Videos, games and the web never looked better on Le Pan II. The large, gorgeous 9.7-inch display is sharp and stunning. Colors are exceptionally vivid for incredible movie watching on-the-go, and the screen boasts a whiter-than-usual background that truly excels when it comes to readability–for on-screen text that’s crisper, clearer and easier to see.
CONNECTIONS/STORAGE
On the top are a headphone port (which will accept external speakers), 20 pin connector (for charging and file transfer), and power button. The Le Pan II as the first generation also comes with an micro-SD card slot allowing you to upgrade storage to up to 32GB. Unlike the first generation the Le Pan II comes with 8Gb of built in storage, which is enough to hold about 8 downloaded movies, 80 apps, 800 songs, or 6,000 books. I filled mine up right away so I never checked it out of the box, but apparently it is closer to 6.5Gb as the OS is going to take up some of this. You have to really become adept at managing your content through the Cloud or really consider getting a micro-SD card. Books won’t take up much room, but magazines are around 250Mb and movies are a little under 1 Gb. Free videos available through Amazon Prime cannot be downloaded, only streamed. So unless you buy a movie from Amazon or transfer one of your own, you must be connected through a wi-fi connection in order to watch your movie.
WEB BROWSING
This is another feature I was initially excited about. I like the idea of being able to use a tablet in place of a netbook. Android uses chrome as a browser know to be ultra fast. I tried out the tablet on several different connections and compared page loading times with other devices (all connected wirelessly). The Le Pan II was one of the fastest.
GAMING
The Le Pan II has considerable potential for games, but first Honeycomb-optimized apps must be developed first. Only then will it be possible to gauge how synthetic benchmark readings of the graphics capabilities stack up in the real world to its rivals’. Other than that I did have some fun playing GTA III and graphics where amazing.
MUSIC
The unit does come pre loaded with Google Music and I believe this could be the BEST music player if it had the ability to queue songs like spotify. I think a lot more people would use this. Besides that, the Le Pan II comes with 2 built-in Hi-Def speakers, which are more than adequate for music on the go.
BATTERY LIFE
Le Pan advertises 8 hours of reading or 7.5 hours of video playback. As an average, that’s probably fairly accurate. During testing I got an average of 7.8 hours of continuous reading, and 7 hours of video playback over five tests for each. You can shut down the tablet or put it in sleep mode. I keep mine in sleep mode all the time because it is so efficient that it uses almost no battery. I can leave it in sleep mode for 2 days and come back and not notice any change in battery life, and since I don’t have to reboot, it starts up immediately.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
The first and most important thing that should be said about the Le Pan II is that this is not an “iPad-killer.” It is not designed to be, but it us a iPad alternative. I have read so many articles and comments comparing Android tablets in general to the iPad, and surveys where people are asked if they will be buying a Android tablet over an iPad this Christmas. The answer for the most part was no, they prefer iPad and in my opinion this is due to brand value and not fuction. Please remember the main purpose of these type devices is to deliver amazing content to you more effectively. they are designed for consumption, not creation. The bottom line is that, you will not find a cheaper device out there for streaming music, video, and books than the Le Pan II. This product more than lives up to what it is DESIGNED to do.
Pros:
– Amazing touch screen responsiveness, good contrast and brightness
– Android 3.2 Honeycomb w/update to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich coming
– Amazingly fast for a tablet.
– Stylish brush aluminum finish, defenetly a business style design.
– Nice set of apps factory installed [browser, email, gallery =, etc.]
– micro SD card memory expansion
– Great video playback
– Long battery life.
Cons:
– Comes with only 8GB memory Built in, expecting min 16GB
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