[Hands On] Asus FonePad 7

Nowadays every tablet manufacturer is launching voice calling tablet and due to this Indian market is flooded with voice calling tablets from both Indian and international companies like Samsung, Micromax, Lava, Lenovo, and Karbonn.

Asus has also joined the league by launching FonePad 7, this is the updated version of original FonePad. If we compare FonePad 7 with its original version then it comes with some updated specs, but carries same Intel processor and voice calling support.

Inbox Contents :-

• Asus FonePad 7
• Charger
• USB Cable

Built & Design :-

Asus FonPad 7 comes with almost same design which we had seen in original FonePad, we were disappointed by Asus move by adopting plastic this time as they had adopted brushed aluminum at back.

At front it houses a 7 inch display screen which is surrounded by a black bezel, display screen is placed between two front dual speakers which are the new addition to the tablet. If we leave front dual speaker you wont find any further change in tab from front.

Front does not have any branding which quite a good move by company. Thanks to Android Jelly Bean which provide on screen keys and there is no hard keys.

Another change which you will sport on tablet is replacement of front camera, original FonePad has front camera at top right but now its at the center.

At top of tablet you will find a 3.5 mm audio jack while charging port is placed at bottom. On right you will find Power/Lock, along with Volume Rocker, beneath volume rocker a small outlet for microSD card is located. Asus FonePad 7 is a voice calling tablet and on right side you will find a SIM card tray, you need a pin to bring that tray out.

At back a 5-megapixel rear autofocus camera and misses flash which we didn’t expected. Just below camera there is Asus branding and at bottom you will find Intel branding.

Hardware :-

Asus FonePad 7 is powered by dual-core Intel Clover Trail Plus Z2560 processor clocked at 1.6GHz paired with 1GB of RAM along with a PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU. It comes with 16 GB of internal memory which can be expandable via MicroSD card.

If you consider it to be a dual core processor tablet then you are making mistake, we must accept that it did impressed us with its performance.

Software & UI :-

Asus FonePad 7 runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean wrapped with companies own customized UI, due to which you will find some new and useful features like Asus has added a new Floating apps button at bottom along with three Android onscreen keys which bring some shortcuts which you can assign or edit. Asus has also redesigned notification menu, added some more apps and added new widgets.

Asus hasn’t floated this tablet which lots of apps or feature instead they decided it to keep clean which is good. If we talk about Asus Floating App which has a button at the bottom of screen then its work quite like Samsung’s multi-window, here you can open any other app say calculator over any other running app.

Camera :-

The Asus Fonepad 7 features a 5-megapixel autofocus rear snapper, which can shoot images up to 2592×1944 pixels resolution and can record videos of 1080p at 30 fps. Camera UI is simple and clean, Asus has added few features to its camera like single shot, panorama, beauty face, smile shot and night mode as well as photo effects like black and white, negative, and sepia. Videos under good light conditions seems nice but if you use to shoot videos indoor or under low light then you might have to think a bit as it misses flash.

Here are few sample images which we took along with a video :-

Performance :-

Asus FonePad 7 is powered by dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 processor with Hyper-Threading, and a PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU along with 1 GB of RAM, in our test it worked smoothly, we played games, surfed web and pages loaded without any lag.

Here are few benchmark test which we performed :-

NenaMark :- 60.6

Quadrant :- 8870

AnTuTu :- 18231

Final Verdict :-

Asus FonePad 7 comes with a powerful processor which hasn’t disappointed us in terms of speed, we did played games, browse web, watch movies but we had no complaint about it. Touch experience on Asus FonePad 7 is good too. However we do have complaint over its build quality.

This tab will compete with Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 3 211 and MicroMax Voice calling Tab.

Pros :-

• Nice processor
• Good touch experience
• Good Battery life

Cons :-

• Build quality
• Misses flash at back
• No earphone in package

tA Rating :- 4.5/5