Review: Asus Fonepad 7, A dual-SIM voice calling tablet

Introduction

ASUS Fonepad 7

Asus is known for bringing cutting edge gadgets at right prices in recent times. Just we few days back it had launched it flagship tablet called Fonepad in India. Its a dual sim, voice calling tablet comes with a competitive price tag of Rs 8,999.

Getting to know about Fonepad-7

The out of the box this Android tabet comes with an impressive 7-inch WSVGA (1024×600pixels) display with a pixel density of 169ppi. It is powered by a 1.2GHz Intel Atom Z2520 ‘Clover Trail+’ dual-core processor with Hyper-Threading technology, 1GB of RAM, 4GB/8GB storage variants, microSD card slot to expand memory up to 64GB, 2-megapixel rear camera, VGA front-facing camera and up to 10 hours of battery life.

Quality & Build

The plastics of the tablet is just average and we were not too impressed. We think the finishing could have been much better. The Touch is quite responsive and the display quality lives upto its configurations. The connectivity options include dual-SIM card slots, 3G support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and on the software front it runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with a’ ZenUI. The company has also assured that the OS is upgradable to Android 4.4 KitKat. The tablets runs very smoothly and we didn't observe any lag while mutitasking on it. Unlike Lenovo A1000 which launched almost one year back, trails a lot behind. The dual-sim capability is specially aimed to attract youth population of India. Clearly Asus scores over its rivals clearly.

Cheat-sheet

Features	Asus Fonepad 7	Flipkart Digiflip Pro XT712
Display	7-inch WSVGA (1024×600 pixels)	7-inch 1280×800 pixels IPS
Processor	1.2GHz Intel Atom Z2520 ‘Clover Trail+’ dual-core with Hyper-Threading technology	1.3GHz MediaTek MTK8382 quad-core processor
RAM	1GB	1GB
Storage	4GB/8GB expandable	16GB expandable
Cameras	2-megapixel/VGA	5-megapixel/2-megapixel
Battery	Up to 10 hours	3,000mAh
Android OS	4.3 Jelly Bean (upgradable)	4.2.2 Jelly Bean
Price	Rs 8,999	Rs 9,999

General observations & Verdict 

The price factor is one of the key usp of the Fonepad 7 and will be up against the recently launched Flipkart Digiflip Pro XT712, which too is a voice calling tablet priced in the sub-Rs 10,000 segment. Flipkart’s tablet features a 7-inch 1280×800 pixels IPS display, 1.3GHz MediaTek MTK8382 quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB internal storage expandable up to 32GB..

It will be interesting to see how competition unfolds between Asus & Digiflip but for us Brand Asus will score of Flipkart any day.