Me and a friend decided after some researching to buy the Ainol Aurora. Here I will gather some impressions/thoughts, perhaps display a few photos off the device and maybe a video.

I received it this Monday, so I've had a little time to play with it.
The good:

• IPS Screen
• HDMI
• USB OTG
• Some physical buttons(great for comic/book reading)

"Neutral":

• Performance
• Build quality(despite all-plastics, it does feel fairly solid)
• Boot up time
• Graphics card

The bad:

• Feels somewhat cheap(stemming from the all-plastic construction, probably )
• Screen bezel not flush with the rest of the chassis

I don't use the stock rom; it contains a lot of chinese apps and is actually pretty sluggish. I'm using Feiyumod: http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/2942...-mod-by-feiyu/ (version 0515)

Impressions:
Very, very light tablet. Unfortunately to the point where it feels cheap. Guess that's to be expected though(it is cheap).
I turn it on and immediately notice that the screen is pretty bright. I try out the brightness slider but the effect is rather restricted. Feels like the control goes from 75% to 100%, rather than 2% to 100%. Anyway, have a look around the menus and notice that the ROM is pretty clean. The launcher is a little slow though, but I've already decided I won't use it anyway so that doesn't matter.

Open up Android market/Play store, enter my account details and start browsing. Since I've already had a Android device, I have already purchased some apps/games so I start downloading stuff.
It manages about three concurrent store downloads before it starts to slow down, so I don't really think it's that slow. Beginning with Titanium Backup, I remove some of the preinstalled stuff I will never use, and freeze some system apps that for me is of no importance. The tablet doesn't get any speed improvements though.

Most stuff on the tablet works great, but there's one caveat if you'd like to game on it: It has the Mali 400 GPU. Not that it is a bad GPU, but it isn't that supported despite the fact that Samsung Galaxy SII has one. Common games, like Angry Birds, show up of course. SimCity Deluxe does not however, which is a shame since it's probably better on a tablet compared to a phone.

General "smooth"-ness is good, even more so when I close all apps. ICS seems to work differently compared to Gingerbread, and lands somewhere inbetween Maemo and Gingerbread regarding task managment. You of course have the background processes, like IRC clients. Then there's also a task switcher, where apps along with screenshots of them show up. I think some are still running, but there's no way to know for sure.
Closing them all does speed up the wakeup from sleep, as well as unlock. One weird thing I've found is that the miniature screenshots in Google Play lags when I scroll them. Otherwise, there's little to no lag in menus and apps.

Overall, it's not a bad tablet. I'd say you certainly get what you pay for. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who will exclusively game on it, since (somewhat common) games are missing. For everything else, it's brilliant. The IPS screen is not as good as my iPhone's, but theres some DPI differences so that might be it. Also, the IPS screen is definitely worth getting. The price difference is so small I don't think it makes sense to buy the Elf.

Overall, I'd rate it 7.5/10. With a little lower price, it had been an 8.

Here you can find some photos: http://imgur.com/a/Hh1Qv
(Don't be fooled by the Bluetooth icon. You need a USB Bluetooth adapter for it to work)

Might do a video demoing some stuff in a bit. Do suggest stuff to test, and I'll try to work something out.

I cant help but notice that the chinese craplets, recently, has shoot up quality and shoot down price in a phenomenal manner.

By now, a $100 chinese craplet should get you 8G flash/1G Ram/5point multi touch capacitance screen of 800X476/no GPS/no BT. And, today May 2012, that is the quality one should measure to when shopping for a chinese craplet. And Allwinner is the CPU, that has garnnered the most custom ROM.

By comparison, I paid $75 when Nokia phased out their 770.

IPS or 1024 X 600 ICS still cost about $50 - $100 more.

Unfortunately, this tidal of up quality, down $ have not spilled to the american online retailers, so one still has to buy from those shaky chinese vendors and put up with a 45 - 60 days cross ocean wait . Some vendors are less shaky than the others. I have dealt with dealextreme/focalprice/pandawill and they at least take your $ and ship. So far, have no bad experience with these 3 vendors. I found out pandawill is the most agressive in $ and newer models and dealextreme still sells resistence screen (yawn).

Thanks for ToJa92's review of the Ainol Aurora. I specially like the comparison to Maemo, that the ICS (android 4.0) is kind of between Gingerbread (2.2) and Maemo. I felt the same too. I think ICS is a quantum leap from Gingerbread, much more smooth and less buggy. My main interest is, and still are, streaming audio/video. ICS is much more improved than the Gingerbread in general, no hesitation or stuttering or audio/video out of sync.

