SuS It's FonePad

Sub-20k tablet with Voice Calling,Jelly Bean and a decent processor.Is this tablet a good alternative to more expensive Phablets?

A 7-inch tablet with calling is a product finding fast acceptance in India.Being value conscious,many of us think it is better to just carry around one device instead of a tablet and  a smartphone. Asus with Fonepad is also Intel's second phone device in India market after the Lava Xolo. First tablet to run on a low power consumption chip.

All the more so,when its manufactured bu some company that delivered the Google Nexus 7 recently.So does this budget called-tablet have what it takes to take on more expensive but smart Phablets?

It's time to find out!


SPECS AND PERFORMANCE
The Fonepad comes with an Intel Lexington-based Z2420 Atom processing chip that clocks in at 1.2 GHz, and is complemented with a 1GB RAM. Together, they perform everyday tasks such as browsing, handling social network and media apps and e-book reading pretty well. I found this better than the choppy processing on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2. However, if you play a ‘heavy’ game on the Fonepad, it shows signs of fatigue and becomes very sluggish. A lightly skinned Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS provides a very smooth and responsive interface.

This tablet sports a very rich IPS display that supports a 1280x800 pixels resolution. I could use it comfortably both indoors and outdoors (after wiping the screen free of smudges, though). The screen also offers a good range of viewing angles – except for extreme angles, there is no colour loss or distortion.


MULTIMEDIA
Since the UI is only lightly skinned, the Fonepad comes with the stock Android media player. And I’m not complaining because I find it pretty darn good. It’s easy to sort and share media with this native media player. The external speaker volume level is a bit disappointing, but the good news is that it manages to deliver decent audio fidelity. There’s 8GB of internal storage on paper, but only about 4.4GB of it is accessible.
To compensate, you do have cloud storage options and a microSD expansion port of up to 64GB, so that should sort out the average need for music and video file storage space.
What’s truly a delight on this tab is the video experience. This tablet offers a very bright 7-inch screen that supports 720p videos – apt for watching sitcoms during a long, boring commute or stopover at an airport.

CAMERA
THE SNAPPER IS A BIG DISAPPOINTMENT. TRUE, I DIDN’T EXPECT IT TO PULL A NOKIA LUMIA 920 OR HTC ONE CAMERA, BUT I DID EXPECT BETTER THAN WHAT IT MANAGES TO DELIVER. THE 3.1-MEG REAR CAMERA DELIVERS AVERAGE RESULTS IN BRIGHT OUTDOORS. AND WHILE SHOOTING INDOORS OR IN LOW LIGHT, LET’S JUST SAY I’VE SEEN FEWER GRAINS ON THE BEACH. COLOUR REPRODUCTION TOO, IS VERY SHODDY.

BATTERY LIFE
With a 4,270 mAh battery, coupled with the low power consumption attributes of the Intel Atom SoC, the Fonepad delivers a good battery backup of up to 11 hours on only WiFi usage, and 9.5 hours on cellular data usage. These tests included switching between 720p videos, YouTube streaming, music, a little bit of Subway Surfers and a few regular calls. That, for a tablet, is a very impressive performance.

CALL QUALITY
The call quality is quite decent – the earpiece is loud and clear enough and on full volume you can hear the other person even when travelling in a crowded bus at 10 AM on a weekday. The microphone positioning could’ve been better though, as I had to raise my voice at times. Again, it’s a bit weird having to talk on a tab – a handsfree accessory is highly recommended for the sake of convenience.