Asus Fonepad

I brought this Fonepad from local store.I have been using this tablet/phone (whatever you want to call it) for 2 months now.And yes I m using it as only device,and I don't care what people think when they see me talking on this. It fits in my jeans pocket. Not so long ago when Note1 was launched these people were saying that this phone is big and stupid. And nowadays every other phone comes with around same size that of the Note1.nnLets get to business...nWhats I found good?nThe HD Screen is absolute delight. Clarity(pixel density) is really good for this price. nSpecially reading books, Browsing, Flipping Flipboard are an absolute pleasure.nnBattery Life is above average. On heavy use it lasts me for a day, and for light to medium use it runs for one n half day. (I keep wifi on all the time).nNo heating issue at all.nnPlaying Videos/Movies with FullHD/1080p resolution are a treat on this device. No lag whatsoever.nN it doesn't eat up your battery if you keep video running for long timen( I even tried to play 4k video on it using MX player :-P it could only play an audio )nnTouch is buttery smooth. Design does give it a Royal look.nIts running almost a vannila android with some asus add-on features like MultiWindow which are really cool.Bloatwares can be disabled easily.nUSB OTG works fine.i.e. You can Connect Pen Drive with FAT format to fonepad using OTG cable.nnCamera?nI own a DSLR, so I dont use camera much. Both cameras back n front are terrible in low light, And average on Normal light.nnnNow whats wrong then?nIf you have gone into its SoC/ processors details, you must be knowing that it has single core processor with hyperthreading. Which essentially means it should work as fast as Dual core processor in theory. And to some extent it does work that good in practical use too.nBUT when u launch medium to heavy games it takes a little longer to load because of its x86 architecture. And there is a lag of 2-3 seconds at the start of some games like Subways surfer, major mayhem. but again thereafter game runs really smooth.nnI find this 7"incher ideal for playing games like Fruit Ninja,Clash of Titans, Candy Crush, Paper Toss.nnIf you are a gamer (you should know that this has PowerVR SGX540 GPU which is I believe is 5 years old) and want to play really heavy games like dead trigger n asphalt7, DON'T BUY THIS. n Don't read the further review.nnnNow to the biggest problem with this device.."SD card unmount" issue..nAfter 2 months of observation I finally figured out the problem with SD card.nnFor some strange reasons, If you are on 2G network and you switched on your Mobile data / edge connection due to some witchcraft SD card unmounts itself. To add to that the option of mounting Sd card from Settings > Storage disappears. And then to get your SD card working again you have to Manually remove top cover and have reisert a card...nNow the workaround to this problem is I have kept my fonepad on 3G always option.nnThere are about 5-6 small updates released by ASUS since I brought this Fonepad and after last update the problem was solved to about 25%. Im hoping it will get resolved completely in next update.nP.S. I did went to ASUS service centre n guy just wont listen to me despite me telling him that problem is there only with 2G internet on.. He had no knowledge of android and it was the first time everyone at service center have seen this device. And he kept telling me that my Sd card in incompatible (which is brand new San Disk 16 GB class 4 n most commonly used card in India). I did tried it with other cards n still the problem was there.nAfter a double trip to service center I searched on internet and SD card problem was common to other users too.n(User accessible memory is about 3-4GB so you will need a SD card).nnFinal VerdictnWhat this fonepad is a device for people who want to replace there phone n laptop with single device that can be carried around.nIf you want BIG HD display for Browsing, Reading, Videos, Light gaming in about 15k, This is a best device currently available in India and certainly lot better than samsung Tab2 n even Tab3 7"inchers.nIf you use 2G internet a lot then wait till they resolve SD card problem, Or you can get new 32GB model which is 2K more with "slightly" faster CPU.nnNote: There are no Headphones in Box. I am using Samsung EHS44 headphones which you can use if you feel embarrassed holding it to ear to take call. These are common headphones which comes with samsung devices, and available separately.n(This is a first time I wrote review on Flipkart :) )nnUPDATE : USB OTG is working : nI see lot of people complaining about USB device not working.nIt wont work out of the box. USB OTG was enabled for me after I updated my fonepad with OTA update.nMouse, Keyborad, Flash drive with FAT format working fine, no problems at all...nI use my fonepad for DSLR controller to control my Canon DSLR over USB OTG. N it is also working great.

A friend of mine bought this tablet in January. I asked him about the review of this product. He said "If the product works fine, it's a good purchase but if it fails, you'll be tortured by ASUS service centre in getting it back to normal state ". The basic problem was that the motherboard had going bad completely within two months of purchase. When asked for repairing at service centre, they quoted the price much higher(Rs 18k) than the cost of the product(Rs 15k). It was surprising to understand how a motherboard can cost higher than the product.nI would recommend you to not buy this product as I did not buy it too after this suggestion.nnAlso, Flipkart deleted review of one of the reviewer and my friend Gaurav. He was sent an email by flipkart to remove his review and when he did not remove it, flipkart deleted the deview.nAs his review was against ASUS and its product which might be decreasing the sales, they prefer to keep user preference and customer satisfaction below their sales. Never expected this from flipkart.