I needed a travel tablet that I could be rough with, emulate some 6th-gen games on, and use as a laptop replacement for writing and research work, some light music-production sketching, and to watch a few shows on. I went for the HOTWAV R6 because it’s ruggedized, it has a chipset I’m pretty familiar with the performance of (Mediatek 6771), and it has a nice hardware profile and great screen resolution.
At the outset, buyers should know that this tablet isn’t lightweight; it’s built to be handled roughly, dropped, exposed to elements and worked hard in hard conditions. It’s thick and hearty, but it feels tough and compact and it’s withstood my abuse during a handful of road excursions. It comes with a durable removable screw-mounted hand-strap that I don’t use but that is a nice option for field users. Mine also came with two removable screen protectors, though the screen is itself pretty scratch-resistant.
The picture is really nice: sharp with vivid color and good saturation. The screen’s high resolution makes images, video and text look lively and stand out boldly. Its outdoor performance is the best of any tablet I’ve owned, and it’s totally serviceable as a field tablet in this regard.
Performance is great—quick and zippy with no lag or bottlenecks navigating Android or apps, even with numerous apps running. I’ve had issues with lower-specced Android devices showing excessive latency with MIDI devices in music-composition software, but the R6 cuts right through that work.
While I’m on the topic of music production, I’ll address the R6’s audio: this is a great sonic performer. Sound is loud but clear, and the stereo speakers have impressed me—excellent stereo separation for a device of this size.
Game performance is as-expected for this chipset—upper-mid-range and it’ll run most native Android titles, many at high settings. The most demanding game I ran on it is GRID Autosport, which it handled without issue.
Game emulation tops out at Dreamcast for system-wide performance, but it’ll run a good few Gamecube titles and a handful of PS2 with some tweaking. PSP performance is also pretty solid, with only a few of the known demanding titles I tried (the God of War games and a few racing games) wading into unplayable territory.
Battery life has been very impressive so far; I’ve been able to go four days on a charge a few times, with moderate use (including game-playing) over that time.
SUMMARY: I’m very satisfied with my R6; its performance and utility is on-point for a tablet at its price point, and the fact that it’s ruggedized gives it great value in this range. I’ll recommend it for anyone needing a tough, durable tablet with solid performance and multi-tasking that can be used reliably in non-ideal conditions.
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