Category: Personal

Its that time again, onto 2026 and I already have some “new years resolutions” (targets). I have a nice easy one, go to the office at work more. Yeah, 2 days at home I didn’t particularly enjoy, in fact, 3 days in some cases. However, as there is some engineering projects affecting me next year, I might find that 3 days at home or 50% in the office over 2 weeks will be the norm (and we have gone for more hybrid working where I work, not less).

For me, what has happened this year? Well, a lot actually, some really big changes too. The only thing that hasn’t changed is my job, but the industry I work in has changed and is changing more and more.

The bad

I lost Buddy – the dog very early on, back in January in fact and to be honest, it still is quite painful seeing Buddy going through his last moments on earth in the worst way possible. I feel the vets should of been much more supportive but they weren’t and yes, I do miss Buddy a lot.

Then came more concerns. I’ve not mentioned it on here, but I had a few health issues that were concerning, it started with issues that I kept getting with a certain type of cold that requires anti-biotics as it causes breathing difficulties over time if it worsens, so I was scheduled for a “spirometry” test as I also been diagnosed with eczema/dermatitis (my skin is a big problem, those that seen me know that my hands are littered with flaky skin and splits!) , so they think I was potentially asthmatic. I’ve been given an inhaler but I only really use it when required,

You thought that would be it? Well, when I was with my friend who was driving to Kidderminster with the dogs from Llandrindod Wells, I noticed a lump on my head that grew out of nowhere and it was hard like that for about a month when I got it checked out. Then on the same side of my body, 2 more lumps appeared. One was really bad, which is a suspect insect bite, one was considered an ingrown hair, the other when I went to A&E (the insect one burst and kept leaking), I was told to get it checked out as there was a 1% chance it could be cancerous – small, very small, so I did, turned out to be a wart. So for about 4 weeks, I was worried I had the signs of cancer because being naturally red headed, the risk of skin cancer is really high. At least I got it sorted when I did.

The end is nigh – for the franchise

The big one? I changed employers and got TUPE’d over, I went from First Group to DfTO from the 21st May 2025, that has been a big change and was it positive? Well, putting it on here will upset one or the other, however, as things go, I’m not going anywhere.

However, as part of this, my box card which First Group employees get, was coming to an end, so what was idea? Use it! Plus my 40 odd tickets a year friends and family discount (which was £6 a ticket and rarely used it). So first of all, I went to Hull, using Hull Trains, an open access operator I wanted to use for years, I finally did it and it was a really smooth great experience. That was on the bank holiday weekend in May. I was going to post my thoughts on Hull (its alright), but to be honest, I didn’t find much to do for an overnight stay, apart from the aquarium, it was a fishy trip, that’s for sure.

Weekend after that, I went with the older sister to London with the dogs for a day and did a long walk that Finn and Bailey – oh, I’ve not mentioned those yet. I need to – to Brixton from London Waterloo, it was warm but OK.

Weekend after that, I took my mum and younger sister with their 2 dogs and my 2 dogs to Bath, that was a nice trip but got too warm, this was a sign of things to come with the weather,

The final weekend, it was again, my mum and younger sister to London and a walk around London. This was the final weekend of the franchise and it was a goodbye and hello. If I don’t fall foul of a policy, I’ll post my thoughts on the franchise. I’ve been in the company from the Stagecoach days and there were some good ideas, don’t get me wrong.

A change of direction – in my spare time

Politics talk. I kept quiet about this, but in July, I became a councillor for my local parish council. This being Fishbourne (Sussex), yes, I am now into politics and making positive changes. This was influenced by my mum and the big reason for doing it was quite simply crime. Sussex police I had arguments with their PCC where crime was going up and nothing had been done about it. So, I did something and I started recording things. I’ve now started a database and I have met many residents to hear their views. I now have a bigger project in the wings (yes, its one I want to sort as well) which is Fishbourne Roundabout, its dangerous, its a hot topic here and the whole A27 (the road that runs from Romsey to Eastbourne) runs right through the middle of the roundabout metaphorically. There is many things I’ve heard and not to upset a certain influential person on this blog, I’ll keep my mouth shut – but I was not impressed when I heard it. (I do agree that the northern bypass wasn’t a good idea anyway as I got my own interest that will be on a direct collision course with them anyway – called railways and a line I want to build and one I want to reopen.) Theres lots to do and I’m getting started. Its slow, but I’m getting there. For those wanting to make a difference, I’ll recommend joining the council, there is one important rule though, you can’t act individually, you have to act as a collective – including all decision making. This maybe a new career if the railway goes Pete Tong. However, if anyone gave me a bribe, I’ll send it back to where it belongs. Sorry I’m happy with what I have got, it doesn’t come with strings.

