Hotwav R10 Pro Review: specs and features, camera quality test, gaming benchmark, user opinions and photos

HOTWAV R10 Pro - durability can be affordable

Tablets protected from dust and moisture according to IP68 standards have not pleased the audience with their price tags for a long time. Still, the tightness of the case and its more durable design require additional costs, otherwise the functionality and performance can be frankly mediocre. However, time does not stand still, more and more interesting chipsets and photo modules in terms of price and quality appear. And it is this progress that allowed the Chinese company HotAV to create the hero of today's review. It is impossible to call HOTWAV R10 Pro ideal, but in its price category it has excellent chances for commercial success.

Specifications of HOTWAV R10 Pro:

• Case materials: front panel - glass, back panel - plastic;
• screen: IPS technology, 10.1-inch diagonal, resolution 1280x800 pixels;
• processor: UNISOC Tiger T606, video chip: Mali-G57 MC1;
• RAM/ROM: 8GB / 256GB, hybrid slot for MicroSD cards;
• operating system: Android 14;
• battery: 10800mAh, 10W charger;
• main camera: 13MP OmniVision OV13853;
• front camera: 5MP Samsung S5K5E2;
• sound: stereo;
• navigation: GPS / GLONASS / Beidou / Galileo;
• dimensions and weight: 252.5 x 168.5 x 15.5 mm, 880 g;
• SIM card support: yes, 2 pcs.

Unpacking the tablet will definitely not leave the buyer with negative emotions. The box made of white thick cardboard includes not only the HOTWAV R10 Pro, but also a large list of various accessories. And their number includes:

• a complete protective film, already installed on the display;
• additional protective glass plus the necessary napkins for its installation;
• 10W charger;
• USB cable for charging and data transfer;
• screwdriver for installing a special palm holder;
• metal elements of the holder, the holder itself;
• paper clip for the SIM card tray;
• spare decorative screws.

Thus, the kit contains everything you need and even more for comfortable work with the device. A well-deserved 5 points in this aspect.

But the design of the HOTWAV R10 Pro is not so clear. The texture of the rubberized rear panel looks interesting, the installation of the holder adds originality and ergonomics to the exterior. Still, a tablet weighing almost 900 grams can be accidentally dropped from your hands, so reinsurance will definitely not be superfluous. But the only photo module does not look particularly interesting, and the front surface disappoints with huge display frames. It is difficult not to notice the impressive thickness of the device, which can be easily explained by both IP68 moisture protection and the presence of a capacious battery. The lens of the only main camera is small, neat, although its design can hardly be called attractive. As for the functional elements on the edges of the gadget, then:

• the left edge is empty;
• the right edge has a hole for the microphone;
• the upper edge has a speaker connector, a USB Type-C port with a plug, a slot for MicroSD / SIM cards with a plug;
• The lower edge has holes for the speakers and microphone, a power button, and volume buttons.

Unfortunately, due to a number of obvious shortcomings, the design of the device deserves a maximum rating of 4 minus.

The display installed in the HOTWAV R10 Pro is not bad for the price category, but it is definitely not ideal. The panel made using IPS technology is still more suitable for working indoors than in direct sunlight. The picture noticeably fades, setting the maximum brightness helps only partially. The resolution of 1280x800 pixels on paper may not seem quite sufficient for a 10.1-inch diagonal, but in real life the image clarity is sufficient. Only the smallest fonts and icons seem slightly blurry, but this impression rarely occurs. The color rendition is correct, without a strong shift to yellow or other shades. The image refresh rate is standard, but opponents with similar price lists are not ready to boast of anything other than 60 Hz. Of course, there is no oleophobic coating, but many tablets with much more impressive price tags also lack it. The touch panel is not the most responsive, demanding gamers or users who have more expensive Android devices in use will quickly feel the differences. The IPS display sometimes does not recognize light finger touches. There is no auto-brightness and, as a result, no proximity sensor. But auto-rotation works correctly. Thus, the screen deserves a rating of 4 with a small, barely noticeable minus.

Of course, the technical characteristics used by the manufacturer have a huge impact on the comfort of working with a mobile assistant. The HOTWAV R10 Pro has a UNISOC Tiger T606 CPU, 8 GB of RAM (it is possible to add another 12 GB due to ROM) and a Mali G57MC1 video accelerator. The bundle has noticeably advanced in performance if compared with the same MediaTek solutions from two years ago. Various variations of Helio A22 and P22 can be forgotten as a bad dream. A relatively fresh chipset copes with the Android 14 interface, lags occur infrequently. Thanks to the large amount of RAM, more than 4-5 applications can be in the tray and for quite a long time. Gaming capabilities are not very wide, but the buyer of HOTWAV R10 Pro will definitely not be left without entertainment. Below you can see the results of the processor in synthetic tests, games and emulators.

In the AnTuTu V10 benchmark, the tablet scored 277273 points, which is an average result for UNISOC Tiger T606.

In the Geekbench 6 benchmark, the gadget received 391 points in single-core mode and 1379 points in multi-core testing mode.

8GB of RAM give some hope for relatively smooth gameplay in one of the most resource-intensive Android games, namely Genshin Impact. Unfortunately, it is still not possible to immerse yourself in the huge open world of this project comfortably. Yes, there are definitely fewer lags and freezes than on devices based on the UNISOC Tiger T606 chipset with less RAM, but even with graphics presets close to the minimum, we get clearly less than 25-30 frames per second. This is not a slideshow, but with large-scale battles and an abundance of special effects, it can be close to it. Thus, playing Genshin on HOTWAV R10 Pro is not recommended.

