Artist Review: Alldocube iPlay 60: 11-inch Android tablet with USI pen

Review unit provided by Alldocube

The Alldocube iPlay 60 is an 11-inch Android tablet with USI pen support. This tablet was announced in late 2023 and released in Jan 2024. Retail price is USD 209 but AliExpress usually has it at lower price, currently at USD 159.

This tablet is the larger version of the 8.4-inch iPlay 50 Mini Pro NFE I reviewed recently.

The tablet has USI pen support and pen performance is similar to the USD 249 Huion Kamvas Slate 10 I've reviewed recently. In other words, this tablet actually provides more value for money since it cost less.

Pros and cons at a glance

+ Design looks good
+ Build quality is solid
+ Display is vibrant, bright and sharp
+ Laminated display
+ Has auto brightness
+ Has microSD card slot
+ Has 4G SIM support
+ Has USI pen support
+ No bloatware
+ 6 to 8 hours battery life depending on brightness
+ Attractive pricing
- Performance not as responsive compared to iPlay 50 Mini Pro
- Speakers are loud but sound slightly hollow
- No 3.5mm audio jack
- No biometric unlock
- Stock Android has limited features
- USB-C port with USB 2 transfer speed
- Pen is powered by battery
- Pen has no battery life indicator
- Slight jitter and wobble with slow diagonal lines

Things included

• Tablet
• SIM ejection tool
• Charger
• USB-C to USB-C charging cable
• Magnetic attachment for pen

Other accessories such as the pen, case, wireless keyboard, earphones are not included and can be purchased as a bundle on AliExpress.

The included flip case looks good.

This is how the case props up the tablet. It's not a case where you can fold a little triangle behind.

The case comes in two parts. There's a silicone case that protects all four sides of the tablet. And that case can be detached from the magnet on the flip case. This is a smart design that allows you to use the tablet with protection but without the flip case if you choose to.

Downside of the case is there's no auto-wake and sleep feature.

Specs

• Dimension: 163.7 x 259.1 x 7.95mm (H x W x D)
• Weight: 520g
• OS: Android 13
• Platform: Unisoc Tiger T606
• Processor: Octa-core(Cortex A75×2@1.6GHz + Cortex A55×6@1.6GHz)
• RAM: 4GB (+8GB shared)
• Storage: 128GB
• MicroSD card slot: Yes
• Display: 10.95-inch
• Resolution: 2000×1200, 213 PPI
• Display panel: IPS, 60Hz
• Laminated: Yes
• Widevine L1
• Brightness: min 300 nits, typical 340 nits
• Front camera: 5MP
• Rear camera: 2MP macro camera, 2MP wide, 16MP main
• SIM card type: 2 nano SIM card and 1 TF card
• Bluetooth 5.0
• Port: USB-C 2.0
• Battery capacity: 7000 mAh

The Unisoc Tiger T606 isn't as responsive compared to the MediaTek Helio G66 CPU in the Alldocube iPlay 50 Mini Pro NFE. Opening apps or switching apps isn't instant but thankfully not annoying slow. For the price, this level of performance is not unexpected. Gaming is possible but don't expect to play graphics intensive games at the best visual setting or highest frame rates.

The company advertises 12GB RAM, but it's actually 4GB with 8GB virtual RAM shared from the storage. This probably also affected overall performance.

There's Widevine L1 that lets you play DRM videos from streaming services at high resolution.

Design

Design of the tablet looks good. Build quality is solid. Weight of 520g is quite portable. Tablet's not too thick.

The 5MP camera in front does not support face unlock. There's also no fingerprint unlock.

There are actually three cameras on the back: 16MP main, 2MP macro, 2MP ultrawide. Photo quality isn't that good though.

The bottom has two speakers and a USB-C port with USB 2 speeds.

The top has the power button, volume control, two more speakers. The speakers are loud but sound slightly hollow, but not too bad.

There's no 3.5mm audio jack.

The SIM tray can take two nano SIMs, or one nano SIM with a microSD card.

Colours look vibrant on the display. Brightness is high enough, great for indoor use but not as good for outdoors. 2000 x 1200 resolution on a 11-inch display provides decent sharpness.

OS

The tablet runs on Android 13 which is almost stock Android so there aren't many features. There is no bloatware.

If you need more customisation, you can install your own launcher. I use Nova Launcher.

Since there's USI pen support, you can install the many drawing or note-taking apps available from the Google Play Store.

The app switcher doesn't show many apps when you swipe up.

