Choosing the Right Budget-Tablet

A few months ago, tablets were being considered as a premium product that only the high flying executives and top honchos of a company could afford. Not anymore, because there's a whole slew of low cost tablets that have hit the market. These tablets may not be meant for executives and power users who want the best of breed products and with good performance. These tabs are curtailed both in terms of features and performance. However, they could still be useful for average multimedia and web browsing.

Budget tablets compromise on hardware specs and performance as compared to the regular tablet computers. But the fact remains that they might not be meant for executives and power users anyways. Price to performance and features of these tablets need to be analysed and compared so as to arrive at a decent piece which might not end up being a useless piece of weight lying around in the house after some time. Consider the following while going for these tabs:

Screen

Most of the budget tablets provide an option of a 7-inch display. The resistive touch is outdated and even the budget tabs are out with capacitive-touchscreen displays. The point to note is that the touch experience of these tabs is nowhere in comparison with the iPads of the world. But, that's where the trade-off lies. Capacitive touchscreens are more conducive to finger touch than a stylus, as is the case with resistive screens. A screen resolution of 800 x 480 pixels is the bare minimum availability.

Operating system

Most budget tablets we see today are Android-based. The prime reason for this is that it does not add to the cost of the device. Android is free and helps in keeping the cost of the tablet low. However, one must get the latest version of Android, i.e. Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) is not yet available for budget tabs. Android 4.0 (Icecream Sandwich) might be a distant upgrade, but upgradability is a nice feature to have as it would mean more optimized performance on these tablets which are anyways low on hardware.

Basic hardware

Budget tablets would compromise on specs for sure.

One would find single core processors less than 1GHz as the norm. A user should go for the max specs available.

An 800 MHz processor would be the ideal buy for acceptable performance.

Internal memory and storage are important components which are responsible for some degree of user experience. A larger RAM would mean better functioning of the tablet and lesser amount of lag whereas larger internal memory would mean more space to store apps and personal data files which do come handy on the move. A 512 MB RAM would be a good spec which one should go for in case of budget tablets. Anything over and above would be a boon for the price whereas anything less would render the tablet useless. Internal memory is substantiated with a memory card. A higher capacity memory card would mean more storage on the go. Hence it makes sense to buy a tablet which supports an expandable memory card. One could look for bundled offers on memory cards which would reduce overhead costs.

Charge

Since budget tablets are portable devices, a good amount of battery life makes life easier. Essentially, budget tabs being 7-inch display devices, require more battery capacity than smartphones to last a respectable amount of time before one has to charge them again. A battery capacity of 3000mAh would be able to last around 5 hours on Wi-Fi with average usage. Anything below that is essentially a pain in the ass and portability goes out of the window. Another thing to consider could be the type of charger. Proprietary chargers mean that one cannot borrow a charger. A mini USB or micro USB charger would be ideal.

Connectivity

Budget tablets are essentially aimed at basic browsing and surfing the net while on the move. Limited amount of apps would be the other use case. Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth support are a basic spec that is present in all. GPRS/ 3G connectivity could be a differentiator in terms of portable usability of the tablet. There are GSM and CDMA based connectivity options available which would be handy. If not, mobile Internet tethering could come to one's recue but is not a very lucrative option as could prove to be a hassle on the move. 3G capable devices like the Reliance Tab also support phone calls which are a nice add on. USB device support is a nice add-on as external keyboards and thumb drives could be operated out of that.

Multimedia

Budget tabs would just be able to play decent quality video and audio. One can't really ask for HD for such a price. Most tabs would be equipped with a front facing camera for video calls but a dual camera would be ideal. This would help use the tablet to shoot average photos while on the move and eradicate the need for a point-and-shoot camera.

Pre-installed apps

One of the selling points of a tablet is the number of pre-installed apps which the manufacturer offers to the customer. Some of the useful apps which come pre-installed are office suites, amongst other apps. One can always access the marketplace and download and install free or paid apps from there. Hence, it makes sense to be lured by pre-installed apps only if they are useful and not available from the marketplace, else it is just a waste of space. The idea is not to get influenced by marketing strategy and understand the worth of whatever is

being provided.

How to tested



On the subsequent pages, we review the performance of some of the popular tablets available. The performance was tested using a benchmark freely available from the Android marketplace, called the AnTuTu Benchmark v 2.7.3. Quadrant benchmark was also used for testing tablets for performance. We gave an indexed score to the performance, price and features being compared in these tablets based on their relevance to the category. The Brown evaluation model was utilized to arrive at the scores and eventually the winner.

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Budget Tablets: How they compare