Introduction:
After so many 7 inch budget tablets it appears like Manufacturers are stressing up to offer 10-inch tablets at the budget price. Though Micromax is silent so far in 10 Inch devices after one Funbook Pro but other manufacturers such as Zync or Spice are working hard to offer high performance Tabs at affordable price points. Talking about Zync, they have provided us several tablets in 7inch and 10inch genre such as Z-990, Z999 Plus or Z1000 but none of them were really good to impress the Audience. Zync Z1000 clearly proves the same. To overcome the mistakes and in order to make its space in the market they now started a completely new series of Tablets called “Quad series” with the launch of two tablets named as Zync Quad 10.1 and Zync Quad 8. And with this new series they even managed to achieve the attention.
As the name itself suggests, Quad 10.1 comes with a Powerful Quad Core processor and 10.1 inch HD display. Let me remind you that the Zync is the second manufacturer to launch Quad Core budget tablets in the market after iBerry. Also it will be surprising to know that so far this is the only Quad core tablet with 10 inch display available in the market. Priced at Rs. 14,990/- Zync Quad 10.1 is one of the best and power packed tablets available in the market with attractive design and better performance. Lets test the tablet in details and find out if it is really worth at the said price but before that lest have a look at its highlights:
- Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) OS
- 10.1″ 10-point multi-touch capacitive IPS Display with 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution.
- 1.5 GHz quad-core Processor and 2GB RAM
- Octa-core Mali-400 MP4 GPU
- 16 GB internal storage, expandable upto 32 GB using microSD
- 5MP rear camera with autofocus, 2 megapixel front camera.
- Wi-Fi (with hotspot), Wi-Fi Direct, microUSB, HDMI-out.
- 8000 mAh Li-ion battery.
Design, Body and keys:
As per design Zync followed the same Square shape which we have seen its earlier tablets, no matter if 7inch or 10 inch. However the aluminum rear finish with white plastic border makes the tab appear attractive and stylish. All four corners of the device are rounded with edge-to-edge glass on the front. Quad 10.1 doesn’t offer a better grip, its rear packing may be slippery sometime if your hands are wet. Also it would be very risky to hold the tablet with just one hand because of its 471 grams Weight and as I said its bit slippery. Over the design is attractive but it will be much better if you buy a case which can hold the tab and make it stand on the table so that you don’t need to hold the weight of the tablet always.
Zync this time has made some changes in placement of keys to offer better and comfortable navigation. In Quad 10.1 we get a 10.1″ Full HD LCD Capacitive display at the front with a 2 Megapixel Front camera placed just above the screen. There are no other buttons provided on the front body. I think Zync has followed the idea of providing on-screen buttons instead of capacitive keys just like we have seen in Google Nexus 10 tablet.
On the right side of the packaging we get Power button which is also used as the screen lock button followed by Volume Up/Down button. Then comes the HDMI Port, USB, micro SD slot which are placed under a white flap. This makes the device look better unlike other tablets that keep all these ports opened. And finally there is a Mic at the bottom.
At the top right of the body we have a 3.5mm headphone jack with a Charger port in middle and a reset keyhole. I liked this placement because in other tablets these stuffs use to be on the right side along with other keys. In such cases when you plug-in the charger or headphones, it becomes bit uncomfortable to hold the tablet.
We don’t have anything at the bottom or at the left of the body while at the rear side they have placed the 5 Megapixel Auto Focus camera, Loud speaker next to the camera and Zync logo with Tablet Model at the bottom.
Over all I can rate 7 out of 10 to Zync Quad 10.1 because of its sleek stylish design, key placement and the good build quality. Lets find out its other aspects.
Screen / Display:
This new tablet comes with a 10.1 inch HD IPS touch screen display offering resolution of 1920 x 1200 which is surely very good for watching Full HD videos, Pictures or HD games in 16:10 aspect ratio. It has a 224 PPI pixel density which makes the device even better. Furthermore the 10-point multi-touch provides extra comfort using the display or for zooming in and out. Apart from brighter and sharper display its color reproduction is also very good. The provided IPS panel offers best viewing from any angle of the device. Under Display settings Zync has also provided an option called “Smart Color” which if enabled makes the display offer best experience for Movies and Games by changing the brightness, colors, etc. It’s a perfect display for entertainment purpose with vibrant colors and pretty impressive contrast. The only drawback of the display is missing backlighting on the screen. We were not able to find out on this display, may be the fault of the unite we received but not sure.
