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Let’s be honest: the importance of CES has waned in recent years as big manufacturers like Samsung and Motorola opt to hold their own exclusive, private events for product launches. But deep inside the belly of the beast that is CES 2016, we found a sexy slumbering Android tablet that demanded our attention: the HiSense VIDAA Mirror.
The product was announced in November but had yet to make a public appearance. Get this: not even the PR staff could give us dimensions on the near bezel-less display and the “official” screen size was listed wrong. We broke out the old Google Play Store, downloaded a ruler app, and put our sleuthing to work.
That outrageously thin bezel is only 3/8ths of an inch. That’s 9.5 millimeters. Over 90% of the device’s front is just straight up screen.
Here are some additional VIDAA Mirror specs:
- 1.8 GHz Quad-core Cortex A17 processor
- 8.4-inch display
- 3.4mm thin
- 2.8 grams
- 2K resolution IPS display (2560 x 1600)
- 2GB RAM
- 16GB ROM
- Double sound chamber stereo speakers
As a point of reference, the iPad Air 2 is 6.1mm thin. The VIDAA Mirror is almost half that. Numbers can be deceiving, though, and it seems that depth spec was calculate at the edges where the device is most thin. It bulks up a little bit towards the center. That didn’t bother us, though, the Mirror seemed like a paper thin delight. At least the hardware did.
On the software side it’s running Android 5.0.1 and while mostly snappy, has some particular pain points such as a really clumsy notification window that didn’t want to behave. HiSense’s custom skin attempted to mimic iOS, albeit poorly, and many apps and interfaces dragged their Chinese language text and tutorials from overseas, making it a really disaster for English speakers wanting to try the device on the show floor.
But that bezel though.
You may not recognize the Hisense name but the brand is currently a Top 10 consumer electronics manufacturer with a goal of pushing to the Top 3 stateside. A quick look at their offerings suggests it may not be as lofty a goal as it seems. That being said, American consumers demand polished products and attention to detail, something the VIDAA Mirror clearly lacked.
We hope Hisense will revisit the Mirror with more compelling software (stock Android please), and when they do, we just might be first in line to buy it. For now, we’ll sit on the sidelines admiring the sexiness, wishing it had a better personality.
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