Tablets can make kids Smarter; I am not saying that but Kapil Sibal is, and following his words, several companies are trying their hands in the Tablet industry, by creating new “education oriented” tablets with a low price tag. No company is going to take loss on its end, thus the price cut may also mean a cut in tablet’s quality; this could be true because I haven’t dismantled these cheap Android tablets in market to verify whether they actually have the hardware that the company is advertising.
Recently, Micromax launched its Funbook tablet that flaunts the latest version of Android v4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system; it is an “education oriented” tablet with several content tie-ups and strangely, it is being released with a price tag of Rs. 6,499 which is quite low considering its hardware config. At this price point, one would expect a tablet running heavy ICS from Google perform sluggish but Funbook shatters that assumption; yes, definitely, not everything in the tablet are good but important things are.
So, today, with this article I am going to share with 5 reasons why you should buy Micromax Funbook Tablet over any other cheap Android tablet. I am assuming you to be regular person who is looking to buy a cheap Android Tab and not a school-going kid because I haven’t reviewed the “educational content” that Micromax is bundling with this tab.
So, now that I have made myself clear, let’s begin.
7-inch Size makes it Lightweight & Portable
Apple iPad 2 is the best tablet in the world but it’s quite heavy thus not very portable; Micromax Funbook, on the other hand is a 7-inch tablet, thus you can carry it around with you anywhere; it’s not that heavy and won’t take much specs in your backpack. If you’re concerned whether you’d be able to read documents on it properly then let me tell that Funbook has a display resolution of 800 x 480 pixels which is a little low for a 7-inch tablet, considering first Samsung Galaxy Tab had a display resolution of 600 x 1024 pixels but not bad.
1.2 GHz processor can handle ICS
One of my major concerns about any Smartphone or tablet is whether the user experience is smooth. Many people make the mistake of assuming that if user interface of a Gadget is laggy then that’s the fault of the touchscreen, no, touschreen just registers an input and sends it to the processing unit which processes the input and initiates an output (remember IPO?), therefore, in most cases, a laggy UI is not the fault of the touchscreen but the processor.
From a tablet that costs Rs. 6,499, you don’t expect much; Surprisingly, Funbook’s user interface is smooth and it can handle ICS very well, all because of the 1.2 GHz processor sitting inside it.
Note: I said it can handle ICS properly, I didn’t say it will perform smooth when you’d load multiple applications on it.
Dual Application Store
Micromax Funbook tablet has two app stores – Google’s Play Store and Micromax’s own App Store which turns it into a complete entertainment device. You can download hundred thousands of apps and games from the two app stores and after Google changed Android Market’s name to Google Play Store they have also added books, music and movies to its inventory.
One more thing, you can also install Amazon’s app store on this tablet which brings the total count of app stores to 3. Each app store has its advantages; Amazon’s app store offers one paid app for Free each day and several discounts on paid apps each weekend.
Dedicated Educational Content and other Resources
It’s not that Kapil Sibal is the only man who wants to integrate tech and education, there are several other organization who are working restlessly to create high-quality education content for people and that too for Free, for example, Khan Academy.
Micromax has tied-up with some firm to serve “paid educational content” which is dedicated to students who are studying in Indian schools (CBSE syllabus) but that’s doesn’t mean you cannot read/watch other educational videos and text. You can download Khan Academy: Pocket Classroom for academic content and Kindle for Android for leisure reading.
Video Streaming & App Response is Phenomenal
Micromax Funbook tablet can play YouTube, Vimeo videos without any noticeable lag; it’s quite crisp. You can play videos in 480p resolution but that doesn’t mean quality of the videos is poor; high-definition videos are larger in size but that doesn’t mean the quality of the video is reduced when it is viewed in 480p resolution.
Also, since I like playing casual games, I was delighted to see that Funbook runs lightweight apps smoothly, especially Angry Birds Rio which ran like a disaster on an 800 MHz phone, I tested recently. Funbook can run almost all the standard Android games though I can’t say the same about high-end Tegra 3 exclusive games.
Roundup
So, that’s it guys, I hope I was able to bring out the positive side of Micromax Funbook tablet through this blog post; I am not saying that this tablet has no negatives, but for Rs. 6,499 these positives are so impressive that there’s no doubt in my mind that Micromax Funbook is a steal.