Micromax is one Indian brand that doing good market along with other big International brand. Entry level Dual-Sim and Android phone is selling like hot cakes everywhere.
Their Super-phone series has good response among consumer too. But recently, they also enter into the tablet market by launching their first Android Tablet called Micromax Funbook. Its looks similar to Chinese tablet Ployer momo9 but in terms of dimension and size, they are not similar. The Dimensions of Ployer momo9 is 122 x 197 x 12.7 mm and of Funbook is 122 x 192 x 10 mm, i.e. the Funbook is only 10mm thick, so that is a lot of difference, Thickness plays a major role here. Ok, let’s look into specs first
Specification:-
• 1.2GHz Cortex A8 Processor
• 512MB RAM
• 7 inch capacitive touch screen with 800*480 pixel resolution and 16:9 Aspect Ratio
• Pinched zoom option
• Dual Mail 400 - 2D/3D graphics processor for multimedia processing
• Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Operating system
• WiFi and 3G connection through dongle (it supports only Tata Photon as if for now)
• 4 GB Onboard storage
• Expandable Storage Capacity of 32 GB
• 0.3 MP Primary Camera
• Battery: 2800 mah
• Video Formats Supported: MPEG2, MPEG4, AVI, WMV, 3GP, MOV, MKV, RM, RMVB
• Audio Formats Supported: MP3, WMA, FLAC, WAV
• HDMI: Yes
• Other Connectivity Features: 3G Dongle Support Via USB
• USB: Yes, USB 2.0
• Dimensions: 122 x 192 x 10 mm
• Weight: 360 g
Pros:-
Attractive price tag
1.2 GHz fast processor
Dual Mali 400 Graphics chip
Multi-touch LCD touch screen
Bright colorful screen
Google Android Ice-cream sandwich OS
Google Play Market
2160P player capability
Sleek looks
WIFI
Expandable memory (upto 32GB with micro-sd card)
Stock music player
HDMI port to connect to your HDTV or Monitor
Live wallpapers
Ebook reader
Cons:-
Below average battery, only 2800 mah (too less for 7" inch display)
No Bluetooth / GPS
Bloat wares
No other dongle support, other than Tata Photon
Mediocre screen resolution
Average viewing angles
0.3 Mp camera (But the quality is good)
No earphone bundle
The Package
The box is somewhat, I never seen it before. It’s like triangular looking box which contain a hard cover and foam, securing the tablet. Another box contains the accessories. It comes up with charger, USB cable and OTG cable. No earphones or HDMI cables are bundles with it.
Design and Build
When you first open the tablet from box, you will see the sheer beauty and how sleek and compact the fun book is. So, the first impression is quite good for me. The design of this tab is taken from Chinese tab i.e. Plover momo9 tablet. But its slimmer(than ployer momo) at 10mm and lighter as well, at just 360gm. Micromax has used glossy LCD panel, which can cause reflection on light condition.
Funbook has three hard button, Menu, Home and Back keys, which are physical in nature and offer good response and feel. The bottom side of the tablet has port that is micro-SD slot, HDMI slot, reset button, mini-USB that’s support OTG-USB device with help of converter, and power charging point.
This tablet can also be charge with Pc/Laptop with USB cable bundled. The upper most part of the tab has power-on button and volume rocker key. Speaker is there on backside. So in terms of build and Design, it’s quite appealing.
Display
The screen is 7†inch capacitive multi-touch with pinch-zoom feature with 800X480 Pixels resolution, its quite too less for 7†inch screen but still we can’t complain as the price is too less. The touch response is like butter, and the pinch-zoom also works perfectly in photos, e-book and websites too. Screen is bright and color is so vibrant somehow near real like. With 30% brightness it’s enough for me to use it. Movie watching experience also good in this device. Also live wallpaper looks uber cool.
Altogether, a good screen by Micromax.
Operating System
A familiar looking interface of Android 4.0 greets us when you power on the device for the first time. The have changed the android logo with Funbook logo in Boot screen. This of course looks quite good. ICS 4.0 comes with Funbook is not much customized by Micromax.
The freshness is there; you can install or uninstall any application from setting. Only the useless app. given by the MM like Mstore, games or movies can't be removed don't know why. You have 5 home screen to put your favorite app.