Pen

This USI pen doesn't have a brand. I've tried the USI pen from the Huion Kamvas Slate 10 and it works, and pen performance is similar.

The pen has solid build quality and is comfortable to hold. There's a cover near the back that you have to flip open to reveal the USB-C charging port.

Pen tip is quite firm. The pen supports palm rejection and 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity. From my tests, it seems there's no tilt sensitivity.

The pen has to be powered on with the side button before using. There's no way to check the battery life of the pen. Shortcut of the pen seems to be fixed to Google Assistant there's no way to customise the shortcut with drawing apps.

Pairing the pen with the tablet is not required.

The pen has a flat side and according to the company, it can attach to the side of the tablet, but you'll have to paste the included magnetic stripe to the tablet first.

Line tests

Line tests were created with Medibang Paint.

1. Initial activation is low enough but it's not possible to draw very thin lines with a thick brush. There is slight jitter/wobble with slow diagonal lines.

2. Lines are able to taper smoothly and sharply with Medibang Paint, Clip Studio Paint, Ibis Paint X.

Lines are not able to taper smoothly with Infinite Painter app (above), Sketchbook, Krita and Concepts.

3. Line transition is smooth from thin to thick and back to thin. This is the true pressure sensitivity test. A truly sensitive pen can draw thin lines easily after drawing thick lines and the this pen is unable to do that. The pen has difficulty detecting minimal changes in pressure when drawing with minimal pressure.

This is not a tablet where you can choose a thick brush and just use that single brush by varying the pressure to get thin and thick lines easily. While you don't need to apply much pressure to get a line (low initiation activation force), the lines drawn with minimal pressure are still thicker than I expected.

4. Consistent line width can be created easily by maintaining consistent pressure. Note the diagonal line wobble.

5. Dots can be drawn easily.

6. There are no issues with cursor tracking. Cursor is always directly beneath the pen tip regardless of how the pen is held.

Another issue with USI pen is sometimes you have to tap two times because the first tap doesn't register. It doesn't happen too often but it will happen.

Drawing experience

Medibang Paint works fine as long as you don't draw too slowly for wobble or jitter to appear with diagonal lines.

What really affects drawing experience is the lack of line width variance as the pen does not have good pressure sensitivity. 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity is a lot but the pen is not capable of using all that. When you choose a thick brush, you can't draw very thin lines easily. So to get the correct brush width, you'll have to change the brush size manually instead of relying on pressure sensitivity.

This was also drawn with Medibang Paint and it looks alright. I didn't really experience much issues. There's no wobble or jitter with diagonal lines as I was drawing quite fast, at my normal speed. But I do wish the pen is more sensitive to let me draw thinner lines without having to change brush size manually.

Another drawing with Medibang.

This was drawn with Concepts. I wasn't able to use the Soft Pencil brush because the line does not look good. The line looks like it's from a tilt brush but is thin. The sketch above was drawn with the Pen brush and it looks alright. Brushes with pressure sensitivity do not work well with this app.

There's the usual amount of latency when using the pen but it's no big issue.

The drawing apps that work well with the pen and tablet are Medibang Paint, Clip Studio Paint, Ibis Paint X.

The pen can be used for note taking but apps that support pressure sensitivity will not work well, handwriting will not look good (above). Inkredible is an app that does not use pressure to create line styles and it works well with the pen for taking notes.

Conclusion

The physical quality of the tablet is good. Build quality is solid. Visual quality of the display is good when you consider the price. Speakers are loud but slightly hollow but not too bad. Battery life of 6-8 hours is alright.

This tablet can be used for casual drawing, quick sketching, or note-taking with the appropriate apps. Pen accuracy is not perfect since slow diagonal lines suffer from wobble or jitter.

The main downside of the tablet is performance can be sluggish at times, especially when there are many opened active apps. Whether that's a big issue will depend on what your expectations. For web browsing, watching videos, checking social media should work fine.

Is it worth the money? It depends on your expectations. All I can say is the pricing is really attractive for what this tablet can provide despite some downsides or limitations.

Availability

The Alldocube iPlay 60 is available on AliExpress.

At the time of review, there are some launch promotional deals.

Amazon USA is selling the tablet at USD 169 before a $20 coupon and an additional 10% off with coupon code MINIPRONFE.

Amazon Germany is selling the tablet at €169 before a €20 coupon and an additional 10% off with coupon code ILZLQSKU.

If you want to buy the pen, you can go with the bundled deals, or get a USI pen separately on its own (just look for those made for Chromebooks).