Sunday 8 March 2015

JXD S5110B

JXD S5110B

This last device we're looking at is another JXD, one from the past as it turns out. The JXD S5110B is the older brother of the excellent S7800b, in terms of hardware at least, but it still has its place in the Android handheld line up.

The S5110B has an older Amlogic MX-S dual-core 1.3GHz processor, together with a Mali 400 MP2 GPU and 1GB of system memory running Android 4.1. It comes as an 8GB unit, but you can expand the storage to 32GB with the right SD card.

Wi-fi, as well as mini-HDMI out and a g-sensor are available, along with a rear 0.3MP camera and a single speaker, which is pretty tinny to say the least. The screen is a 5“ capacitive touch LCD, with a maximum resolution of 800 x 480.


There are a pair of analogue sticks, a four-buttoned D-Pad and a four-button arrangement, along with Start and Select buttons located toward the bottom. In terms of design, it works reasonably well, but rather than the analogue sticks being placed in a more comfortable higher position, as they are on the JXD S7800b, in this instance you'll find them awkwardly arranged below the D-Pad and four buttons. We did find the shoulder buttons to be a little wobbly in their mounts, and to add to that, there was an awful lot of travel in them too.

Although the design isn't quite as well thought out as the S7800b, this JXD model isn't too bad. It doesn't feel particularly cheap; in fact it's very well constructed, especially the front facing buttons and analogue sticks. The only design and construction problem is the shoulder buttons.

In terms of performance, the JXD S5110B isn't brilliant, but it's far better than some of the devices in this test. The slightly aged dual-core CPU can just keep up with most of the latest Android games, although to be fair the more demanding titles do struggle to run. The Android 4.1 OS works well enough, though, and as with the newer JXD model, there's a huge amount of emulation available and downloadable through the use of the Happy Chick app.

Happy Chick, we have to state, is a game emulator app and a product we absolutely despise, due to its odd behaviour and the fact that it rarely seems to work for us without something untoward going on with the device it's running on. Anyway, the point is the hardware itself is okay, and you can get away with some light entertainment and retro emulation.

The JXD S5110B is a reasonably good Android handheld, but it's not great. A few years ago it would have been top of its game and worth every penny, just as the S7800b is now, but today it's starting to look its age, and the mobile platform world moves extremely fast. You can pick one up for around £75, which again is quite a lot for yesterday's technology.

So although good, you're much better off saving a little longer and buying one of the more recent JXD models.