Not just for Entertainment or Gaming, I liked the display for other aspects as well such as reading ebooks, documents or web pages. The text appears very crisp and clear. Zooming in and out is comfortable with the 10 point multi-touch. Even the touch sensitivity is very good, not the best but better than others in the range of this tablet. However, you may face some problems reading the text on this screen in direct sunlight because of the over reflective display.
OS, Processor, RAM:
Zync Quad 10.1 is running on Android 4.1 jellybean operating system but according to the hardware and provided update center I guess the tablet will receive Android 4.2 update sometime in near future. There is no enhancement done from the manufacturers end in the OS hence we get the same all features and user interface which we have seen in Stock JellyBean ROM. The only changes done by Zync here is placing the onscreen Screenshot key in the menu bar at the left bottom of the display like we have seen in Samsung Galaxy Tabs. Other than this no customizations have been done. We have the same App Drawer, same Notification are, etc.
As per configuration, this is the first ever 10 inch tablet released with 1.5GHz Quad-Core processor along with 2GB of RAM. You might be knowing that the recently launched Sony Tablet Z also have the same amount of CPU and RAM at the price of approximately Rs.44,000/- but comparing this tablet with Sony Z Tab is obviously wrong. Anyways, with such high processing power and 2GB of RAM Zync Quad 10 offers better performance and capable to run heavy apps. But when you are running the tablet connected with WiFi and have opened several applications in the background, you may face some lag like we did. We have also noticed this problem in earlier Zync Z1000 tablet which becomes extremely slow and starts lagging once connected to WiFi. The same problem is with Quad 10.1. Manufacturer should stress more on this issue.
Apart from such good configuration, the tablet also comes with Octa-core Mali-400 MP4 GPU which makes the device even good in HD Gaming. We tried running few standard and High end games and found that the device doesn’t have any problem running any of these games however, as I said, you may face some lags and freezing issues if you are running few apps in the background. Over all though with 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM and Mali 400 GPU, the tabs fails to impress us in performance. It doesn’t stands at the level we expect from a tablet running such high configuration with Android 4.1 operating system. I think they failed to optimize the OS with the hardware. Lets check out what does the Benchmark results say about this tablet.
Benchmark Tests:
Quadrant Score:
Nenamark 2 Score:
Atutu Score:
Multimedia, Gaming and Web Browsing:
As I said above the display we had in this tablet offers the best experience of Multimedia and Gaming, it 100% true. We tried playing some Full HD 1080p videos on this tablet in its default Video Player as well as in MX Player but dint faced a single lag or freezing problems. We get 4K Video Player as the default video player in this tablet that is capable to play videos in almost all formats including MP4, DivX, and XviD etc. This video player also provides Pop-Up player like we have seen in Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and other models of Galaxy. Its IPS panel offers best viewing angles from any side of the device. Personally I loved watching HD Videos on this tablet because of the brighter and sharper display as well as lag free playback. In fact I also tried playing a video in 3072p and I was surprised to see the playback. As per Music, we get the same stock Android music player. Sound quality is not so good while playing the music on Loud speaker but its loud. You can watch a movie in group (without Headphones) without any volume problem.
Gaming Performance:
Quad 10.1 also impresses us with its gaming performance. We tried running several games on this tablet like Real Racing 3, ManuGanu, Gangster RIO. All of these games run hassle free. It offers great gaming experience without lag and freezing problems. Just make sure that you are not running several applications in the background. Similar for web browsing, a display with 224 ppi and 10.1 inch in size is pretty good. No matter which websites you load, it fits the display properly. Reading the text is very comfortable on this screen with 10 point multi touch feature and better zooming. The tablet comes with built-in Android and Chrome browsers, if you want you can download other browsers from Google Play.
Web Browsing:
Overall if you are looking for a tablet for Gaming, Entertainment and web browsing purpose then Quad 10.1 is one of the best choices available at the moment.
Camera:
Zync Quad 10.1 comes with dual camera. One at the rear with 5 megapixel and second at the front with 2 Megapixel. In smartphones 5 Megapixel camera is quite enough to capture high quality images and video recordings but in Tablets it may be doubtful. But with this tablet, I may consider it for capturing pictures on Picnic if I don’t have any other better option like high end smartphones or Handycam. The reason why I will choose the tablets camera is because of its several important features. Yeah, Zync Quad 10.1 comes with features that we hardly find in other budget devices with the same 5MP or 8 MP camera. First of all it is a Auto Focus camera to offer your best capture of the area you want, secondly, it also features Continues Snap Modes which we have seen with different names in different smartphones such as HTC, BB Z10, Galaxy Smartphones. This mode allows you to capture burst shots of multiple pictures in one click and then you can choose the best of them. In this tablet, you get 2 options for Burst Mode.
