Asus Fonepad 7 (2014) Review

In last couple of year we had seen several version’s of Asus Fonepad, first they released a 3G variant, then they released dual SIM variant, then Fonepad 7 (FE375CG) and the latest among them is Fonepad 7 (FE170CG) which comes with companies all new ZenUI on top of Android KitKat OS. Today we have this latest Asus Fonepad 7 for review, if we compare it with last year’s Fonepad 7 (FE375CG) then some features has been downgraded like camera, in last year Fonepad 7 we had seen 5MP camera but in this latest Fonepad we have 2MP camera. But apart from downgrading features, this Fonepad 7 is still one of the top voice calling tablet which you can buy at this time.

Hands On Video :-

Inbox Contents Of Asus Fonepad 7:-

When you first open box, you will find following contents in it :-

• Asus Fonepad 7,
• Manuals,
• Wall Charger,
• Micro USB cable

There is no ear phone’s inside the box so you have to buy them separately.

Build And Design of Asus Fonepad 7 :-

In terms of build and design Asus Fonepad 7 (2014) has no big difference if we compare it with last year’s Fonepad 7, in last year’s Fonepad 7 we had seen glossy and slippery back panel which is now replaced with textured back panel which provide better and nice gripe of the device. Asus has used some good quality plastic on the device which feels solid in hands and looks nice.

On right side of the device you will find volume rockers followed by your power/sleep buttons, these are the plastic buttons but feels sturdy.  On left side you have a flap, when you remove flap you will have access to your dual SIM slots, both will be your Micro SIM, and a Micro SD card slot which allows you to expand memory up to 64GB.

At bottom you have no connectivity ports, just a primary mic, there is no secondary mic for noise cancellation on the device.

At top of the device you have a 3.5MM audio jack and a Micro USB port for data sync or charging this device. At back of the device you have 2MP camera which misses flash. As told earlier Asus Fonepad 7 has textured back panel which gives nice grip to the device, at middle of back panel you have Asus branding and some branding of Sonic Master at bottom, an Asus home made technology to delivery smooth, rich, and detailed sound in music, movies, and voice.

Asus has decided to remove dual speakers which we had seen in last year’s Asus Fonepad 7 with just a speaker which is placed just above the screen, next to your speaker you will have front facing VGA camera, below 7 inch screen you have another Asus branding. It has a 7 inch screen which gives you good quality of feedback. In our test we were able to use screen under sunlight and it performed decently.

Hardware And Specs Specs Of Asus Fonepad 7 :-

Under the hood, Asus Fonepad 7 is powered by Dual core Intel Atom Z2520 clocked at 1.2GHz along with 1GB of RAM and PowerVR SGX 544MP GPU, as per storage it comes with 8GB of internal storage which can be further expandable up to 64GB via microSD card.

At back it has 2MP rear camera which can record HD videos, absence of LED flash make it hard for you to take images in low light conditions. For connectivity it has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Micro-USB, GPS, GPRS/ EDGE, and 3G.

Software And UI of Asus Fonepad 7 :-

The review unit of Asus Fonepad 7 (2014) runs on Android 4.4.2 KitKt wrapped under ZenUI, earlier it was launched with Android 4.3 and recently it has got update. We had got news that after updating to latest version launcher become unstable, however we also heard that Asus as pushed another update which fixed all such issues, the review unit which we got had no such issue and it worked perfectly fine. On first boot you will get around 450MB of free RAM which is quite good, if we talk about storage then it has around 2 GB of storage for your apps.

The ZenUI is almost the same which we had seen on Zenfone 4.5, Zenfone 5 and Zenfone 6, on lock screen you have access to Camera, Messaging and Phone Dialer which seems to be very useful at different scenario, apart from this you will also find What’s Next (yeah that’s what Asus is calling it) which shows your upcoming events. ZenUI is one of the most colorful and smooth UI we came across. It respond very well and run smoothly. It do comes with Easy mode which shows bigger icons and can be useful for older people.

There are lots of pre-installed apps, just like other ZenUI powered devices like Do It Later, Share Link, Party Link, PC Link, Remote Link, Asus WebStorage, company’s cloud storage app which gives 5 GB free storage for lifetime, and Omlet Chat, free instant messaging app, some these apps are useful but if you dont find them useful then there is no way to remove them. Keyboard of ZenUI is one of the best stock keyboard we had seen, keys are nicely placed and it comes with an extra row at the top of numbers which helps in many cases.

Camera Of Asus Fonepad 7 :-

Asus Fonepad 7 comes with a downgraded camera of 2MP, in last year’s Fonepad 7 we had seen 5MP camera. This 2MP camera can take decent images in daylight, but if you gonna use it under low light then you will find lots of noise in it, thanks to the absence of LED flash. At front you have 0.3MP camera which is again decent for video calling but not great.

Check out some image of rear camera (click on them to see them in full size) :-

Video Sample :-

Battery Of Asus Fonepad 7 :-

Asus hasnt mentioned specification of battery but in our test it lasted a more than a day in moderate usage and approx 11hrs 20 minutes in heavy usage, which is very good. It do comes with a power saving mode which work as it should.

Call Quality of Asus Fonepad 7 :-

Call quality over Fonepad 7 was also very good, we never faced any call drop or such in it, we had tested it with dual SIM and checked call over both SIM, it went smoothly and audio quality was smooth too.

Performance Of Asus Fonepad 7 :-

Asus Fonepad 7 runs on Android 4.4.2 KitKat wrapped under ZenUI, if we talk about UI of this device then its very smooth, there were some news of lagging after updating but after another update its been fixed for many users, however we never faced it. We played full HD movie, played games like Temple Run OZ, Subway Surfer and Front Line Commando and it went very smoothly.

As this year’s Asus Fonepad 7 comes with single speaker but it didnt affected audio quality at all, sound was loud and good enough.

Here are some benchmark test results :-

AnTuTu :- 17529

Quadrant Benchmark :- 6703

NeNa Mark2 :- 60.4fps

Multi Touch :- 10

Final Verdict on Asus Fonepad 7 :-

If we leave camera segment then its a very good voice calling tablet at this price tag. The build quality and performance of this tablet is very good. UI is good and it work very smoothly, as it has ZenUI running on top of Android which has nice animations and colors which looks good. You can get it for around Rs. 7K-Rs. 8K and at this price tag its one of the best choice.

Pros :-

• Nicely priced
• Smooth UI
• Good Battery

Cons :-

• Average camera