You can put also widgets or bookmark in it. The only difference between Android 3.2 and 4.0 is the later is more stable and consume less battery compared to his predecessor.
Under the Hood
This tablet comes with Allwinner A10 SOC with 512 MB DDR3 ram and Dual- Mali 400 GPU. It has the distinction of having the highest bang-per-buck ratio of any SoC available. This SOC costs only 7$ at China but, it can easily beat Intel Atom by quite margin. With the help of Mali-400 GPU it can also play 1080P video and games without any problem.
Here's the key feature of Allwinner A10 SOS
VPU (Video Processing Unit)
HD Video Decoding (Super HD 2160P/3D Film)
Support all popular video formats, including VP8, AVS, H. 264 AVC, VC-1, MPEG-1/2/4, …
HD Video Encoding (H.264 High Profile)
Support encoding in H.264 format
DPU (Display Processing Unit)
MULTI-CHANNEL HD displays
Built-in HDMI
LCD interfaces: CPU, RGB, LVDS up to Full HD
Memory
DDR2,DDR3 SDRAM, 32-bit
SLC/MLC/TLC/DDR NAND
Connectivity
USB2.0 Port
The operating system can be booted from NAND flash, SPI NOR flash, SD Card.
Internet browser
Video Playback
E-book Reader
This tablet can also be used as e-book reader like kindle. The only difference between these devices is kindle uses e-ink technology black-n-white display whereas Fun book has plain LCD display. E-ink e-book reader is more soothing to our eyes and long hour reading creates no problem. But for LCD screen, long hours reading is not recommended.
For those who are looking for dedicated e-book reader buying something like Kindle is recommended otherwise Fun Book is not bad choice. There are three app. given with this device for reading eBook.
They are Adobe reader, Aldiko, and Documents to Go. Among this three, Document to go is more responsible and better in overall performance. Pinch-zoom also works better with DTG. Although Aldiko app. is more suited for formats like, .epub and so on. So, as e-book reader fun book doesn't disappoint. We can also edit and create word, excel and PowerPoint documents in Document to go app.
Thunder 2. G-sensor is very responsive detects my every move quickly and accurately.
Air Attack is a HD game which runs fine in this device too.
Playing game on this device is so fun and addictive, you will never notice how fast the time will past.
Connectivity
This tab supports wifi and 3G dongle via USB. As for now only Tata Photon dongle is supported by this device. Although future updates can fix this problem
I think micromax has used some software to restrict other 3G dongle. WIFI on this device is very fast and its range is also good. It can catch good signal from long distance.
Camera
Camera is only 0.3Mp which is VGA in nature on paper. But the actual quality is far better than mentioned in the specs. Its photo quality is similar to 1.3Mp.
Video recording facility is also there. Still camera has setting like zooming, white balance, exposure. It has also ready to shot setting also Incandescent, Daylight, and Cloudy which makes shooting easy and convenient. Video camera also has same white balance setting along with Time lapse interval mode. So overall the camera is quite good.
Ports
It has micro-USB port, HDMI port, micro-SD slot (expandable up to 32GB). You can connect pen drive with the help converted cable. I have tried connecting portable Hard disk but it didn’t working, the power goes off immediately whenever I try connecting it. With the help of HDMI cable (not included) we can connect it to HD TV to see our favorite movie.
Benchmark
I have used An Tutu Benchmark and Neocore to test the device. In AnTuTu it got 2947 scores which are indeed a good score for this cheap device.
And in Neocore which is more of GPU dependant benchmark and it got around 57.8 FPS. So, we can see how powerful the Mali-400 gpu is and this score totally proved it.
On average use like browsing with wifi on and listing to music it gives around 3.5 hours of battery life. You can also watch full movie also but before, don’t forget to full charge it. Charge the device for around 6 hours before using for first time.
Verdict
Micromax Funbook is the most feature packed tablet at this affordable price segment. It has every feature that a student or working professional needs for their daily life. What makes this tablet hit is its cheap price and powerful hardware. So, if your purpose is reading ebook, watching movie, and surfing internet then nothing comes close to this device. Or if you want to try android then also this device doesn’t disappoints
I will give this device 8/10 for affordable and awesome performer.
I forget to tell the price of this device, its only Rs.6499/-
