Oukitel RT8 review: a 20,000 mAh rugged tablet with a 48 MP main camera for under $300

Oukitel reached out to me and asked if I was willing to take a look at its RT8 tablet, which became available for purchase on April 4. You may remember I reviewed the non-rugged "OT8" tablet back in January, which I called cheap and cheerful, because that's really all it was. Well, I was excited to get the opportunity to throw this thing around and put it through its paces, so let's see how it holds up.

As can be seen from the specifications, there's no groundbreaking hardware involved here. The Mediatek Helio G99 is almost two years old at this point, which also rules out the tablet supporting 5G. There's no eSIM support and no fingerprint scanner onboard either.

Let's take a look at the bands it supports:

What's in the box

The packaging is standard fare. The cardboard box includes:

• Tablet x 1
• Power Adapter x 1
• USB Cable x 1
• Leather Wrist Strap x1
• Screwdriver x1
• Ejector Tool x 1
• Protective Film x1
• User Manual x1
• Warranty Card x1

The packaging is the same experience from other Oukitel or Doogee tablets, however instead of a trifold case, the RT8 comes with physical stand and leather wrist strap that must both be screwed into the back of the tablet with four screws. I think an opportunity was missed here to make the wrist strap permanent on the back, with the stand being the only optional addition.

In any case, you need a screwdriver handy to remove or swap between the two options, and the screws are quite small and not of the Philips screw head type for whatever reason. Although screws with one line look cool and retro, they are annoying to use. I affixed the stand because it can also be used as a handle for carrying around. Don't get me wrong, they are both nice additions.

Design

The tablet itself has an all-glass front protected with Gorilla Glass 5 and a "Polymer" housing. I had to look up what Polymer is, and once you get past jargon like: "big molecules made by linking up smaller repeating chemical units." Uh, okay... well, it feels like a cross between metal and plastic and is cold to the touch. It appears to give a little when I press on the sides of the tablet.

I wanted to find out exactly what it is though, and I discovered that polymers are not derived from crude oil, do not release toxic fumes when burned, and are generally more sustainable than plastics since they are more biodegradable than synthetic plastics. So, it is a stronger, more responsible alternative to plastic then, good stuff!

The Type-C USB port, SIM, and SDCard slot can be found centered on the right side of the tablet (in landscape mode) which are protected against water ingress with rubber covers that are easily peeled away with a fingernail. Below that are two speakers (also on the left side) that produce a quad sound output. On the top, and from the left side, is a mic hole, volume buttons, and the power button.

At a few grams short of a kilo, this tablet becomes heavy quite quickly when held for prolonged periods with one hand, which ruled out the wrist strap option for me. I would say it is not comfortable to use as an e-reader in bed, as it becomes too heavy for that purpose. However, thanks to the stand, you could prop it up on your lap or flat surface quite easily and not have to worry about the weight of it.

One thing that surprised me is that this tablet did not come with a screen protector, and that's a good thing! Usually, when I receive a rugged phone or tablet from Oukitel or Doogee, it comes preinstalled despite the fact the device already has Gorilla Glass, which protects it from scratches! I don't even have a screen protector on my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, why buy a $1500 device just to stick a cheap bit of plastic over a premium display that already comes with scratch resistance?

According to the specs, the screen is certified by TÜV SÜD for low blue light, which means that it protects your eyes in the dark and prevents eye fatigue during long sessions.

Setting up and usage

Upon powering up the tablet and going through the initial Android 13 setup steps, it felt like I was looking directly at the Sun! My fears were confirmed when I eventually got to the Android Home screen and pulled down the notifications shade to get to the Brightness setting. For some reason, it was set to 100% with Adaptive brightness toggled off! I could also see that the Volume setting was also set to 100%, which I also corrected.

The Oukitel RT8 comes with Android 13 preinstalled, which is completely stock. I could not find any third-party apps installed (aside from the "Toolbag" app). This tablet even uses the default Android home launcher. All of Oukitel's devices are said to come with 24 months of warranty.

As far as Android support goes, it's poor. These companies based out of China only commit to, at max, four security updates a year for one year. Given that the warranty is a year longer at 24 months in comparison to Doogee, one would hope for extended software support. However, my contact told me that there is no upgrade path to Android 14. So basically as far as Android support goes, you're on your own, chum.

As with the OT8 tablet, it is a pretty stock experience, but it adds the tools you will find on the Oukitel rugged phones too, such as "Toolbag," which (helpfully) asks for audio and video recording permissions directly upon opening it and then applies them to the different tools within that app.

The RT8 comes with Google Widevine L3 support, which is the lowest-supported option, where the DRM is entirely software-based. That also means it can only stream up to 480p. I do want to make clear that the screen is 2K though, so it can stream FullHD fine, just not Google Widevine. Having said that, I loaded up some YouTube media content and found that the picture is quite nice and easy to view.

The "quad" speakers get quite loud, but they sound a bit tinny. There's no bass to speak of, which is disappointing for media consumption. However, you could pair it with Bluetooth headphones since there's no 3.5mm jack. Although this comes with physical SIM support, I did not test call quality because who is using a tablet to make phone calls anyway?

Benchmarks

Because people like benchmarks, I started off with GFXBench, which tests the GPU.

As you can see from the last panel, the low 605.7 frames score compares to old devices from up to nine years ago, like the Samsung Galaxy S7, which tended to catch fire on its own, or the Nvidia Shield Tablet from 2015. Not good.

