The Encipher Inye Tablet Review by TechLoy

Finally, the Encipher Inye review is here. The name ‘Inye’ is derived from the Igala and Swahili languages, meaning ‘One’ in numerical value.

Thus, the Inye desires to be “The One” tablet you’ll ever need.

Announced on April 27, 2010, the Inye was officially unveiled in Abuja and Lagos in May 2010, and Encipher started selling the device in October 2010.

For the past 4 weeks or so, I’ve had the opportunity to get a hands-on experience on the Inye and here’s the official TechLoy review of the device.

Hardware/Design

The first thing you’ll notice about the Inye is that it is very portable – you can even fit it into your chinos pocket – yet slightly heavy.

Its surface is taken up by a 7-inch, resistive screen surrounded by a glossy black bezel that to some might seem too wide but, in reality, is an important design consideration, as it prevents the touchscreen from being easily activated when handled.

Interestingly, 7-inch tablets are much better for one-handed use than larger-screened ones (for example, the 9.7-inch iPad or the 10.2-inch MyPad).

For one thing, I enjoy being able to hold the Inye like a phone and use my thumbs to type on the on-screen keyboard.

The overall build of the device is solid and although it may or may not be a rugged device, it does feel durable.

But hey, put the guy in its case or grab a stand just to be on the safer side.

The back of the device spots the Encipher logo brandished on a silver panel surrounded by a simple piece of curved black aluminium.

At the lower right-hand corner of the back of the Inye is the speaker which determines the volume output depending on how you place the device.

There are 3 touch buttons on the front right-hand corner of the device and a LED indicator light at the bottom-left on the front of the device.

The left-hand side of the device holds the on/off power button, a USB port, a HDMI port, and a headphone jack. At the bottom of the device, you’ll find a memory card slot and a reset button (just in case the device ever freezes, which rarely happens, except you’re making several huge downloads at the same time while a game of Angry Birds is running).

But you wouldn’t be tasking an 800Mhz ARM 11 Telechips Tcc8902 processor with 256MB of RAM that much, would you?

The Inye battery life is amazing though as you get about 8 hours and 4-6 hours on WiFi (depending on your device’s power, sound and display settings). Even when the device alerts you that the battery’s life is remaining 10% or less, you can quickly round up with your work, turn off the device for a short time and when you turn it back on, you could get over 50% battery life (without charging).

There are a few other hardware features that the device spots such as a screen position lock (which forces the device to remain in landscape or portrait mode).

However, the Inye doesn’t come with a camera which might come in handy for some users.

To be honest, the Inye doesn’t score much points for design. Infact, it’s neither sleek nor sexy. Simply put, it’s good looking but not terribly beautiful.

Internals

The Inye comes with the Chrome Lite as its native browser, but of course you can download the Opera Mini browser for Android.

From opening and rendering webpages to playing the most graphically intensive games, the Inye doesn’t fail to impress.

The 3D photo gallery is particularly impressive, which allows for fast loading and flickering through high resolution pictures without hassles, and handling rotation and zooming with no resistance or hesitation.

Applications too open quickly, though not instantly on the Inye. Apps like Facebook, Twitter, TweetDeck, YouTube, WordPress, Foursquare scale very well, but other apps like BBC News, Engadget don’t. Not that the latter apps are not usable on the device, but you’ve got to deal with a blank screen around them.

The Inye supports 3G connections such as MTN Fastlink, Starcomms iZap and Visafone EVDO, via USB-enabled internet modems, though you can’t use your SIM card. Note: There are indications that the second version of the Inye will include SIM card and bundled data plans. It also works fine with WiFi connections.

Display

The display of the device is extremely bright and colours appear extremely clear. You can also adjust the colour saturation in the display settings to your preference.

While the Inye’s resolution (1024 x 600) isn’t as high as the iPad’s, the screen does have better pixel density, which means that the e-book reading and webpage viewing experience is crisper than the iPad’s.

Market

While the Android market is the default market on the Inye device, Encipher has since announced plans for (and is currently building) its own Appstore that would offer free and paid android apps.

In terms of device sales, I don’t see what Encipher is doing yet to capture the consumer market with its tablets. Or are they more interested in the enterprise market?

Even so, there still isn’t any proof that there will be an enterprise tablet market more so than the consumer market in Nigeria. But perhaps since the Inye is vastly cheaper than the iPad, Encipher could offer some amazing competitive advantage, thus corporations will outfit their employees with Inyes and load them up with internal software.

If Encipher can also bundle some cool enterprise app solutions from their cloud servers, they can build their market around enterprises, organisations and perhaps institutions.

Not to talk of strategic local content partnership deals that would drive not just its marketplace offerings but also device sales up.

Final Thoughts

Sometimes, I tend to think that there are only two tablets in the market: The iPad and the others.

But the others, mostly Android-powered such as Motorola’s Xoom, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and even Encipher’s Inye can make a huge impact in the tablet market.

So does the Inye provide a more compelling experience than all the other Android tablets out there?

Well, after spending the last couple of weeks with the Inye, I wouldn’t be wrong to say that it’s one of the best Android tablets in the market right now.

But without an android ecosystem in Nigeria and perhaps support from Google, Encipher is literally on their own.

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