VOYO Vbook A3 Pro Review: High-end Foldable Tablet PC
Recently VOYO launched a few high-end products packed with an Intel i7-core chips. We have already taken a peek at one of them in face of the Voyo i7. As you see, it’s named simply – just to hint it’s an Intel-powered laptop. But when we got deeper, we understood it’s a top-notch device packed with a number of great features including a metal housing, 15.6-inch Full HD screen, NVIDIA GeForce 940MX GPU, large capacity battery and many others. But what amazed us more is its price – the VOYO i7 costs just the third of top branded laptops from the same niche. This made us think we should take a look at other products of this brand because it turns out there are crazy devices at a lower price providing the same performance. Actually, we have had reviewed a couple of VOYO laptops such as the VOYO Vbook A1, A1 Plus and V3 Fingerprint. So we are familiar with this brand more or less. But the latest products are packed with the way better hardware. Say, the same VOYO Vbook V3 Fingerprint comes with an Intel Apollo Lake chip, while the latest products sport the sixth-gen Intel i7 processor. As for now, we have found another high-end laptop made by this company. It’s dubbed as the VOYO Vbook A3 Pro and seems it sports better features than the one we have reviewed a few days back. On the other hand, the Vbook A3 Pro belongs to another category – it’s a 2 in 1 tablet PC. Personally, I prefer to call such devices yoga laptops. Well, let’s explore its key features.
VOYO Vbook A3 Pro Specs
- CPU: Core i7-6500U clocked at 2.5GHz (Boost up at 3.1GHz)
- RAM: 8GB DDR4
- ROM: 256GB SSD
- Screen: 13.3-inch IPS at Full HD resolution
- Battery: 12.000mAh, 3.7V
- Camera: 2MP
- OS: Windows 10
- Connectivity: 4G via M.2 slot, dual-channel WiFi, USB3.0, TF card slot, etc.
- Dimensions: 330x220x16mm
- Weight: 1.7kg
VOYO Vbook A3 Pro Design
Externally this device looks like a regular foldable tablet PC. Moreover, the manufacturer kept the familiar design we have seen on other models coming our way from this brand. But what’s amazing there is no logo on the top. It’s flat and blank. The edges are rounded. the corners are rounded as well. When it is used as a laptop, the rounded edges and corners won’t play any role. But when it is fully folded back and used as a tablet, these features will provide better erdonomics.
The bottom side carries 4 rubber legs, a large ventilation grid, two speakers located closer to the edges, and some standard info about the tablet – the manufacturer logo as well as Intel logo. Thanks to rounded edges and those rubber legs the sound output won’t be hindered when the VOYO Vbook A3 Pro is used as a laptop.
The impressive set of interfaces and different buttons is divided into two parts. One of the includes a USB3.0 port, 3.5mm audio jack, SIM card slot, volume rocker, and a power button. And they are placed on the left-hand side.
The second set includes a DC charging port, USB 3.0 port, mini HDMI port, micro SD card slot, and a keyboard lock latch.
As we are dealing with a 13.3-inch laptop, it’s reasonable not to see a full–sized keyboard on it. It’s a regular keyboard with a good feel of use. The keystrokes are smooth due to a moderate key distance and key height. The keys are made of plastic. But seems it’s a high-class material. At least, I have had such a feeling when typing.
However, the touchpad is located in the middle below the keyboard. Many people think it’s not comfortable when using. Finally, there is a fingerprint scanner placed next to the touchpad. Thus no passwords are required for protecting your data. This becomes a mainstream for high-end devices. Even Xiaomi has started using this feature. I guess you are familiar with the Xiaomi Air 13 Fingerprint.
One of the selling points of this device is the ability to fold in 360 degrees. Once it’s done, the Vbook A3 Pro turns into a regular tablet with all functions we used to see on such devices. And the vice versa, if you need a laptop, fold it back at a required angle and do anything you want. The keyboard part can serve as a kickstand when watching movies or videos.
