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Conker SX80
Powerful, slender yet very rugged 8-inch Android tablet for when even the biggest phone won't do.
(by Conrad H. Blickenstorfer)
UK-based Tablet Technologies sells an interesting lineup of rugged and semi-rugged tablets and handhelds to military, industrial and enterprise customers all around the world. One of their latest offerings is the Conker SX80, a rugged and amazingly slender 8-inch Android tablet that also impresses with remarkable performance.
The Conker SX80 is small for a tablet but bigger than smartphones (hopefully) will ever be. With a footprint of 9 x 5.35 inches and weighing just over a pound, it can easily be held and operated, and perhaps even stuck into a coat pocket. The display doesn't go all the way to the edge, which means you can hold the tablet without inadvertently making the touch screen react (one of our pet peeves with phones and tablets where the screen goes to the edge or even wraps around). Perhaps the most remarkable thing when you use the Conker SX80: it really is not thicker than a smartphone in a protective case.
The 8.0-inch display of the Conker SX80 represents in terms of size, in our opinion, the new small end for tablets. When we reviewed a couple of 6-inch Conker handhelds a couple of years ago, 6 inches was still "phablet" territory. Now, with smartphones pushing 7 inches, that awkward term is gone and real tabets start at 8.
While the Conker dazzles with its slender profile, its full 1920 x 1200 resolution is no less appreciated. It means 283 pixels per inch, which is sharper than any Surface Pro or even iPad Pro. The capacitive multi-touch IPS display is quick and responsive, has toughened glass plus protector, and perfect viewing angles. It's bright enough at a measured 425 nits.
The SX80 has an interesting mix of touch buttons and physical buttons. On the physical side are Power, volume up and down, a dedicated camera button, and one for the scanning option. But there's also an iPhone-esque, albeit oval, center button that does "home" and does fingerprint authentification. It is flanked by the other two (non-lit) capacitive Android buttons.
The Conker SX80 is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon SDM636 mobile platform running at up to 1.8GH, (see SDM636 product brief),  supplemented by an Adreno 509 GPU on the graphics side. This platform, initially introduced late 2017, is used in numerous modern smartphones.
The Conker SX80's wired connectivity is limited to a micro-USB port and a 3.5mm audio jack. A 12-pin surface mount connector on the back of the tablet currently supports vehicle mount and an external RFID module. RAM is a sufficient 4GB, onboard storage is 64GB, supplementable by up to 128GB in the unit's micro-SD card slot.
On the software side, the Conker SX80 is based on Android 8.1 "Oreo." Oreo was initially released summer 2017 and we'd have liked to see version 9, "Pie." The Conker 80 does come with Android GMS, where GMS stands for Google Mobile Services. That means access to the Google Play Store with its gargantuan number of apps, as well as popular Google apps.
Looks great outside. Inside, too?
Unlike handheld computers, or laptops, it's difficult to truly differentiate one tablet from another. It's like modern smartphones. In essence, you've seen one, you've seen them all.
Tablets like the Conker SX80 are fairly generic. The era where Western computer companies designed and manufactured their own products are almost completely gone. Companies like Tablet Technologies are sourcing their product lineups from the vast marketplace of Asian electronics, providing value-added in terms of software, services, solutions, warranties and procuring the requisite governmental approvals. But these are still essentially white box devices made in China. So the questions comes up: is quality up to par?
In this tablet's case, definitely. Like any prior Conker-branded device we examined, the SX80 feels rock-solid and has a high-quality feel to it. There is none of the flex and chintzy feel of generic (and even some brand name) product. But what would we find inside?
The housing of the SX80 consists of an orange black ABS plastic front and and a black backside cover. The orange front has thick rubberized overmoldings for protection. The back plate is secured to the front with almost 20 small black Philips head screws. Once those are removed, the back plate comes off easily, but be careful: there are two tight-fitting ribbon connectors.
Sealing between back and front is via a very solid tongue and groove design with a thick replaceable orange o-ring seal. Inside, everything looks and feels extremely clean, with excellent fit and finish.
A big surprise is the thick, solid, custom-designed magnesium plate inside the SX80. We didn't expect that. This gives the tablet rigidity and strength. It also has compartments, mounting points, and wire and ribbon guides. Very impressive. The system board itself is tiny. Much of the interior real estate is taken up by the tablet's 4-3/4 x 3/7/8 inch 22.8 watt-hour Li-Ion battery that the company says is good for about 8 hours on a full charge. It's not externally accessible, but replacement should be easier than that of most modern smartphone batteries.
What performance can you expect?
What can one expect in performance from the Conker SX80 tablet? That's not quite as easy to determine as it is with Windows-based systems. RuggedPCReview's Android benchmark database, while rapidly growing, is still much smaller, and Android benchmarks are significantly less consistent over different processor families and different benchmark versions than in the Windows world.
In addition, unless with Intel Core processors where you pretty much know what you're going to get performancewise, it's much less so with the ARM-based chips that power Android devices. Progress is fast and furious, and what was quick enough last year isn't now.
