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Olive Pad

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S Aadeetya
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Olive Pad may not be an iPad beater by any stretch, butbeing the first tablet to hit the Indian market, it sure hasan advantage in the 'tablet wars' between the playerslike Apple (iPad that's not yet launched in India!), Samsung(Galaxy tab), Dell (Streak) and others like the SMC tablet and theMagnum pocket PC.

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Wrapped in a smart looking leather case, the Olive Pad at firstglance looks like a notebook. The device is what you can call abigger phone with more real estate to play around with. Andwith 3G already here, it will become all the more exciting.

Once powered on, the device gives you the pleasant Android2.2 experience. The orientation remains in the landscape modewhen switched on and the five home screens have loads to offer.The constants on the screen are the email, documents, mu-sic/video player and the web access on the left of the screen andthe web, menu and phone to the right of the screen. The480x800 screen resolution, though not very high, still gives youa good experience. Powered by a 600Mhz processor, the Olive Padalso comes with a 32GB expandable memory via microSD (a16GB card is provided with the device).

Slightly heavy at 410 grams, the device is a handful. Depend-ing on how one holds it (we did portrait), below the screen arethe feather touch controllers (back, search, home and menu) andthe top has the front VGA camera. The left has the reset, mic,3.5mm audio jack and the mini USB slot. The back is unfortu-nately glossy and features the 3MP camera.

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Let us analyse some of the essentials and offerings from theOlive stable:

Connectivity: The OlivePad has a host of connectivity op-tions with the micro USB connectivity and the 3.5mm audio jack.It features all the essentialslike Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPRSand with 3G coming in, the3G SIM card slot will alsocome in handy.

Messaging: The experi-ence of typing on a bigscreen is amazing and theease with which one cantype on the Olive Pad is great. The QWERTY keypad is equallycomfortable to use, in vertical as well as landscape modes.

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Multimedia: Being on Android is a blessing for Olive Pad, asthere are millions of downloadable apps that can be accessed. Itcomes with Google apps like YouTube preinstalled and one canalso get other stuff like Shazam for music from the Android appstore. The Olive pad comes with inbuilt Zenga TV that has abunch of channels on offer. However, the sound quality here isagain, quite stellar.

Social networking: Multitasking is the Olive Pad's forte. Iwas surfing the Internet, chatting and speaking on the phone,all at the same time. However, the device does slow down whiledoing this. The fact that you can sync upto four emails includingGmail, is quite remarkable.

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Video Calls: With 3G already on offer and more companiesin the fray, the video calling facility offered by OlivePad is sure tobe a big hit. The front-facing VGA camera captures images clearly.

Navigation: Olive Pad comes with a lifetime subscription toMapMyIndia and comes pre-installed with the software, whichis a pleasant surprise.

Gaming: The Olive Pad makes gaming fun with 7-inchscreen and the Android OS.

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Bottomline: Though not the best looking in the tabletmarket, the device does compete with the bigger brands well.

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