Work challenges

At work, I’ve not progressed, we are relatively stable at the moment, so the opportunity isn’t there, but work life has been interesting. I’ve gone to a situation of doing nothing to doing lots to doing nothing. Big thing, I actually got involved in 2 events, the 9 day Portsmouth Direct Line closure as I diagrammed the crew on the last trains (yes, I didn’t expect that!) and a small contribution to a railtour, so small, its almost insignificant, but had I picked up something, it would have a massive impact. Yes, I would of been affected by my own problem. It ran, so I wasn’t worried. I even got involved in the Class 701 introduction for a day, that was an interesting experience and that was back in March.

Related to the PDL and being affected by my own work, I also saw all 3 signal boxes on the last day! I managed to take some photos too, with my camera as phones are frowned upon, 2 still exist (Petersfield and Haslemere), but one has now bit the dust. I understand the reasoning however (and that’s a wider subject I can’t talk about on here).

Places been

Trips! Ok, where I have I been? In this order

Ledbury/Birmingham (Jan)
Llandrinddod Wells/Barmouth/Eden Valley/Talyllyn Railway (Apr)

Hull (May)

Bath (May)

Coventry (May)

Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland. Belfast/Dublin/Coleraine/Coach Tour of several Irish Places and nearly got sick! Because the roads are rough and I was at the back (June)
Llandrindod Wells again/Aberystwyth – Vale of Rheidol Ralway/Barmouth/Bala-Bala Lake Railway (Oct)

And finally, Jersey (see blog post here) (Nov)

I have to say, I mentioned Hull previously in this post because it formed part of the end of the franchise for the company I work for, but going to Northern Ireland in June was scary! No really, it was, it was when there were demonstrations about immigration and when I came across some graffiti that read “locals only, no foreigners – keep out” in Bangor, that scared me. You cannot judge someone’s origins from how they look. Yes, I’ll fit right in – in Ireland as I am red headed and IC1, but the moment I open my mouth, I will be picked out, because I don’t sound Irish, I’m from Southern England which is known to have a posh accent (apparently!), so that was quite honestly scary. Then add the Land Rover Tangi’s roaming around, it wasn’t reassuring at all, I thought I was just about to walk into the next civil conflict since “The troubles“. No, I don’t ever want to go down that route, I don’t want to see it a second time in my life. Keep everything at peace, keep everything going as it is. After all, we are all human. Be peaceful and run trains, you will achieve a lot more, plus your economy does better with tourism.

The website
Another big thing, ever since my original site got taken down in 2013 from memory, I’ve been trying to produce a new site with a content management system. Joomla is what my old site used from 2009 to 2013, I then went over to “NetObject Fusion” which is a piece of software that does websites with a storyboard interface and is more of a WYSIWYG editor that builds entire static websites than a content management system. I’ve been messing with WordPress for years, just I never knew how to create a template, even though I had a blog in a sub directory which was used to convey my thoughts. Until I started messing with WordPress properly and found lots of stuff I never knew existed. This allowed me to use my template dated from 2017 to be used and that’s what kicked everything off. Just the ability to create my own template and put them on my site. It worked! That’s what I wanted to do from day one. Once I unlocked that, I spent 4 weeks on and off producing this site. Then launched it quietly. I’ve not changed much. I did have a Google Drive link, but I have had to remove it. I’ll add it back into the future at some point.

I’ve also done a lot more 3D objects for the site, I still am, on and off, just pause for other reasons, then restarting.

Personal life

My life has a change of direction too. I’ve complained about being single for so long, now this is where it gets really weird (such as my life), certain dating site, my ex was on it, just flicked through her profile and noticed that October last year, she left a like. That said site kept trying to match her and me together and I kept avoiding it, I decided to go with it, liked her and matched. This was in January and yes we dated in February, March and April, but haven’t seen each other since, so its a bit of a limbo situation. However, I’ve been hijacked a lot by my family (my mum and sister) as they moved from Fareham to Southbourne, so you can guess who did a lot of DIY work. You got it in one! (ME!) I reckon I spent out of 52 weekends, 26 of them there – or there abouts. It got difficult to manage and it put a strain on my life too. Thank god I don’t have any kids.