Next up, I ran Geekbench 6, which returned a Single-Core score of 731, up just 1 point over the Oukitel WP27 rugged smartphone, which should be no surprise to anyone, considering it has the same Helio G99 SoC. The Multi-Core score on the RT8 was quite a bit lower at 1,984 vs 2,036 for the WP27, which is a 52-point gap.

As far as comparable devices go, it scored too low for Geekbench to show any device with a similar score.

Last but not least, the AnTuTu benchmark tests came in at 390,797, which is 10,656 lower than the 401,453 points scored by the same spec Oukitel WP27

It should be noted that the AnTuTu score gave a warning that it "could not connect to the internet" despite the app being able to download test updates.

Cameras

As I have said in previous reviews I've done, I am no camera buff; I'm a point-and-shoot kind of guy, but it is clear to me that smartphone makers seem to want to concentrate a hell of a lot on camera quality, sometimes at the expense of other features, and here is also no exception. On the rear we have a impressive-sounding 48 MP rear shooter with a F/1.79 aperture, 79.4° Wide Angle made by Samsung, there's also a 20 MP Night vision camera with F/1.8 aperture and 78.5° FOV made by Sony, along with a 5 MP macro camera with a F/2.2 Aperture, 83.15° FOV.

Gallery: Oukitel RT8 main camera

I found myself also having to second guess when snapping pictures because the amount of sunlight on the display sometimes made it hard to view what I was capturing. Unfortunately, there's no optical image stabilization (OIS), which is a common omission on cheaper devices, however the photos I took came out quite well if I say so myself. Apparently, Google gets around this with its Pixel phones by using the gyroscope for stabilization, but no such luck here.

Night Vision

I tried out the Night Vision camera and was disappointed to find that I had to enable it manually. I was in my bedroom, which I can make completely pitch black during the day thanks to my sun-blocking blinds, however the sensor does not switch over to it in extreme low light.

The camera is "passable." The images are not that clear, and the lack of OIS really starts to show when I try to take a picture of my robovac. It took four attempts until I managed to snap a clear picture from a distance of about half a meter (20 inches). The odd thing was that I could see the camera focusing, and when it was clear, and I took the shot, it immediately started focusing again, resulting in a blurry picture.

Some close-ups came out fine right away, though, like that of SwitchBot that operates my portable airco.

Battery

The tablet came with already 96% charge, and after it dropped to 95% it showed an estimate of 23h28m left, this was almost 23 hours ago and after only doing a few benchmarks and taking some pictures using the rear camera and watching some YouTube videos I still have 86% left. This battery will get you some serious uptime before you need to juice it. A nice feature is that it also supports reverse charging, so you can ensure it is full before going to work and use it to top up your main smartphone if needed.

According to Oukitel, you can expect:

• 90 Days in Standby
• 112 Hours of Calling
• 37 Hours of Music playback
• 12 Hours of Video playback
• 24 Hours of Gaming

But this is all also backed with 33W Fast charging, which is definitely a good feature to juice the 20,000 mAh battery.

Conclusion

For $299.99, you can stick a data SIM in this and not worry about getting on Wi-Fi, which could be useful when traveling and public Wi-Fi is unavailable or just plain terrible, as was the case with a recent trip on the Eurostar. With laptops and Ultrabooks getting ever smaller and lighter, and smartphone screens getting ever larger, it becomes increasingly difficult to justify lugging around a tablet.

However, with the included mobile data option, it does become an enticing choice for media consumption with Full HD support at a low price point. Let's not forget the massive battery this thing has too. At 20,000mAh, it will get you through the day and charge your other devices like wireless headphones and your smartphone.

What more can I say? Stick your mobile data SIM in it and enjoy streaming on the go, and thanks to the ruggedness, you will have less chance of damaging it. If you look close enough, there's definitely a few deal-breakers here, especially with the older chipset, and spotty Android support, but it's priced right in comparison, after all it's not a $800+ iPad. I also find it disappointing that we had to lose out on 5G support, a fingerprint sensor, or an AMOLED screen just so its selling point could be about the 48 MP main camera.

Coupons!

The Oukitel RT8 costs $299.99 on the official website and became available for free shipping on April 5. It's also available on Amazon.com, and my contact was also able to secure a 5% coupon exclusive for Neowin readers. That means when you apply the $30 off in-page coupon, and add the 5% coupon with the code 2YREQMVF on checkout, the price drops to $292.99, which is cheaper than on the official website. The code is valid until April 30th 2024.

April 10 Update

After we published our review, it seems Oukitel had a change of heart to include the kickstand with the tablet, initially the listing on Amazon stated that the kickstand, which is heavily featured in our review, was included in the purchase with the description:

【 Eva Shockproof Shell & 180° Rotating Foldable Stand 】

However the "& 180° Rotating Foldable Stand" part of the description was removed. A reader supplied us with a screenshot of the original description, so if you feel you were duped with ommission you can make use of Amazon's refund policy.

On the official Oukitel website, it says that the "shoulders strap and alloy stand are sold separately" (screenshot) but as of writing no such accessories are available for purchase on the site, and our reader was told by Oukitel Support on email:

Dear customer
Our RT8 is not equipped with a kickstand. Our official website also does not sell such accessories.
If you need a stand, you can check on AliExpress to see if there are any such accessories for sale.

So you should factor in this disappointing addition to our review when making a decision to purchase. You will not get the kickstand accessory, unless they decide to go back to what they initially promised.

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