The world of budget Android tablets has been set ablaze by the likes of Zync and Spice who are constantly innovating and bringing high performance products at very affordable price points. Sure these devices still can’t compete with the iPads of the world but that is not the target audience. Delivering 90% of the experience at a fraction of the price point is what they aim to do and are quite successful at. That said, we recently got our hands on the newly announced Zync Quad 10.1 Tablet. The name alone suggests some of the highlighted spec points. We’ve put it through our standard range of rigorous tests to find out if it makes for a sound purchase. Read on to find out.
Design
Continuing the design standard set by its predecessor, the Quad 10.1 will not be winning any style awards for sure. The outward appearance screams utilitarian but the use of quality plastics makes us forget that. The dual tone finish is still fairly appealing though not as fresh.
The front of the Zync Quad 10.1 tablet has a Full HD panel that measures 10.1 inches diagonally as the name would suggest. The centered front facing camera suggests that the tablet is meant to be used in the landscape orientation predominantly. The 16:9 ratio of the panel further lends credence to this. We found the front of the tablet to be extremely fingerprint prone and an oleophobic coating might have helped mitigate that.
The back of the tablet sports a 5 MP camera and not much else. A lone speaker grille can be spotted to the right of the camera module while a 3.5mm jack, power port and reset keyhole line the edge of the tablet on the left.
While the previous version of the tablet had a silver back flanked on both edges with white stripes reminiscent of the HTC Flyer, the Zync Quad 10.1 makes do with a single white panel on the right that houses a USB, micro SD and HDMI port under a flap. The power key, volume control buttons and microphone can also be spotted on the same edge.
Over all the tablet doesn’t really stand out from a design perspective but is not something you’d be ashamed to carry around. There is minimal branding on the device and our concern mostly revolves around the smudge prone screen.
Software
There’s not much to talk about on the software on the Zync Quad 10.1 Tablet. It runs on Android 4.1 and has a nearly stock build. No ‘enhancements’ have been done to the interface barring the curious addition of a perpetual screenshot shortcut on the menu bar at the bottom. A few applications like a video player and Facebook too have made its way over to the software build but they do not detract from the experience so we wouldn’t hold it against Zync.
Display
Zync has talked about the display quite a bit when referring to the Quad 10.1 tablet. The 10.1 inch IPS panel has a resolution of 1920x 1200 ie Full HD. Text appears very crisp and video looks great. Because of the relatively high 224 PPI pixel density of the panel, you will struggle to spot any pixels.
The panel has good color reproduction with deep blacks and well saturated and vibrant colors. Day light visibility is decent though the screen attracts a lot of scuffs that might make it difficult to view outdoors. The brightness level however is just about sufficient and we would’ve appreciated it if it went up another level or two. Another issue we faced was the uneven backlighting on the screen. It can’t be spotted very easily and might just have been an issue on our unit but it is worth a mention. Something worth keeping an eye out for.
Performance
The Zync Quad 10.1 tablet is hardly going to set any benchmark records. Under the hood is a 1.5 Ghz QuadCore processor paired with a Mali 400 GPU and 2 GB of RAM. Performance is a hit or miss with lags and pauses even while navigating the interface. The tablet is able to run most common apps with ease and popular games work without any hassle. That said, we were not really satisfied with the day to day performance. Synthetic benchmark tests back this up with a very minimal improvement over the Zync Pad Quad 9.7 that we reviewed earlier this year.
Quadrant
With a Quadrant score of 3113, the Zync Quad 10.1 can be placed right in the middle of our benchmark comparison. As we mentioned above, performance is middling and the CPU centric Quadrant benchmark backs that up.
Nenamark 2
Coming to the graphics performance, the tablet shows a minor improvement over the Zync Pad 9.7 but despite that, it places fairly low on our comparison chart. The tablet posts a score of 46.9 FPS on the Nenamark 2 benchmark.
Camera
The Zync Quad 10.1 tablet has been equipped with a 5MP rear facing camera and a 2MP front facing snapper. We really don’t expect you to go around shooting your vacation photos with this but it’ll do the job if the situation arrises. The rear shooter is well placed to snap images of documents and other important pieces of paper you might have lying around. Image quality is passable and drastically drops in lower lighting conditions.
The front camera is just about good enough to enable video calling over Skype or other similar messaging applications.
Dynamic range on the camera module is very limited and images tend to look dull. White levels in bright areas are often blown out.
As can be seen in the above image, the photograph is fairly washed out as the camera has boosted the exposure levels indicating a low dynamic range. The heightened exposure has also blown out the highlights.
Connectivity & Storage
In built storage on the Zync Quad 10.1 is 16GB and this can be further expanded via the microSD card slot. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, USB OTG and an HDMI port to allow for video playback on an external display. The lack of bluetooth connectivity however is unfortunate and disappointing to say the least.
Battery Life
We weren’t too impressed by the battery life on the Zync Quad 10.1. Our battery life testing procedure involves gauging how a device performs under a heavy use scenario so that you have an approximate idea of the bare minimum you should be able to get. The Zync Quad 10.1 was tested with WiFi on and connected, screen set to 65% brightness and under a simulated heavy usage load.
We’ve plotted out points to show you battery drop at the 75%, 50% and then the 20% mark. As you can see, under heavy usage it is possible to deplete the battery on the tablet in just about 3.5 hours. Not impressive but perhaps not the worst out there. Under an average work load we could get about 6-7 hours of usage time.
Conclusion
The Zync Quad 10.1 tablet couples a great screen with middling performance at an interesting price point. We weren quite disappointed by the sluggishness in day to day usage and the camera too was nothing out of the ordinary. Add to that the below average battery life and we can’t really recommend the tablet. Go for it only if your sole criteria of selection is the Full HD screen on the tablet. The Zync Quad 10.1 is priced at Rs. 14,990.
Pros
- Full HD screen
- Above average build quality
- Price
Cons
- Sluggish performance
- Below average battery life
- Below average camera