In short, change of employer (same job), involved in some special events, travelled to several places, became a councillor, launched this site, dated my ex (x4) and did a ton of dodgy DIY. What a year.

The worst bit: Under 2 months until I am 40 and apparently, I look nowhere near it. That might explain why I seem to be getting young ladies coming up to me recently and the usual youths I have problems with, think I am their age, that will be funny when I turn around to them and point out that I am old enough to be their dad – and scary!

(Something I never thought about before until I started talking about my age, especially when I talk about slammers to my boss who is 8 years older than me and everyone around me is like “what is a slammer?” Slam door train – think Classes 411/412/421/423, even I have managed to travel on Mk2s, Mk3s and now Mk4s on the mainline and Class 310/312s on the mainline. Not forgetting one Class 101 on the mainline – Stockport to Stalybridge, one way in 2001)

Next year goals

Next year, what do I want to do? Get my blue Espace on the road, spend more time in the office rather than at home, do some changes to my desks at home as I got a really uncomfortable chair and go to France. I’ve been saying that for 2 years so far and Jersey is close enough. Now I have some new stuff to try out for my desk at work (a leather seat and a trackball), it would be natural to spend more time at work. At least I don’t have to put up with my horrible low backed seat. Oh wait! I’m sitting in a low backed mesh seat while I type this at home that is begging to be replaced. I’m not bothered about the back, but the base – ouch!

Fun fact, in a year, I’ve travelled by Car, Train (Narrow and Standard gauge – steam, diesel, electric, passenger and ECS), Bus, Coach, Ship and 3 planes, an ATR 72, Airbus A319 and an Airbus A320. Fascinating fact, I’ve nearly thrown up on a coach (rough road), car (rough road – rough driving), plane (turbulence on approach to Belfast City Airport – the ATR72 was too small anyway), but this time around, not the ship. The car decks kept me up on the Belfast to Liverpool overnight sailing though! I’ll never forget the car alarms going off below me.

Photos

Oh photos! Yes, you like photos. A selection of some published and previously unpublished photos for the year.

All I can say, what an incredible and here in the south of the UK – record breaking warm year and lets see what 2026 brings.

One final thought

Oh yeah, I didn’t mention one thing, I left it off accidently, in the words of someone I watch a lot of YouTube shorts (swearing);

This fucking thing!!

I actually rode it, talked to the designers and gave my input into future ideas of the overall design – make it modular and other interesting design ideas. I won’t take credit, as some may notice how I design things, how about a tiller handler used to remove, add or swap modules in a depot to vary the length of a train? The idea of the Class 475 was that and it had a more important reason for its short coaches. Its to do with where I would like the train to go. Chichester on a tramway, from West Street to South Street, round the cross. Buses do it every day, why not trains? (Not that you can at the moment, you can’t as there is no tramway).

Bringing myself back to the subject, its an interesting vehicle and to be honest, has some really brilliant ideas, some I thought of, some of my ideas I’ve shared and some I’ve learnt off them too.

With an unexpected surprise.

I’ve not mentioned it for a while, but decided to play “Battle of the Beats” on a local radio station and I’ve taken part in it about 10 times. Usually, it ends up with my arse getting whipped. I started playing it for the first time this year, just for a bit of fun. The radio station is known as “V2 Radio”, you can listen on DAB if you have one of those radios and on the south coast or online. https://www.v2radio.co.uk). Super friendly radio station and a lot of what is advertised is mainly around West Sussex and Hampshire in the UK, so bear it in mind.
With Steve, he plays anything and everything, so you can listen in and put a request in.

Battle of the Beats is a part of the show where 2 listeners of the show go head to head, like during the day, they do Battle of the Businesses where the steaks are higher, in that you win free pizza for your team with knowledge. No prizes for Battle of the beats, but bragging rights.
The idea is you present 4 songs, the person challenging has to give you either:

• A year
• A decade
• An Open selection

Out of that, you pick 4 songs plus a backup in case of duplication and the audience votes who they like. Some couples get involved with the voting and some households get split. Obviously, some do better than other with their choices and some manage to stay on for weeks and weeks. The voting is easy, Whatsapp, email or calls, Steve or the DJ counts up the votes, the winner stays on for another week, unless its a draw, then the roles are reversed. Its basically a bit of fun. Some can take it more competitive than others, like my second week when I usually end up defeating to a listener, this time, it was the other way round.

