Noria JR Tablet Review

The $75 Noria Jr. by Chromo Inc. is a below-average 7 inch android tablet aimed at shoppers who doesn’t want to pay much for a slate. The device boasts a dual core processor clocked at 1.2GHz, 8GB internal storage, 512MB RAM,  full access to the Google Play store and dual cameras. On the paper the specs looks impressive specially for the price. But does it have what it takes to compete in a crowded market? Read this Noria Jr tablet review to find out.

Design & Build

The Noria Jr. looks and feels like most other 7 inch Android tablets, to name a few — Tagital A13, Dragon Touch Y88, Zeepad 7.0. Its the absence of uniqueness in tablet design which disappointed us a little bit, but, we liked the availability of plenty of vibrant color options — green, light blue, orange and yellow. The 7 x 4 x 0.4 inches (HWD) dimensions makes holding the device and typing a comfortable affair. At 10.2 ounces, it is also noticeably lighter when compared to the $100 Lenovo Ideatab A1000 weighing 12.32 ounces.

When held horizontally, the right side of the tablet hosts a volume rocker, 3.5mm headphone jack, a microSD card slot; while the top edge hosts a power button, a microUSB slot, mini HDMI port, and charging port, all placed next to each other. In this orientation, a 0.3-MP front facing camera is placed on the top-center corner of the bezel. The back side of Noria Jr has a single speaker and 2.0MP rear facing camera. There is a Noria by Chromo Inc logo emblazoned on the non removable rear plastic backing in black. You’ll also find another Chromo Inc logo on the tablet’s front side, along the bottom edge of the bezel.

The main area of concern with cheap android tablets like this Noria Jr tablet is always their build quality. As they are usually build using cheap plastic, making them more vulnerable to damages due to accidental drops and spills. Noria Jr is no exception to this. Built primarily using plastic, the device feels cheap the moment you hold it in your hands and more vulnerable to damages than the $220 Google Nexus 7 or $129 Asus Memopad 7 HD.

Display & Audio

The capacitive touch screen of Noria Jr. measuring 7 inch diagonally has screen resolution of 800 x 600 pixels. The screen resolution is same as the resolution on the Tagital A13 but lower than the 1024 x 600 pixels offered by the TabletExpress Dragon Touch DT Y88. The touch screen is responsive, and reads finger touches well. But, the picture quality is not awesome. On top of that, viewing angles are sub-par and the display is nearly unusable outdoors during the day.

The single speaker which is placed on its rear side leads to muffled music when you set the slate down on a table. Other than that, they sound decent. Plugging in a good headset improve listening experience vastly as the 3.5mm headphone jack gives stereo output.

Hardware & Performance

The Noria Jr. is powered by a dual core processor clocked at 1.2 GHz, accompanying which is 512 MB DDR3 RAM. Despite of having a dual core processor the performance is still below par. So, if you are thinking that dual core processor of this will give you high performance like that of $129 Asus Memopad 7 HD loading every apps flawlessly, then you will be disappointed with its low performance. However, navigating around the system is usually quick, but, switching between apps sometimes causes freezes which is possibly due to low RAM.

Although, the performance of this is not like what ASUS MeMoPad HD 7 or  $220 Google Nexus 7 gives, the games like Temple Run 2, Where’s is My Water 2, and Angry Birds ran on the device without any noticeable slowdown.

Operating System & Apps

The Noria Jr. tablet by Chromo Inc runs a fairly clean version of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system. It comes preloaded with quite useful apps like YouTube, Netflix, Skype and Flash support right out of the box. The availability of Google Play app store also makes things better giving you access to thousands of apps, both paid and free.

The device also comes with native support for various multimedia file formats. For music, MP3, WMA, OGG, AAC, WAV and FLAC are supported. For video, you get M4A,MA4, 3GP, MP4 etc. file format support. But, if there is any file format that is not supported, it can easily be fixed with a third party app.

Camera

The Noria Jr tablet has dual cameras, a 0.3 MP front camera and another 2.0 MP rear camera. Its no doubt that both of them produces poorly detailed pictures, but, the cameras on this device aren’t meant to do photography either. This Noria tablet is not the only entry level 7 inch tablet that produces low quality pictures. While this tablet isn’t an ideal device for photography, the front facing camera does well when you do video calls via Skype. After all, its the purpose why it has cameras.

Storage Space

The Norio Jr tablet has only 8 GB internal storage, which equates to around 6.5 GB of usable free space. This soon gets used up by apps and other data stored — depends on number and types of apps. Therefore, the presence of microSD card slot provides a great relief as using it, the storage space can easily be expanded further by up to 32 GB.

Battery Life

This is possibly the major drawback of Norio Jr tablet. The 2800mAh Li-ion battery claims to give battery backup of around 3 – 4 hours. But, it gives battery backup of around 2 -3 hours while surfing web via its WiFi connection, which is quite less specially when compared to the 9:40 hours battery backup of 129$ ASUS MeMOPad HD 7 tablet under similar conditions. Therefore, if you don’t mind sitting nearby a power outlet most of time, the low battery life of this Noria Jr tablet shouldn’t cause you much problem. Otherwise, going with much better $129 Asus Memopad 7 HD is recommended which is better than this Noria tablet in all ways