The Notion Ink Adam and the Hero Tab M10 are two of the newest Android tablets on the market. Which one will win in a knock drag out fight? Which one should you lay down that hard cash to purchase? Read on to find out.

Hardware differences:

Of the many differences between these two devices the most notable will be size. The M10 is smaller than the Adam in length. The height is exactly the same while the width is similar except in the camera area on the Adam which is quite a bit wider.

You will also notice that the screen size is different. The screen on the M10 is 9.7 inches while it is 10.1 inches on the Adam. The Adam has a 16:9 ratio and the M10 is 4:3. While talking about the screen I must mention that the screen on the M10 has better viewing angles then the one on the Adam. While it is not by a huge margin, it is noticeable.

The Adam has two full USB ports and a micro USB port along with a HDMI out port. The M10, on the other hand, has none of these. It comes with an Apple compatible port which really puts it behind the Adam. Both devices can expanded with micro SD cards. Both also offer 3G capabilities.

Inside the Adam lies the Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core A9 chip. The M10 has a Freescale IMX515 800MHz ARM A8 processor. The Adam comes with 1GB of RAM, 1GB of ROM and 8GB of internal memory. The M10 has 512MB of RAM and 2GB of internal memory.

Winner: Notion Ink Adam

Software:

The M10 comes with a stock Froyo base with some Google apps included and an iPad look alike app drawer. This makes for a full featured device that has just about everything you need to get up and running in just a few minutes. The Adam on the other hand comes with a heavily modified Froyo ROM with a layer called Eden. What Eden attempts to do is provide an easy to use tablet friendly look to the tablet. I do say attempts. Eden is not necessarily easy to figure out. For example it took me forever to figure out that you can tap on the battery icon in the notification bar to hide the notification bar. The other issue with the Eden software is that it is buggy. I get force close messages with the home screen and Mail’d. There is also no Android Market out of the box. It is a simple enough procedure to get the Market on the Adam but it would always be better to have it already included.

Winner: Herotab M10

Price:

The Notion Ink Adam comes in four different models. Obviously each one has a different price point.

LCD/WiFi only: $375

PQi/WiFi only: $500

LCD/WiFi/3G: $425

PQi/WiFI/3G: $550

The Herotab M10 without the camera is $280 while the version with the camera is $290.

Winner: Herotab M10

Performance:

When it comes to performance one would expect the Adam to crush the M10 based on the Nvidia Tegra 2 and it does not disappoint. The Adam scored 35.209 MFLOPS in Linpack and 2109 in Quadrant. The M10 on the hand scored 9.203 MFLOPS in Linpack and a 1072 in Quadrant. While these scores are very disparate the M10 does move from window to window with ease and no major lag has been noticed. Even so the Adam just dominates in this category.

Winner: Notion Ink Adam

Overall:

So, who is the winner? As can be seen above, the Adam takes 3 of the 5 categories. The Adam comes with a Nivdia dual core chip unlike the M10. It is lighter than the M10 and has several more ports which give it greater versatility. There are already several custom ROMs out for the Adam which help to make up for the buggy software and lack of the Android Market. This in my opinion makes the Adam a more future proof device. However, this does not take anything away from the M10, as it is a very capable device that works well and is priced very effectively. In the end though, the Adam takes the win.


 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Randy Pinneta