You tend to get some surprises from some of the choices (see below), but I have tried in the past putting Dizzie Rascal and Kid Cudi together, I was told that was way too risky.

I started by challenging someone to the year 2008 for music, and I thought “Lets try something”, I thought it would be close, but not what I expected! My plan was to go for club beats, what you would find in a club, this is what I had

If you listen again (Follow this link: Steve Freegard – V2 Radio), it was aired on the 16/08/2025 from the 2 hr mark. Winner decided from the 3hr 15 minute mark.

Me	Opponent
Manian – Welcome to the club	Cold Play – Viva La Vi
Cascada – Because the night	Alphabeat – Fascination
Basshunter – All I ever wanted	Adele – Chasing Pavements
Guru Josh Project – Infinity 2008	Killers – Human

If you listen to this link and listen from about the 2 hour mark, you’ll hear my selection. The votes? Well, landslide, you’ll have to listen, either way, I was on for another week. One of my friends (known as Steve the Taxi Driver) wanted to play against me and he was like “you better win!”

Oh I did!

So week 2, the year 1993. If you listen again, it was aired on the 23/08/2025 (2hr mark), winner from the 3 hr 15 minute makr.

Me	Opponent
Robin S – Show me love	Petshop Boys – Go west
2 Unlimited – No limits	Urban Cookie Collective – Heaven
Corona – Rythem of the Night	Belinda Carslie – Big Scary Animal
Haddaway – What is love	Meatloaf – I’ll do anything for love.

Usually, I’d get my arse kicked, not this time! I predicted it would be a draw, Steve FG predicted a loss, Steve TD predicted he would lose. I think Steve TD was right, but my guess of a draw was in fact very close. I’ll give you a hint, it was 1 vote (later declared 2 votes) between us – out of 21 votes! He wasn’t happy, I was shocked. Really.
Also, I wanted to replace Corona with Urban Cookie Collective – Key, the secret (Which probably would of got me more votes), but I think the artist repetition would have been a problem. I was told I couldn’t use it though.


Now comes week 3, which I am challenged to the year 2000, I think this could be one of those difficult ones to judge.

Me	Opponent
Rui Da Silva – Touch me (Gulty pleasure of mine) and was released 01/01/01, but was played from Oct 2000)	Melanie C – I turn to you
Darude Sandstorm	Darude – Feel the beat
DJ Alligator Project – The Whistle Song (I got that wrong in my email)	Watergate – Heart of Asia
EDIT: Changed to Ian Van Dahl – Castles in the sky	Rank 1 – Airwave

Of course, we have to have back ups, For me, I’ve chosen Alice DJ – Better off alone, which I am considering of swapping out DJ alligator project with either of those 2. I don’t know, someone comment? DJAP doesn’t get much air time, while Kylie does. I’m also trying to go for that EuroDance theme and as it has to be from 2000 or thereabouts, some of the ones I wanted to include like DeeDee is a little too late and adding an instrumental (Yomanda – Synth and Strings) was a little too early.

EDIT later: I changed Kylie Minogue for Ian Van Dahl. Tell me why, Do we build castles in the sky?

I think the voting might be close, Darude – Sandstorm is a very popular choice, I’ve had a landslide where ATB and Darude were both together and proved to be an incredibly popular choice.


Still, I don’t know the voting will go, but if I end up on another week, I’ll be shocked. If I stay on, the one thing I am hoping is an open choice, in that case, I know what I am going for already. Anyone want to challenge me on that? Or you could pick a decade, which I have an idea for 90s. All instrumentals.


If you want to listen to it, it takes place 21:00 BST (British Summer Time – we are still on that), on Friday evening – next show is 29/08/2025 on V2 Radio. (Links open a new window).


Edit 29/08/2025:

Ousted out by one vote! It was nerve racking, I knew it was going to be close. So 3 weeks, I think that was a good run.

This is quite a long post, but I thought I’ll give it my thoughts in the hope it will help someone. (image quality is pretty poor, I had the blind down because the day was a bit hot and my office faces south!)

