Indian market is full of tablets from companies like Samsung, Micromax, Lava, Lenovo, Karbonn and many others, with price of the tablets starting at Rs 5,000 and more. Even though most geeks don’t like tablets with Voice calling facility, yet this category of tablets have slowly started to grow.
ASUS Fonepad 7 is one of those devices that fall in the category of tablets with voice calling facility. We will see how good it is in our review. ASUS is the same company that manufactures the popular Google Nexus 7 range of tablets.
Key Features
- 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Clover Trail Plus Z2560 Dual Core Processor
- 7-inch Touchscreen
- 5 MP Primary Camera + 1.2 MP Secondary Camera
- 16 GB Internal Memory with MicroSD support upto 64 GB
- Wi-Fi + 2G/3G
- OS: Android v4.2 (Jelly Bean) OS
- Full HD Recording
Build
ASUS Fonepad 7 comes with an all-plastic body instead of the metallic back like brushed Aluminium (the earlier fonepad model came with brushed Aluminium). It comes with front-facing dual speakers positioned at the top and bottom of the display. You wont find any physical buttons with the tablet on the front display just like most of the Android devices these days.
Apart from that, you can find the Power buttons at the side along with the volume rocker buttons on other side just like smartphones. The slot for inserting the SIM card is integrated quite well on one side of the device and you need a pin to bring that slot out by pushing the pin in it.
Hardware and Display
The tablet comes with a 7-inch Full HD IPS display with resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels and a pixel density of 216 ppi. The resolution of the HD screen is same as other popular tablets like Google Nexus 7 (2012) and Kindle Fire HD, which too offer a resolution of 1280×800 pixels. As it is a full HD display, you can enjoy watching movies on the tablet with HD quality. We faced no issues with display while varying viewing angles. Similarly, the touch on the device was great with no issues.
The Asus Fonepad 7 is powered by a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Z2560 Dual Core Processor (instead of the usual Snapdragon processors that you most often hear about) along with 1 GB DDR2 RAM making it good enough to run apps and games. But if you run heavy or intensive games on the tablet which need more than 1 GB of RAM, you may face issues. As I am not a big gamer (most users fall in that category), I never faced any issues with the tablet.
Just for a small perspective, checkout the screen size of ASUS Fonepad 7 with iPadmini. For me the iPad Mini size is better size for a tablet, but that’s just my opinion.
Camera
It comes with a 5 MP primary camera which is often rare for tablets. It also comes with a 1.2 MP secondary camera which can be used for making video calls. It also lets comes with support for full HD recording at 1920 x 1080 and a Full HD play back.
The picture quality of the main camera is good enough when there is enough light while you are clicking pictures. Also, the main camera doesn’t comes with any Flash and hence the moment light starts dropping, the picture quality too drops. The front camera is only good enough for video calling feature.
Storage
It comes with 16 GB of internal storage space along with support for microSD cards up to 64 GB. As it supports microsd cards, the end user need not bother about any storage issues. He can easily store his documents, pictures, music or movies.
Connectivity
The device comes with support for WiFi, 2G/3G. You can use a SIM card to get access to 2G/3G network and use it for both calling and data connection on the tablet. If you have access to WiFi, you can switch to WiFi instead of the data connection from SIM.
Battery Life
ASUS Fonepad 7 is powered by 3950 mAh Lithium – Polymer battery which is big enough to give you long battery life. While we were using it during the review, it lasted well for more than one day with heavy usage along with few calls. Keep in mind that during our review, we rarely used the device as a phone or rarely made calls through the device even though a SIM was always there.
Operating System
In terms of operating system, it is powered by Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Even though the UI on ASUS Fonepad 7 is not fully stock UI, yet it is almost similar to stock UI with no major differences. It comes with few ASUS addon features like a Battery saving mode along with few apps from ASUS. I am not sure if most end users will ever need ASUS Aps like ASUS storage, but yes the Battery saving mode is a great feature. Battery saving mode can help the end-user use the battery for longer time.
Handson and Review Video
Conclusion
16 GB ASUS Fonepad 7 is priced at the moment at MOP of Rs 15,999 which is quite competitive. Considering that you are getting voice calling feature too along with 3G connectivity, the price looks great. Even if you don’t want to use this tablet for calling or as a primary phone (We fall in that category), yet the device can be a good buy if you need a tablet in this price range.