First is called as “Continuous Snap Mode” which keep capturing the images until you hold the Capture button, that means you can take unlimited number of snaps. This is useful when you are capturing image of moving objects so that you wont miss any shot. Second comes the “Fast Snap” Mode. Once enabled it will capture 10 shots with just one press. Not very useful or very similar to the earlier mode, but this can be handy for capturing someone’s face so that you can remove his/her blinking eyes and save the perfect picture. Other than this the camera also features Panorama Mode, Scene Mode, Face detection, White Balance, Self Timer and More. It also allows you to edit the captured images right away before saving it. You can change colors, add doodles, crop and do many other editing/enhancement in the pictures. The same is with the front facing 2 megapixel camera. Most of these features also work with the front camera. We used the front camera with Skype and found it good enough for making good quality video calls.
Overall both cameras of Quad 10.1 are useful and allows you to several things but it may disappoint indoor or under low light environment. As there is no Flash provided with the tablet, in order to get a better quality image or video you must been in an environment with better lights. Note, capture images would be good enough to be accepted but not the best.
Built-in Apps:
Zync Quad 10.1 doesn’t comes with any useful built-in applications or games apart from that 4K video player. It just comes with all the default apps which we get with the Stock Android ROM including the Google apps like YouTube, Gtalk, Gmail, Google Play Store, etc. However you can download as many apps as you want from the Store as the Tab is capable to run all types of applications available on Google Play.
Connectivity and Storage:
We don’t need to worry about the storage space in Zync Quad 10.1. We get 16GB built-in memory that is quite enough for installing hundreds of application and storing 1000s of music with few movies. But still if required you can increase the memory upto 32GB using microSD card. As far as connectivity is concerned, we get useful options like Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, HDMI port, Micro USB 2.0 which can be used for USB OTG as well for connecting 3G external dongles. The only drawback in connectivity with this tablet is missing Bluetooth.
Battery:
Zync Quad 10.1 is powered with 8000 mAh Lithium polymer battery but still it disappointed us during the test. If you are using it for reading ebooks, documents or images with few chatting session than you can get the battery working upto 5.5 to 6.5 hours. But if leave it connected on WiFi, do web browsing, etc than it may get drained completely in less than 4 hours. During the test we set the screen brightness to 50%, turned off WiFi and started playing a HD Movie. The battery got 100% to 0% in less than 3 hours. That means if you want to watch a movie, don’t plan for multiple movies at a time or in one charge. For an average user, it will company you for upto 5 to 6 hours. We cannot say the battery is worst in this case because all other tablets in this range offers the same battery life. But being a Tablet with such great Display and high configuration, I expected bit more from Quad 10.1.
Conclusion:
After testing Zync Quad 10.1 for couple of days I can say that it is the best choice for Multimedia, Browsing, Chatting and Gaming purpose. The best thing I loved in this device is its HD IPS Display offering good movie experience and great fun while gaming. However, although being powered with 1.5GHz processor and 2GB of RAM, the performance is not at the level where we can expect from a device with such config and Android 4.1 JellyBean. Manufacturers haven’t done any customizations or enhancement in the OS, it is same the Stock ROM. And due to this I guess the Tablet lags sometimes when you are running several applications in the background. Also the battery is bit disappointing. Though it offers the average battery life of 6 to 7 hours in average use but our expectations were high of the configuration is so high, right?
Apart from the HD display the only thing I like in the tablet is its rear and front camera. The embedded Continues Snap Mode, Panorama, Image capture while recording, etc are very helpful for when you are out on picnic. Also the images appear to be goof but only in good lighted environment. As there is no Flash, using the camera in low light environment or indoor is surely not a good idea. According to the build quality, its large HD Display and gaming/entertainment experience, I can say the device is worth for the price of Rs. 14,990/- unless you do heavy multitasking which will make you face lagging and freezing.
Pros:
- Large Full HD IPS Display
- 5 Megapixel camera with several options
- Better Gaming experience.
Cons:
- Bit laggy during multitasking
- Poor battery life