I’ll start by saying that I hope this review is useful to someone as they are sold on AliExpress where I find some of my interesting equipment, I’ll also tell you what I think. My reasons for purchasing is related to a new position I took up in my own council as previously mentioned, to separate my data and if I am honest, I didn’t want to spend out too much for a device, so seeing a Pritom L8 for less than £50 looks very tempting, what’s it a good buy though?

First impressions:

When my local Evri courier finally dropped off the package, I was instantly greeted with a white bag with a bubble like surround to protect its journey across the seven seas. Well, it flew it, but you get the idea. First problem, green credentials = 0! Its all plastic wrapping to protect it from its bumpy journey.

Getting into it? Well, that was a different matter, the outer wrapper came off easily, the inner one?

Judge for yourself. Things aren’t looking hopeful already. I then was greeted with a nice glossy box. Ok, not as bad as I thought, took the shrink wrap off (green credentials = -1) and then lifted the box.

Well, isn’t this a bit unusual! Shipping the tablet in a case. I’ve heard of tablets and phones shipped with the case, but in the case? That’s another matter. The box was paper, which is good (green credentials = 0) and lifting the tablet out reveals more paper (green credentials = +1).

As for the manuals? Very thin on the ground.

On picking the device up, the one thing you will notice right away is how flimsy the case is, for the price point, its understandable, so a few millimetres here and there of material removed is forgivable. I guess most will end up in the hands of children (I’ll get on to this later) and it will be smashy smashy like Adam Smasher. So the price point is very appealing to parents who don’t want to buy and iPad which – spoiler alert, would be better. However, they would also be much more delicate in terms of use and wallet. So a 3 year old losing its rag and chucking it across the room in a fit of rage, its better to lose a £50 note than something costing 3 times as much. Not that I think it will stand up to that punishment – its not rugged.

On turning it on, it has a factory applied screen protector, peal and what I thought was one part, was 2 part! Nice, if only it was a little thicker. It feels thinner than a sheet of foil.

Build

All plastic! Seriously, plastic fantastic, nothing to write home but it has some weird shaping on the back. The case included is thin as a cheap rubber band, with about as much protection. Knocks, bumps, it will take, but a full on 5 year old tantrum? Probably not and I won’t have much hope for that. I don’t have kids, so I can’t tell. So far, its put up with my daily abuse of going to and from work and a little office work. The screen cover? About as rigid as a microfibre cleaning cloth! To actually stand it up, you had to use it one way, that’s it.
Theres also some really weird decisions too. The case doesn’t allow access to the SD card slot, there is 2 speakers (apparently), a microphone on the side which I haven’ tested and 2 cameras. One front and one back – but wait, is there three?

You may of noticed there is a bump showing 2 lenses, ones fake, end of! I proved it because I covered both lenses with my finger and found the bottom one fake. It also doesn’t seem to have a flash either. It looks better than it is, but this is how manufacturers get you to buy their products. At least it has a full size headphone jack at the top of the device.

It also feels really weird at the back. The back feels smooth with the case but it doesn’t feel uniform with the back cover if you take the case off. Maybe the moulds are to cater for multiple tablets? The back looks like it should be a cover, but in fact one moulded unit.

The front? The screen you can clearly see where it is in the frame, its not pure black, but a gray which makes me suggest it uses the older TFT standard, which may explain the price of the tablet. The screen protector is a nice addition though, even it it cost 10p.


Turning it on

This is where I was shocked. It lies, it really does, but they are white lies. Its not Android 14, its 13. So that’s lie one, its one camera, not 2 on the back, but what else is there? Actually, it really isn’t bad. First impressions leave a LOT to be desired.

It started for me and it was slow as hell! No seriously, it was. It turned off, when I turned it on, I couldn’t press the next button on the Out Of the Box Experience screen (OOBE). It didn’t respond. Once I gave it a couple of seconds, I could and reacted normally. It was initially very slow through the OOBE screen, but got quicker and quicker.

Once I logged in, it still was slow, it was 5 minutes in by this point but slowly getting faster, for about half an hour. I was then greeted with possibly the most plain skin of Android. Android as it was intended! Oh, it also got hot, but I initially used a USB to ethernet adapter.

Oh yes, that was a nice surprise. I thought the USB port was for charging only, at this price point, the USB-OTG spec I was expecting to be completely missing, the first adapter didn’t work, but my second one did! So it supports USB-OTG. Good start.


