ASUS Fonepad Review

Using the Fonepad

Using the Fonepad as a tablet is a very pleasant experience. The touchscreen responds quickly and precisely. The screen brings crispy and vivid images, and the 1280 x 800 resolution is excellent for the size of the screen.

The Android 4.1 (“Jelly Bean”) operating system is easy to use and intuitive. Figure 12 shows the initial screen when you turn the Fonepad on for the first time.

Figure 12: Main screen

There are seven main screens where you can arrange the icons the way you like. Pressing the icon with the circle with six dots, you enter the list of applications, shown in Figures 13 and 14. The Fonepad comes with several applications installed, some Android default ones and some exclusive from ASUS.

Figure 13: List of applications

Figure 14: List of applications

You can install new applications using the Google Play Store, which has thousands of applications and games available.

We tried to use the Fonepad as a cell phone. It works well, but it was very uncomfortable to hold, and we had no courage to use it to talk in public, since holding a seven-inch tablet at your ear should look ridiculous. It was probably a good idea to use it with an earphone, but unexplainably, ASUS did not include this accessory with the Fonepad.

The battery lasted around two days under moderate use, with some calls and a couple of hours of web browsing per day. According to ASUS, the battery lasts nine hours on demanding tasks such as watching HD videos. In standby, the battery lasts for more than one week, which is excellent.

The quality of the photos taken with the main 3.0 MPixel camera is average. The device cannot replace a real digital camera in your trips and school presentations, if you want to have good photos.

We ran the Android version of 3DMark from FutureMark, and it achieved a score of 2,195 points in the IceStorm benchmark.