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One of the most interesting features of the Noontec A9 is that it uses Google Android 2.3 as an operating system. Noontec claim that this enables the A9 to do a whole host of different things including browing, gaming, shopping, video chat and blogging.
After powering the unit on, we are greeted with a rather familiar looking Android homescreen with a selection of icons for the various applications. Noontec don't pre-install any applications that you wouldn't expect with a basic version of Android.
We downloaded a few different applications onto the device through Google Market (the device hasn't been updated to Play yet) including Facebook, BBC News and BBC iPlayer. BBC iPlayer was essentially useless on the A9 as no video was played when we tried to watch various programs, only audio.
The BBC News was also pretty bad and suffered from some text sizing issues which made it very difficult to read articles unless you're close to the screen. But, at the end of the day, Android 2.3 was designed as a phone operating system so it's not surprising that there are issues.
The lack of proper app support is redeemed in part by the browser. We managed to get the BBC iPlayer website working fine and video playback was smooth.
We didn't have such luck with 4od, though, which experienced stuttering issues. We would recommend using the browser for Facebook as well as the full-size version is much better suited to a large screen than the scaled down mobile app.
The overall browsing experience wasn't great, though, as web pages take quite a while to load and the thumbpad on the keyboard doesn't make it very easy to navigate. We also found ourselves zooming in and out accidentally at points because the web browser is clearly designed for a touch screen, not a thumbpad with mouse buttons.
Unlike the other programs we tested, the YouTube app worked perfectly and we were able to search and play video without issue. The playback quality was very good and there was no stuttering at all.
Unlike the MovieHome V9, the A9 doesn't have room for a hard drive meaning you can't store your media files directly to it. You can however connect external storage devices such as external hard drives and USB drives. We tested the unit with a selection of filetypes including .AVI (XVID) and .MKV and had no issues at all.