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Conker SX80 Benchmarks/Comparisons
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PERFORMANCE COMPARISON
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Conker
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Conker
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RuggON
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Janam
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Model
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SX80
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SX6
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PA501
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XT200
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Type
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Tablet
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Phablet
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Tablet
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Handheld
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Display size
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8.0"
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6.0"
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10.0"
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5.0"
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Year
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2020
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2017
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2019
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2019
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Processor
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Qualcomm
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Qualcomm
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Qualcomm
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Qualcomm
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Processor Model
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SDM636
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MSM8909
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SD660
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SD450
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AnTuTu
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148,302
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24,750
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162,015
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71,524
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Vellamo Metal
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2,481
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833
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2,858
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1,351
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Vellamo Multicore
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3,317
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943
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3,840
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2,114
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Vellamo Browser
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4,674
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1,299
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5,921
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2,432
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The Conker SX80 feels effortlessly quick, just as users the world over have come to expect from modern phones and premium tablets. Our benchmark runs show that the SX80 absolutely blows away an older Conker handheld that we tested not even three years ago. Progress with ARM-based chips is that rapid. What's really impressive is that the SX80 isn't far behind the fastest rugged tablet we've tested to date, RuggON's big, industrial-grade SOL PA501.
Quite rugged, but more data, please!
Sadly, "Quite rugged, but more data, please!" has become a bit of a refrain in our testing of rugged devices. Rugged gear costs more than consumer tech, and rugged device customers are willing to spend extra because of the ruggedness, so, vendors, please do supply more than the barest minimum of ruggedness specs.
The Conker SX80 looks well-protected, and its impressive magnesium-fortified innards certainly speaks volumes about lasting, but, unfortunately, the spec sheet doesn't contain much in terms of ruggedness data. The Conker SX80 can be dropped from four feet to concrete (we think it can handle more). Ingress protection is at the IP65 level, which means it is fully dustproof and can handle water spray from all directions (it's so well sealed that it could easily do more with some simple port plugs). It has a wide operating temperature range of 14 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit (though that's not on the spec sheet either).
We'd like to see much more test data. Pretty please, Conker folk, you could easily do that, and a tablet as good as the SX80 deserves it.
Remarkably good cameras
Like virtually all modern handhelds and tablets, the Conker SX80 has front (5-megapixel) and rear (13-megapixel) cameras. We used the standard Camera app that came with the SX80. Our sample pics defaulted to 4,160 x 3,120 pixel (which amounts to 13mp). The camera worked very well. Click on the sample picture compilation to see it in full size.
On the video side, you get up to 1080p from the front-facing vidcam, and up tp 4k from the rear-facing documentation camera.
For some reason, cameras integrated into Android devices have always been superior to what we usually find in Windows-based devices, by a lot. This may be a hardware or (more likely) a software issue. As is, the SX80 does really well with imaging. Which is good, because that's what customers, spoiled by the excellent cameras in smartphones, are expecting these days.
Conker SX80: the bottom line
Android owns the smartphone market, which means that Android used on tablets at work requires very little training. With their Conker SX80, Tablet Technologies offers a compelling small Android tablet that's remarkably light and slender, but also impresses with both build quality and modern smartphone-like performance. Its excellent 8-inch display means it offers a bigger screen than any smartphone, but it's still small and handy enough to go anywhere. Bolt-on expansion modules allow customization for various types of deployments. -- Conrad H. Blickenstorfer, February 2020
Tablet Technologies Ltd, resides at the exceedingly picturesque address of Calf Pens, Hatfield Park Farm, Takeley, Bishop's Stortford, UK. They sell an interesting and growing lineup of Conker-branded rugged and semi-rugged tablets and handhelds to military, industrial and enterprise customers all around the world.
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 Specifications Conker SX80
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Added
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Added 02/2020
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Type
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Rugged Android tablet
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Processor
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Octa-core Qualcomm SnapDragon SDM636
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CPU Speed
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Up to 1.8GHz
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RAM
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4GB
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Storage
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64GB eMMC
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OS
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Android 8.1
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Graphics
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Adreno 509
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Expansion slots
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1 x Micro SDXC (max 128GB), 1 x nano SIM
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Display type
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IPS TFT with LED backlight (measured: 425 nits) with toughened glass
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Display size/res
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8.0-inch 1920 x 1200 pixel (16:10 aspect ratio) 283 ppi
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Digitizer/pens
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Capacitive multi-touch
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Keys
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Power, volume up/down, camera, barcode trigger, Home key
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Housing
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Plastic with rubber boot
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Operating Temp
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-20°C to +55°C
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Sealing
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IP65
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Drop
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4 feet
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Shock
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Unknown
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Humidity
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5-95% relative humidity
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Thermal shock
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Unknown
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Vibration
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Unknown
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Security
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Unknown
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Certifications
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Unknown
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Size (WxHxD)
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9.0 x 5.35 x 0.43 inches (229 x 136 x 11 mm)
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Weight
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1.1 pounds (510 grams)
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Power
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Internal rechargeable 3.8V/6,000mAH, 22.8 whr (est. 8 hours), wireless charging enabled
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Interface
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1 x micro USB (power + OTG), 1 x 2.5mm audio
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Cameras
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Front: 5-megapixel, up to 1080p video; rear: 13-megapixel AF + LED flash, up to 4k video
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Scanner
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Optional integrated Zebra SE2100 1D/2D barcode scanner
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Sensors
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gravity, proximity, G-sensor, ambient light, e-Compass, gyro
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Wireless
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Dual-band 802.11 b/g/n/ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC (ISO 14443A/B, MiFARE 1K/4K, DESFire, ISO 15693, ISO 18092, ISO 21481), 3G/4G LTE WWAN, GNSS (GPS, Glonass, BeiDou, Galileo, QZSS and SBAS)); optional bolt-on RFID LF or UHF
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List price
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inquire
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Web page
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Conker SX80 product page
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Brochure
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Conker SX80 datasheet (PDF)
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Conker SX80
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