MSI Primo 81 review

Despite borrowing so heavily from the iPad Mini in other areas, the Primo 81 has a vastly different set of internal hardware. The Allwinner A31s might be a quad-core processor, but it only runs at 1GHz and is paired with just 1GB of RAM, so it should come as no surprise that Android 4.2 Jelly Bean often feels sluggish. It struggled through the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark taking 2,169ms, putting it firmly at the bottom of our results tables for 7in tablets. Synthetic benchmarks didn’t fare much better, suggesting the Primo 81 is best used for basic tasks, such as web browsing and Facebook.

MSI’s choice of pre-installed apps is somewhat baffling, with some glaring omissions such as YouTube, but old music and news apps that Google had retired for the Jelly Bean Android update. There are several leftover apps from the Primo 81’s original Korean release, including a messaging app that can’t be uninstalled. The stock video app is laughably called 4KPlayer, but seeing as some high bit rate 1080p videos caused the Primo 81 to drop frames we can’t see how MSI can justify its choice of name.

Surprisingly, the Primo 81 coped well with the demanding 3DMark benchmark, scoring 4,602 overall. That makes it one of the fastest budget tablets we’ve tested when it comes to graphics, although it’s not a patch on the 2013 Nexus 7. This means that 3D gaming isn’t out of the question, but frame rates were still inconsistent in more demanding titles. You will be fine with more casual games, such as Plants vs. Zombies.

With less than potent hardware, we were expecting the Primo 81 to at least be relatively frugal when it came to power consumption. Unfortunately it actually turned out to be quite power hungry, draining its battery in 5h 43m during our video playback test. That’s disappointing, even at this price.

We’re frankly amazed MSI has managed to get away with a tablet that looks so similar to the iPad Mini. In doing so, the Primo 81 undoubtedly has the edge in terms of looks when compared to other budget Android tablets. At £140 it is at least reasonably priced, even if build quality can’t match the tablet it tries to mimic so badly and the underpowered processor struggles with apps and games. If you’re on a budget we would sooner recommend the Asus Memopad HD 7, or suggest you save up some more cash and buy the vastly superior Nexus 7.