Of all of the difference between ICS and Gingerbread, the one I am most impressed is the battery life! The battery life is even better than the n800! Both n900 and gingerbread suffer from battery leak to some degree. Even you let it idle with the screen off and no wifi or any wireless, just laying on the sofa, my gingerbread phone or the n900 battery is dead in 36 hr. I called this battery leak. I do not see this with ICS. You leave it idle for over 4 - 5 days, you turn it on, it showed exactly the same battery level. Incredible. I have the same with my 770 or my n8x0. Even sitting in my drawer for over 1 month, you click it, my 770 or my n8x0 will come straight to life. No kidding.

You mentioned about missing games. I am not quite sure what you mean. Since you are using a custom ROM, I assume the GooglePlay is probably already optimized. Still, I found out one can get more games/apps if one 'fine-tune' the ID of your tablet. For example, I see some apps that I do not see when change from an 'unknown' tablet to become a Samsung I900 tablet. You do this from build.prop. I also notice, that, even games or apps that do not show up on your tablet, it will update fine if you able to get an old version from any 3rd party. I always google the app with name-of-app.apk. and dl from, say, fileshare. Their version is mostly outdated or for gingerbread. But once installed, update, it run just fine.

I am sad to leave my 770/n8x0 sandbox (n900 has long been snatched away by friends), but I am glad to see android is getting better, and the chinese craplet is certainly able to fill the void that left from my first love, 770/n8x0

I have several 800X476 ICS chinese craptlets, I failed to see any difference among them, both performance and specifications are quite similar. I am inching up to the next level, the IPS/1024X600 16G/1G level. ToJa92's review is timely. Thank you. Although I am not quite sure how much 'gain' I will get, as my ICS craplet is constantly connected to my home theatre system. I use it like a TV tuner, and watching stream videoes that cannot get with my cableTV . And use it mainly like a remote.

Some rambling... rah, rah, rah...

bun

Considering, that good resistive screen is still much better than any capacitive sh|t You may get for any amount of money, I think Your yawning is turned into wrong direction

/Estel

Hey cool! Thanks for the summary review!!

Estel have you used any craplet resistive screen? You need a scrwedriver to register a tap. I'm all in for N900 quality resistives but others do suck. Even the omnia II screen sucked.

(I have noticed that good resistive screens always have bezels. Maybe the bezel-less screens probably have to be thicker in order to be safe from peeling)

On the other hannd, capacitive with wacom rock (gnote).

im also interested in buying buying Aurora 2 or Elf 2 because of Dual Core CPU. thanks for the review. run some HD games on it in your video. i want to see that how capable it is to run HD games.

I refuse to say that manufacturer's name aloud.

Ainol... no thanks.

Agree. Especially with the addition of that word "aurora" this device name sounds like a goatse for tablet geeks. Not something I'd be interested buying...

How about saying "I got Ainol Elf... the 7 inch sized one"

From my experience, most western online shops set their prices pretty high compared to more unknown, Chinese wholesalers.
I probably could have bought the Aurora from somewhere more local, but as you say, the nearer the retailer/wholesaler, the more it'll cost you. Fortunately at least some Chinese wholesalers seem to have something inside their head, since they offer express shipping at a fair price. Me and my friend, for instance, gladly paid $22 extra for 4-9 day shipping compared to the standard China shipping time(usually 30 days to Sweden).

I'm not sure if ICS really are that much faster, of if the hardware simply evolves - there's a Gingerbread build for the Aurora that supposedly is very fast. However, ICS makes much more sense on a tablet IMO.

I can't really judge the battery life between ICS and Gingerbread, but the Aurora seems to have decent battery life. On Tuesday I used it from about 9 'o clock to about 11:30, and the battery went from 100% to about 60%. That is with Wifi on and screen on about 90% of the time. Idle should also be pretty good as I've set Android to turn off Wifi when the screen is off, unless the tablet is charging.

Re the missing games, it identifies itself as a Samsung Galaxy SII. It makes sense since they share the same GPU - meaning no games come up which won't work. I've tried a Motorola Xoom build.prop but Market didn't "re-recognize" my device as new one so I switched back.

Perhaps I haven't made clear what I use it for. Mainly, I was looking for something that can always be with me, whether in bed, commuting and so on. I usually browse a lot on my iPhone, but now I can simply share the iPhone's 3G connection and browse away on a vastly bigger screen. I also use it for comics/e-books, and with the IPS screen the experience is somewhat decent. I also play the occasional game, but that's not what I mainly use it for.
So far, it's been pretty nice. One thing which I've found pretty annoying is the glossy back, it gets very smudgy quick and laying it flat in your palm does not feel very nice. I'm thinking of investing in a fitting silicon protector and cutting appropriate holes myself, as there's no OEM silicon protectors.