It came with all the Google apps needed and it was geared towards children, you’ll get loads of questions about that at the OOBE experience, so the target audience is children. That’s good.
Installing everything, I went for Outlook, Displaylink and a few other apps, geared towards work. They installed without an issue.
Poked around in the settings, oh, its Android 13! But the listing was Android 14. It seems to be Android 13 which is Ok I guess.
You have the option of extending the ram, this is actually virtual memory and is likely to wear out your storage quicker, so watch out for that problem. And you get the idea.

User experience
No skin = nice, its actually pretty quick. I’ll be honest. I was expecting a slideshow! I was not expecting anything impressive but so far, it is pretty good. The screen actually was quite nice, it can be a problem in bright sunlight, but really, its not bad. Its got some surprisingly good viewing angles and it doesn’t have many noticeable problems from when I used it, except…

(No more shown as I am using Microsoft Launcher and to respect GDPR)

The navigation bar! Oh the navigation bar that has been there since the early Android days sucks! Why? Back works, menu works, multi tasking (square) doesn’t at all. So if you accidently close an app, you have to relaunch it. That is the only bad thing about this tablet.

Otherwise, the speakers are pretty OK, I bass isn’t great to be expected, but its clear to my ears (acceptable) and not a garbled mess. Videos play smoothly too and it didn’t get hot after the first initial use.
Battery life? Forget it! Seriously. 4 hours if you are lucky.

On screen keyboard? Expect typos, its split by default, so that’s something to watch out for. But for the price? Its not bad.

(Pritom L8 top, Samsung Galaxy Tab A9 8.7 bottom)

Performance I’ve not tested, but as I didn’t want to mess up my council work with my personal work, I just went on WebGL samples and started the aquarium. Compared it to my Samsung and it actually held its own. Its nowhere quick but it did keep up, it really wasn’t horrible and the photo shows that.

Bluetooth works well, I had a keyboard connected and I had no issues, Wifi works on my network without issue and it can charge from anything, not quickly, its rather slow! It works, that’s the thing that really surprised me, there is soo many horror stories of tablets that really suck, this was one of them, so I thought. It really wasn’t’

Camera Samples

As for the camera, just one big piece of advice. Don’t expect much:

Moving objects? Camera lag? Yep, it has it all

Bright sunlight? Forget it!

So who’s it for?
Anyone who doesn’t mind a cheap tablet for day to day work that don’t want to spend out for anything expensive. If you are hard on your equipment and tend to break things quickly or go into an area with high amounts of crime, this might be a good buy and no thief is going to want to touch it. Especially when you just do basic work on a tablet. Web browsing, content consumption, bit of word processing, maybe a spreadsheet, it will do it. No issues. Anything performance related? Give it a wide berth. I’ve not tried emulation yet, but it might actually deal with DOS emulation or retro gaming.

Just make sure you carry the charging cable. You will need it and a power bank. It also doesn’t have 3/4G, but has an SD card slot.

Would I buy another, surprisingly, actually, yes, it really isn’t bad for the price.


Reported specifications:
Allwinner A523 Octo-core CPU (ARM 8xA55 cores at different speeds, 4×1.8ghz + 4×1.4ghz)
Mali G57 GPU
RISC-V embeeded controller (WHAT?)
4GB LDDR4 ram
64GB eMMC
8” capacitive touch screen


But the question remains, why is it so cheap?
I spent many times thinking about this problem and then it raises more questions than answers. For a start, I’m not suggesting anything at all. In fact, it might be one point that is true and pushing their goods out. So lets start with a list:

–              Cheap labour.
                Assembling these tablets in a factory with low labour rates maybe one thing, its not unknown, but a lot of companies do this, its why China has become so popular. However, the question is, how cheap is too cheap? And at what expense? What is their contracts saying? Are there any concerns about welfare in the factories to reach that price point?

For a fascinating look into how the factories operate, I recommend these videos, its worth a look and draw your conclusions. These were shot 10+ years ago, but even then, the welfare didn’t seem much of a concern:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfyAjkPIYyc

$30 Allwinner A13 7″ Android Tablet Factory Tour, ZXS ZhiXingSheng

• Thin profit margins.
  Again, not unusual, but its not unknown for companies to build devices through a contractor en-mass where they build one long production run. But doesn’t seem to be the case with this tablet as it was built in June 2025. So may have a late production run. Considering I wrote this in August 2025, that’s about a month hanging on a shelf  if not slightly longer

• Drop shipping.