The second selling point is considered to be the stylus support. The latter is included in the package, so no need to acquire it additionally. This also means we are dealing with a touchscreen and not a regular display found on regular laptops.
Well, the VOYO Vbook A3 Pro is a very portable device coming at dimensions of 330x220x16mm and weighing 1.7g only . It can replace you attach case successfully.
VOYO VBook A3 Pro Hardware
This product is packed with the same processor and RAM we have seen on the VOYO i7. Thus it provides a high-end laptop-like performance being a tablet PC. It is packed with an Intel Core-i7 6500U chip. This is a sixth gen processor made by the Santa Clara-based chip maker. In comparison to the 7th-gen Intel chips as well as the 5th-gen chips, the i7 6500U differs too much.
The Core i7-6500U is an x86-compatible chip for ultra-light and thin notebooks. The processor is built on Skylake 14nm microarchitecture. It also utilizes so-called Skylake-U design. This means it is characterized by an integration of Platform Control Hub (chipset) components as well as 15W TDP. However, it doesn’t differ from previous-gen U processors much. It has two CPU cores with Hyper-Threading support, 4 MB of level 3 cache, dual-channel memory controller and on-chip GPU. It supports most of the features provided by the architecture it’s based on. The most interesting of those is the Turbo Boost feature. Thus the core frequency can reach 3.1GHz instead of regular 2.5GHz when extra performance is needed and thermal/power headroom is available.
As for the HD 520 graphics card, it runs at 300MHz, but its maximum dynamic boost is 1.05GHz. This GPU supports DDR3-1600, LPDDR3-1866 and DDR4-1866 memory. The latter is used by the manufacturer.
Thanks to these features the Core i7-6500U succeeds the Core i7-5500U Broadwell SoC. The i7-6500U CPU and GPU units are more efficient and are clocked 100 MHz higher than CPU and GPU units on the fifth-gen i7 chips. The Skylake also has 20% more GPU execution units.
By the way, the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 12.5 Ultimate Edition is powered with this chip as well.
As for the memory, this device sports an 8GB DDR4 RAM, which is more than enough for any task you want to do. No 3D game, heavily loaded a web page, Photoshop file or a multi-paged report will run out of the memory. You can also save your files directly to the hard drive, as the VOYO Vbook A3 Pro comes with a 256GB SSD drive.
Generally, customers can’t orient which of the hard drives is better – SSD or HDD. As the VOYO Vbook A3 Pro comes with an SSD drive, we decided to take a closer look at some aspects of this comparison.
Actually, there is no straight-forward answer which of these drives is better, as each buyer has different requirements and needs. Let’s figure out. SSD stands for Solid State Drive. If you are familiar with USB memory sticks, just think of the SSD as an oversized and more sophisticated version of them. Thus the information is stored in microchips. As for HDDs, it uses a mechanical arm with a read/write head to move around and read information from the right location on a storage platter. That’s why the SSD is the way faster than its rival. Conversely, HDD that stands for Hard Disk Drive has one big advantage – it is capable of storing lots of data cheaply.
Though the VOYO Vbook A3 Pro supports 4G network, it also comes with a dual-channel WiFi support. This means it provides faster wireless connectivity than single-channel devices.
Finally, this tablet PC is equipped with a 12.000mAh battery that can keep the device alive for 7-9 hours if using normally.
The Bottom Line
The most popular foldable tablet PC is the Lenovo Yoga. It 13-inch variant is priced at around $1000. In all fairness, this device is packed with a 7th-gen i7 chip, UHD screen, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and it weighs lighter. This information can be taken differently. First, we can say the VOYO Vbook A3 Pro is a bit weaker, that’s why it costs less. And that’s true. Second, we can say, VOYO has made a good tablet PC at a price seen on top branded devices. Thus it joins the marathon. That’s true as well. No matter how you take this information because VOYO has been in the big game for a while and it doesn’t feel any inconvenience.
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