Arnova 7c G3 review (Android 4.0 ICS, Snapdragon S2 CPU, 3G, GPS, Bluetooth, 7″ capacitive, HDMI, dual camera)

The Arnova 7c G3 is a product refresh of the older 3G connected Arnova 7c G2 tablet.
This update features a Snapdragon S2 MSM8255 clocked at 1.4 Ghz processor which can be found in devices like Sony Xperia Active/Play 4G/Ray, HTC One V, Sensation, Flyer and many other devices. This 7 inches tablet is very complete offering all the features you may need to fit in your jacket’s pocket: 3G, GPS, HDMI output, Bluetooth and a dual camera. It runs on Android 4.03 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Arnova 7c G3 specifications

Operating System	Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) Build fingerprint: ARCHOS/msm7630_fw8930/msm7630_fw8930:4.0.3/IML74K/user.release.20120523.141215:user/release-keys Linux Kernel Version: 3.0.8-perf chenqh@ubuntu-int #6
CPU	Qualcomm MSM S2 8255 1.4 Ghz Integrated GPU: Adreno 205
Flash Storage Memory	Capacity 4 Gb or 8 Gb Speed Class 6 equivalent, see our benchmark below
System Memory	512 Mb
Additional storage	Micro SD slot (SDHC compatible)
Display	TFT LCD 7 inches capacitive dual touch screen 800×480 resolution
3G	Yes
Bluetooth	Yes
Wifi	802.11 b/g/n
Gravity Sensor	Yes
Camera	0.3 Mp (front facing) 3 Mp (front facing)
GPS	Yes
HDMI	Yes (mini HDMI, aka HDMI type c connector)
Interfaces	Micro USB slave 2.0: Mass Storage Class (MSC) MicroSD slot
Battery life	Video playing test: ~ 9 hours 15 minutes Wi-FI/Bluetooth/3G disabled, brightness to 50%, Bick Buck Bunny 720p continuous video play
Android Market / Google Play	No Has Archos own Market place, Appslib
Kickstand	No
Dimensions	199.4 mm x 119.2 mm x 10.8 mm (7.8’’ x 4.69’’ x 0.4’’)
Weight	368 g

Arnova 7c G3 presentation video

Arnova 7c G3 case, buttons and connectors

Back camera (3 Mpixels) and reset pinhole.

Audio jack connector located in the center and single speaker

Buttons and connectors, from left to right: Power and Vol – / + buttons, micro USB connector, micro HDMI port, SIM Card slot, Micro SDCard slot.

Snapdragon S2 processor

Qualcomm MSM8255 System on Chip (SOC) Specifications:
Manufacturing process: 45 nm
Frequency: 1.4 GHz
Adreno 205 GPU (which offers HD playing capabilities of 720p videos)
Embedded DSP (GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS/WCDMA, HSDPA, HSUPA, HSPA+, MBMS baseband)
GPS Module

Arnova 7c G3 benchmarks

Arnova 7c G3 vs Arnova 7c G2 benchmark results

	Arnova 7c G3	Arnova 7c G2
Firmware versions used for tests	msm7630_fw8930 4.0.3 IML74K user.release.20120523.141215	msm7627_fw8918 2.3.3 GINGERBREAD eng.bingo.20110817.155043
Antutu Benchmark higher is faster	Total score: 3964	Total score: 1620
Linpack Pro v 1.2.9 higher is faster, benchmark run in multi-thread (we took the best numbers we could achieve, there is a lot of variance on these bench results)	35.56 MFLOPS	9.50 MFLOPS (single thread)
CF-Bench v 1.1 higher is faster	Native score: 5516 Java Score: 2004 Overall Score: 3408	Native score: 1343 Java Score: 778 Overall Score: 1004
ArcTools I/O benchmark v 0.69 higher is faster	Read: 34 307 Kb/s Write: 6643 Kb/s	Not tested
Smartbench 2011 v 1.2.1 higher is faster	Prod. index:  Games Index:	Prod. index: 342 Games Index: 1395
Quadrant Advanced 1.1.7 higher is faster	Total: 2796 CPU: 2954 Mem: 1332 I/O: 7096 2D: 689 3D: 1911	Total: 1084 CPU: 3135 Mem: 881 I/O: 792 2D: 119 3D: 511
Vellamo v 1.0.3 higher is faster	1364	306
Nenamark v 2.0 higher is faster	33.9 FPS	10.4 FPS
GPUBench v 1.0.0 higher is faster	Absolute: 38752 Relative: 36439	Absolute: 19317 Relative: 16902
GLBenchmark v 2.5 higher is faster	does not work	does not work

Arnova 7c G3 battery life

We ran a battery life test playing Big Buck video (720p, mp4, reencoded sound in AAC format: this file big_buck_bunny_720p_AAC.mp4), brightness was set at 50%, sound at 50% and Wi-FI disabled.
ArcTools battery life test was used to generate the following graph.

With this test scenario, the battery life of the Arnova 7c G3 continuously playing a video was around 33 000 seconds, that is about 9 hours and 15 minutes, which is so far one of the best battery life we have measured on an Archos/Arnova 7″ tablet.

Arnova 7c G3 and other Arnova 7 G3 tablets

From top to bottom: Arnova 7c G3, Arnova 7f G3 and Arnova 7 G3
Compared to the other 7 inches tablets in the Arnova G3 family, the 7c G3 offers 3G connectivity, dual camera, Bluetooth, HDMI outpout, GPS and increased battery life. This comes at a price, the Arnova 7c G3 has 512 Mb memory where other models have the double while the Arnova 7 G3 or 7f G3 costs about half the of price of an Arnova 7c G3.

Our opinion

The strong points of this tablet are the weight which is only 368 grams, the 3G capabilities, transforming the tablet in a good companion to keep you updated with news/emails and therefore an alternative for a laptop. It is also Skype capable tablet, the audio/video calls are working fine even over the 3G connection. Using navigation software makes this tablet a good choice to not buy a dedicated GPS device. There is also a micro HDMI port which helps you connect the tablet to a TV and play multimedia content on it.

The screen resolution is 800×480 with 120 PPI density is quite the minimum for a tablet; we are hoping to see an improvement in the future on this side. A new addition to this tablet is the second camera, which features a 3Mpx CMOS, you will not see much performance from this new camera, is missing a stabilization sensor to improve a little the quality of the videos and pictures, the front camera now sports 640/480 resolution which makes it a little better for video chatting.

Selling between 200 to 250 euros, it may look quite expensive for an entry level 3G tablet which is finally a little limited by its relatively ancient processor, low resolution display and the absence of Google Certification and Play Store support. At current prices for the 7c G3, there may be other options to consider, depending on your budget, such as the Chinese Ramos W23 tablet (7″, 3G, ARM Cortex-A9 AMlogic MX Dual Core, 1.5 GHz, Mali 400 Dual Core GPU, 1 GB RAM) that sells for around 120 euros or the new Google Nexus 7 3G (HSPA+) just available at 299 euros.