But the slightly less demanding Tank Company is already quite playable at low graphics settings. And this is despite large-scale battles of 15 vs. 15 tanks on fairly well-developed locations, often in places copying those in the full-fledged World Of Tanks for personal computers. 99% of the time, the user will see 30 frames per second, in intense battle scenes there are drops to 20-25. Not critical for the average gamer.

Of course, PUBG Mobile is also playable on the device. This project is already quite old, although its popularity does not wane, and graphically it holds up well. Textures of fairly high resolution and a huge range of landscape rendering allow the game to look great even today. Average graphics presets allow you to feel confident online and observe only rare freezes when loading new parts of locations.

The device is also suitable for successfully launching most of the Sony PlayStation Portable game library on the PPSSPP emulator. Hits such as Burnout Legends, Tekken Dark Resurrection, Soul Calibur Broken Destiny and NFS Underground Rivals run at full speed in 2X the console's native resolution. You can enjoy some nostalgia quite successfully.

Of course, performance consideration is inseparable from operating system optimization. Here, the developers did not reinvent the wheel. HOTWAV R10 Pro runs on Android 14 without any third-party shells. Yes, the interface may lack beauty or originality, but the stability of operation is high. Literally all menu items and built-in applications are translated with rare exceptions. As for updates, they did not arrive during the use of the device, but no critical bugs were detected. RAM management is not too strict, minimized applications may not close for quite a long time.

As a result, the performance of the tablet in games and applications within the price segment deserves a rating of 5 with a minus.

As noted earlier, HOTWAV R10 Pro has a very capacious 10800mAh battery, which has a positive effect on autonomy.

In the PCMark Work 3.0 Battery Test benchmark with 50% screen brightness and 50% volume, we get 16 hours 33 minutes, which is definitely above average.

In everyday life, when using the device, we get:

• about 6 hours of gameplay in Tank Company (the battery lost 17% in an hour);
• about 5 hours of gameplay in Genshin Impact (the battery lost 21% in an hour);
• about 10 hours of gameplay in PUBG Mobile (the battery lost 10% in an hour);
• about 11 hours of screen time per day with active use (25% of the time - games, 75% of the time - web surfing and other activities).

But the situation with charging is noticeably worse, which can be understood by one glance at the complete 10W charger. The tablet charges from 3 to 100% in about 5 hours, so it is better to leave the device near the outlet overnight.

As a result, the tablet can safely be given 5 points for autonomy with a small minus due to the power of the charger.

Cameras in inexpensive tablets can rarely be compared with those in smartphones with a similar price tag. The photo modules of the HOTWAV R10 Pro are no exception, but the chance of creating a more or less high-quality photo still remains. Thus, daytime photos, even in less than ideal sunlight, are not devoid of detail, but you will have to set the exposure manually, namely, lower it. In other cases, overexposure is possible. There is autofocus, although not the fastest. You can capture close objects from about 20 cm. The front 5MP photo sensor is very simple, it is recommended to use it exclusively for video communication.

Examples of photos from the main camera:

As a result, the cameras turned out to be no worse, and even better, than those of their competitors in the price category, which is why they deserve 4 points out of 5.

The stereo sound of the HOTWAV R10 Pro tablet is full-fledged, the speakers work at about the same volume. At peaks, it reaches an extremely impressive 95-96 dB, but you should not hope that the device will be able to replace even inexpensive Bluetooth speakers. Unfortunately, at such a volume, the frequency response is extremely far from the concept of balanced, and the level of distortion reaches considerable values. But it is worth dropping to values ​​​​of 80-85 dB, as the reproduced sound becomes much more pleasant to the ear, even bass can sometimes be heard. As for wireless headphones, the device has support for SBC and AAC codecs. More technologically advanced LDAC and LHDC are missing. As a result, the tested Redmi Buds 5 Pro sounded slightly simpler than with the Realme GT2 smartphone.

The final sound component gets 4 points out of 5.

HOTWAV R10 Pro can also perform telephone functions due to the presence of a slot for a pair of SIM cards. There is only a speakerphone, even when the volume is set to minimum, people around you will hear all the details of the conversation, you need to understand this fact. There are no complaints about the connection, the reception is at the level of an average inexpensive phone. The interlocutor did not complain about the quality of the reception. With WiFi, the gadget is also normal, through 2 walls and about 8 meters from the router, the Internet connection functioned, albeit with varying success. It is unlikely that a huge number of people will use the device as a navigator, because the weight of the tablet is almost a kilogram imposes certain restrictions on the holders. In addition, the GPS operation causes a number of complaints. So, the start is not fast at all, the connection to the satellites occurs in about 10 minutes. The accuracy of 4-7 meters is relatively good, but sometimes it dropped to 20-30 meters for no apparent reason. As a result, the tablet gets 5 points for communication and navigation functions with a small minus for problems with GPS.

Let's summarize and list the main pros and cons of HOTWAV R10 Pro.

Advantages:

• full moisture protection according to IP68 standards;
• very rich package;
• good for the price category UNISOC Tiger T606 processor with 8 GB of RAM;
• 256 GB of internal memory, expandable with MicroSD cards;
• support for two SIM cards;
• high speaker volume (95-96 dB);
• the ability to use the main camera not only for video calls, but also for artistic photography;
• impressive battery life thanks to a 10800 mAh battery.

Disadvantages:

• the display could be brighter;
• the massive case is not very convenient to use during long-term use of the device;
• the design of the device is not the most attractive due to moisture protection and a large battery;
• GPS is functional, but it does not function perfectly.

As a result, HOTWAV R10 Pro is perfect for people who want to get acquainted with the category of rugged tablets. The device is durable, reliable, autonomous and not deprived of functionality. However, it is possible to get a larger supply of screen brightness and more impressive performance only in devices of a different price segment. We would like to thank the HOTWAV Official Store for the tablet provided for review.