Drop shippers are notorious for having, no stock and having to sell products fast, because having products sitting in a warehouse for months on end is extremely costly. In fact, places like AliExpress and Amazon do charge for space after a certain interval. So if you can’t sell a product, you pay for the space it takes. Often again, you look at extremely thin profit margins because of the competition. In some cases, you’ll do anything to get rid of these products, even if it means making a loss because it’s not sold. Even then, in some cases, it’s a case of actually not sending out a small order, but a big one which is less costly than the storage space. That has happened to a colleague of mine

• Cheap components.
  Now I’ve not mentioned the specs. It’s an 8” tablet, tablets of this screensize are not that common, they used to be, but not any more. I find them difficult to hide and 8” tablets fit into places where a larger one doesn’t, such as my trouser pockets. (Yes really). Now smaller screensizes should lower costs. The use of plastics rather than metal is the same and makes the device more rugged (yes really), then we come to the boards, these maybe repurposed boards, but I noticed the A523 chip fitted to this tablet, which was a surprise. Now CPUs or in this case SOC (System On Chip) changes a lot in the budget range when manufacturers try to break into the market and get known. This is actually an old hand called “Allwinner”, who back when Android was appearing was known to produce ultra cheap chips, the Allwinner A523 is no exception. What is surprising is that Allwinner didn’t really deal with much budget range SOCs for about 10 years, so its nice to see them back in the market. Many manufacturers were usually looking at Mediatek who really broke some ground and Spreadtrum who apparently are now UNISOC. Again, Spreadtrum is a name that appeared then disappeared.
  Allwinner isn’t exactly known for its friendliness to the OpenSource community however and there are controversies. On the other hand, VIA used to offer budget CPU’s but seemed to of faded into obscurity.

• Questionable business practices

This is just one of those things you wonder “is it actually happening” kind of thing? The answer is, you don’t know, what happens on the factory floor. Often, the manufacturer of the device is ethical, but not necessarily the component manufacturer. Its not just workers rights that needs to be considered, what is going on in the background? Why are they cheap? Is it because there are other bad links?

• Questionable Hardware hacks.

This is one I want to see for myself, I think I can possibly do it and find out, then again, all manufacturers are at it, some more than  others. Does Pritom have a link to the Chinese Government? And that may mean, is it riddled with spyware? The answer is, until you do some sort of network diagnostics to inspect every packet, you really can’t tell. Its like the Huawei vs Trump scandal all over again. You can’t base a ban because you feel like it or you got dodgy proof, can you prove it? I can’t, I can only suspect it and until I get more information, I cannot confirm or deny. These days, the only real way to get away with something is to bury it so deep into the firmware, no one can detect it at the surface or takes specialist equipment to find it.

• Safety concerns

Apart from the above, which I’ve covered separately, this is unlikely due to the way they work but there is one thing I am particularly concerned about. The mainboard, screen, cameras, shouldn’t pose much of a safety risk in normal use, but I don’t know if it is RoHS certified (Reduction of Hazardous Substances). Which, what is the case carrying? It maybe plastic, but is it painted? With VOCs? (Volatile Organic Compounds). The big one is the biggest concern is the battery to me. Will it turn into a spicy pillow or worse? Sounds far fetched but with lithium ion batteries blowing up everywhere in e-bikes and e-scooters, you have to wonder. After all, why did the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (nearly ended up with one myself) have a high failure rate with batteries blowing up even after a recall? As long as this device doesn’t and is able to expand during a fault, its unlikely to blow up in my face – literally!

• Regularity problems

Finally, I’m going to finish with something common with cheap products, they often have faked or missing regularity information, this seems to have it all, but if I do a FCC search for 2BNGZ-L10, comes up with this, some small discrepancies between the names and location: FCC ID 2BNGZ-L10
But more importantly, no products listed. The more you wonder.

Later addition (25/08/2025):

I wrote the post in early August and since, I’ve taken it to and from work, used it at work and kept upto date with the council. It’s performed pretty well in that retrospect and I’ve had next to no issues – except the battery life. It will last 3 days with occasional use, but drains fast if you use it too intensively.

However, the USB port doesn’t support HDMI out I discovered, not a biggie, so I used my DisplayLink Dock which worked without issues – proving it does support usb OTG.