First Thoughts
I had thought that a 7 inch tablet was a good idea, the other thing I had heard is that it was Gingerbread, this was bad to me. Gingerbread is awesome, but honeycomb is what I want on tablets, or so I thought. First impressions are a bit deal but aren’t everything and most of my reviews prove that.
The Looks
Really giving it a look, it appears to be a big Evo 4G. It kind of makes sense (oh.. a pun) that it would. It even has the Evo name. Front camera CHECK. Good rear camera CHECK. extra button for a scribe stylus… woah wait what? The Evo 4G and 3D do not have that!
The Hardware/Screen
A Single core 1.5 ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon comes equipped on this 7 inch tablet. It also has 1024 MB of RAM and can support a 32 gig SD card. It has quite a bit going for it in terms of specs.
As I have said before there is a 7 inch screen on here. The resolution of course is bigger as well at 1024 x 600 pixels, the picture is awful crisp and clean. So many pixels in a decently small area is never bad. The device is HTC and therefore the screen is touch capacitive. There is also a stylus that reacts with a part of the screen when you push the stylus button. You can draw on the screen and in certain rare circumstances, you can select words to copy and paste. They need to allow this API to take over the WHOLE device to utilize it better though.
The Battery
This battery is a bit different from a normal phone review, there are no calls and texting to talk about as much, it’s a tablet. The battery on this one is 4000 mAh so it puts out a lot of power and does a great job with it. I had a few days of life sometimes depending on use. Gaming lowered the battery faster but things like browsing was fine.
The Operating System/Software
HTC Sense with android 2.3 comes on board, this is where it differs strongly from the Evo 4G Name. HTC Sense is the newest version, just like on the Evo 3D and the Sensation. Android 2.3 is quite nice, it still isn’t exactly what I want, I would really enjoy trying Honeycomb on it. Android 2.3 ran well enough, Gingerbread is a capable OS and worked, I just like innovation and Honeycomb.
The Keyboard
The keyboard is the HTC IME and is pretty much ok. Meh. I am not a fan of it at all.
The Browsing, Camera and Video
The browsing was good on 3G and better on 4G. We actually have decent Sprint 4G in Utah, well where I live. It was quick when I needed it whether it be home or out and about. If I was at work I used the capable 3G, not as fast but it did what I needed it to do.
The front camera is 1.3MP and works quite well. Of course you do not get the new talk app, 1.3. But you get qik. Not sure if that is a consultation or not. The rear camera is a 5MP. Not as powerful as an 8MP on the Evo 4G but still really good. The video from the front and rear are nice.
Data Quality
I mentioned before that the data was great, I will reiterate it here. Wifi worked, 3G worked and 4G worked as well. All things data worked quite well and I had no issues.
Summary
Pros:
- Light and small
- A bigger screen than phones
- Clear video on front and rear camera
- Single core 1.5 ghz
Cons:
- The stylus was useless and is expensive
- It was not as nice as I would have liked
Conclusions & Final Thoughts
If you are looking for a tablet that is a BIT cheaper than the big boys and is easy to carry around with you (even fits in my pocket), this could be the one. It is a mere 7 inches and is very portable. Light weight and does all that a phone does. It has a nice big screen.
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