Lenovo A7-30 - Not Apple, Not Samsung, Not Nexus, but Not Bad At All

[PGHammer]

There have been three categories of Android tablets as of late - Nexus (dead-stock Android), Samsung (TouchWiz) and the catchall "all others" category of which little has been paid attention, despite some major names being in the space (such as ASUS and Lenovo). 

Maybe we should start paying more attention.

 

Just to my left, I have the subject of this mini-review (and a present from my Mom for my birthday) - a Lenovo A7-30 Android tablet.

 

Except for the brand of CPU and the lack of user storage space (a little over 3 GB is free out of the box), it's basically a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 otherwise.  Like the Tab 4, it ships with KitKat, which is driven by a quad-core ARM CPU (in Lenovo's case, it's a MediaTek CPU).  Except for overlay differences and the lack of multi-user mode, it handles no differently than the Tab 4, either.

 

I have to admit, Lenovo didn't ping the radar even a little when it came to Android tablets - and, quite honestly, I should know better, given that ASUS alone is a major competitor to Lenovo in the Asian market alone, not to mention Samsung.

 

In other words, I should have known better than to ignore Lenovo in my due-diligence, and now, I'm eating crow.

[PGHammer]

Follow up:  The Lenovo is not only still running, but I actually managed to get Lollipop on it - yes; KitKat got chewed up and swallowed whole.  Even better, it's OTA (not a port or anything non-Lenovo).  I kept Arrow (my choice as default launcher iwth KitKat) in the move to Lollipop (on purpose).  The rather frustrating part was that it took so LONG - so long, in fact, that i upgraded Mom's even older Verizon Galaxy Nexus (so old, it was deliberately left at JellyBean by VZW) to CM12.x unofficial while searching for methodology to deal with this frustrating tablet.

 

Right now, I'm applying the last of the post-Lolli updates (so I can re-root it and re-enable FlashFire - which is, after all, what got me TO Lollipop in the first place).

 

[+Warwagon MVC]

When did you buy it and how much was it? 

[PGHammer]

I mentioned the how (and the where) when I started the thread - my Mom got it for me via Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-59445601-7-Inch-Tablet-Black/dp/B015XI3F96/.

 

As you can see, it's still under $100USD.