Blackview, a company whose name may not be so popular in Israel, has decided to enter the field of tablets with all its might. It may not be essentially different from many other small Chinese manufacturers, but in its case it is about the launch of no less than 10 different tablets during a short period of only two years, in an attempt to establish its position in the field. One of the last in the round is the Blackview Tab 16 which presents some more improvements compared to the previous models such as an enlarged screen, a computer-like usage mode and also a digital pen, and this at a price tag of less than 200 dollars.
The Tab 16 is a relatively large tablet. It is equipped with an 11-inch screen, while the average in the market is around 10 inches. Although this is a screen with a standard IPS panel, it offers a +2K resolution, or 1200×2000 pixels, and a not quite standard 15:9 aspect ratio, which is slightly shorter compared to 16:9.
Although the pixel density is not very high, at 212 pixels/inch, it still looks good. All of this is true as long as it is about textual content and games, since surfing the net or casually watching videos does not require particularly high quality. This aspect ratio limits the viewing quality of content streaming services and affects the experience. But this is also its technical limitation, which I will expand on later.
The screen also boasts TÜV Rheinland certification as one that reduces flickering and blue light output, and also offers different work modes such as a reading mode for eye comfort and a dark display mode at three different levels. The brightness is good and strong enough for indoor use, less so outdoors, and the automatic mechanism reduces the brightness too much, so I often found myself increasing the brightness manually.
As expected from an IPS LCD panel, the colors are natural and faithful to the original, and the viewing angles are also very good. The screen-to-body ratio is approximately 80%, which means that around the panel there is a black frame about 1 cm thick, which is reasonable, but it would be nice if it was much thinner.
The external finish of the Tab 16 is made of aluminum, which does not look bad at all. Blackview paid attention to the small details and symmetrical design, when its thickness is 7.96 mm and the total weight is 533 grams. It’s not very light, but still not considered heavy, certainly for a tablet with an 11-inch screen. What’s more, there don’t seem to be too many protruding edges around the screen or around the camera bump, so any drop, even the smallest, could be disastrous.
All the buttons are located on the left side (when holding the tablet horizontally), and there aren’t too many of them – an on/off button, and a couple of buttons to control the volume. It’s a bit confusing and their proximity has often caused me to accidentally press the power button instead of turning up the volume. Also on the same side is the USB-C connection used for charging or connecting to a computer. In the upper part is the SIM drawer that allows the use of a double SIM for browsing fourth generation networks and the same drawer is also used to expand the memory on a microSD card at the expense of the additional SIM.
Tab 16: Performance up to Full HD
In terms of hardware, it is based on the Unisoc T616 processor that combines eight Cortex A75/A55 cores in a rather outdated 12 nanometer lithography. There is 8 gigabytes of working memory that can be expanded by another 6 gigabytes at the expense of the built-in storage memory. According to the company, this can boost performance by 17%, but we’ll get to that in a moment. There is also an internal storage of 256 gigabytes and the option to expand up to 1 terabyte on a microSD card.
It’s hard to say that I had too many expectations from such a processor, when the data shows that it is in a reasonable place in the lower third, that is, compared to the current flagship devices. In the test with the Antutu application, it received 273,601 points, in the mode of pushing the memory off, the number did not drop much, and stood at 270,693 points. In GeekBench it got 443 points in the single-core test and 1,565 points in the multi-core test, which is at the same level of results.
In practice, working with the tablet exceeded expectations. It loads relatively quickly, the interface runs smoothly and I haven’t encountered any problems. In games it worked great, including in the graphics-intensive Asphalt 9 Legends that didn’t show any signs of fatigue even after fifteen minutes of play.
As far as video streaming is concerned, I used a lot of different apps like Netflix, Disney+ and also streaming on the local network via the NAS drive on WiFi with VLC, and all the content worked smoothly with almost no stuttering. Apps should not be viewed at a resolution beyond FHD, when the company declares support for Widevine L1 for digital rights management active on Disney and Amazon Prime as well as YouTube. But FHD is not only because of a limitation of software, but also of hardware. Thus, while FHD content from the network worked completely smoothly, when trying to work with 4K, the processor already started to stutter when the video went out of sync, to the point that sometimes the image did not appear in its entirety.
multifunctional
Tab 16 comes with Android 12 with an interface called Doke OS_P 3.0. This is a system that is relatively faithful to the basic interface of Android, but with some rather useful additions. First, it does not come with many applications, and what is unnecessary can be removed. It also has its own utilities such as a system manager for optimization and performance, game mode to neutralize interference, a recorder for recording and even a radio when connected to wired headphones.
In addition, Blackview also includes a digital pen in the packaging of the Tab 16, one that allows you to write or scribble a little more precisely. It is not an active pen like the S-Pen but there is an application that allows you to save notes, text, voice and images and finally also draw in a kind of full virtual notebook. It is not a very rich application and does not have the possibility of synchronization or sharing.
Apart from that there is a PC mode, and as the name suggests it provides a Windows style user interface. There is a fixed taskbar at the bottom with connectivity status, quick search, app access and pinning fixed apps to the row. You can run several windows at the same time, drag a window from place to place and more. Very reminiscent of Samsung’s DeX so that with a real mouse and keyboard you can turn the Tab 16 into a real workstation.
There are several other useful features such as freezing mode for apps, those who want to limit their activity in the background or various permissions, power saving mode for the battery, cleaning temporary files, screen recording, migration between devices and a privacy manager through which you can view all the different permissions.
It seems that relative to a tablet, the system is average and rich. It’s just a shame that it’s not yet in the version of Android 13. Apart from that, the upgrade to Hebrew in the system was done in a failed, even shameful way and a lot of fundamentally wrong terms.
time of use
The tablet has a relatively large battery of 7,680 mAh which, according to the manufacturer, guarantees up to 18 hours of work. In practice, with occasional use for about one to two hours per day, the tablet managed to achieve about 8 hours in total, of which I also performed the various performance tests that are known to put a lot of strain on the system, and I played games for about an hour. The charger included in the kit has a power of 18 watts, so a full charge may take about three hours.
As mentioned above, the Tab 16 also has support for cellular connectivity, and as I mentioned earlier, there is even room for dual SIMs. Not sure who will want to chat through the tablet, but it is certainly effective for those who want to use it with surfing on a regular basis. Beyond that, there is also support for WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0.
Must clearly indicate the contents of the package. Beyond the charger and the USB cable, Blackview also added a foldable protective cover that allows the tablet to be placed at a comfortable viewing angle and is also magnetic so that the screen turns off when it is closed. In addition, as mentioned, there is also the digital pen as well as a glass screen protector as a gift. Beautiful and not obvious.
The bottom line
In general, the Tab-16 is another tablet that is in a fairly crowded market at its price level, that’s true, but it does manage to present a number of advantages over the competition. The hardware is not very unusual, but it does offer a thin design alongside a larger and better-than-standard screen. It provides a long usage time, a rich operating system with useful options without being too burdensome and a list of accessories included as part of the kit.
Yes, it would be nice if the operating system would already arrive on Android 13, because who knows when there will be an update if at all, and there is still a lot of work to be done on the Hebrew language as well. Beyond that, this is not a bad deal at all when the price is 177 dollars – which is about 650 shekels before tax costs.