Asus Fonepad

You can call someone with it, but at 7 inches, it’s more of a tablet than a phone

When the first set of tablets came out, a lot of people wondered if these will have calling capabilities, though it would have looked silly holding a 7 inch tablet to one’s ear. But now a slew of new-generation handheld devices are offering this. Asus Fonepad is one such tablet.

The Fonepad is powered by a single-core 1.2 GHz Intel Atom processor. It has a 7 inch 1280×800 pixel IPS LCD touchscreen display and Android 4.1 mobile operating system, which is expected to be upgraded to 4.2.

The tablet has a metal casing. The top part is made of plastic and can be eased off to access a microSD card slot and a micro SIM slot. I was very scared while removing it, fearing it will break. I am sure if one has a habit of changing Sim cards often, it will.

The tablet features a 1.2 Megapixel camera on the front and a 3 Megapixel camera on the back. The front camera works pretty decently for a video call, and the rear camera takes average pictures. But if you want to carry just one device that will function as your phone, camera and tablet, while the camera just about makes the cut, I would have loved to see a sharper camera on it.

Its battery is rated to run for 9 hours before a recharge. On a typical daily usage pattern—using it as a phone and as a browsing device on both 3G and wireless—I managed to get about 7 hours of operation with still some charge available for use. There is an embedded GPS feature for map geolocation as well as geotagging pictures. You get 1GB RAM on the tablet and 8GB built-in storage, which can be expanded with a micro SD card. The Tablet also features an 802.11 b/g/n wireless, and has Bluetooth 3.0. You can make or take a call via a hands-free unit.

Movie watching on YouTube and other streaming applications was nice. The digital noise cancellation microphone built into the tablet ensured a clearer call, both on regular telephony and Skype.

The only downside I could detect of this tablet was that it is available only in one colour.

Asus Fonepadphonetablet