Micromax Funbook

The Rs. 10,000 price point has seen the rise of quite a few tablets in the past year from brands such as iBall, Mercury, Beetle, Viewsonic and Reliance to name a few. In trying to break the price barrier, some of these devices compromise on features such as build, battery life, camera and the power under the hood. Until now, these devices ran Android version 2.2 or 2.3.

In the past few weeks however, we have seen a change in this trend. The tablets are maintaining the Sub 10K price point but the biggest addition in terms of features is Google’s latest Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS. A lot of companies such as HCL, Zync, iberry, and now Micromax, have brought ICS tablets to India.

Today we have amongst us the Micromax Funbook tablet running ICS. Will this tablet stand out of the budget tablet crowd?

Look and Feel

On first impressions, the device is quite very well built keeping in mind the price point. The device has a grey plastic back with a matte finish and the screen has a black glossy border making it a fingerprint and dust magnet.

The front of the device houses the 7-inch display that boasts of a resolution of 480×800. The front also has the 0.3MP camera and threephysical buttons – back, home and menu. Running ICS, the tablet doesn’t really need physical buttons as these functions can be accessed directly through the ICS UI. Their addition however is appreciated. There is no rear-facing camera on the device. In terms of connectivity, all the ports are at the bottom of the device (when held in portrait mode). It has a mini USB port, mini HDMI out, a headphones jack, microSD card slot and the DC in. On the right of the device, when held in portrait mode, is the power button along with the volume rocker.

The build of the device may not be the best when compared to the competition but it is impressive nonetheless. It is the slimmest budget ICS tablet in the market and boasts of a made in India tag.
Straight out of the box, the device runs on Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich. Under the hood, the device is powered by a 1.22 GHz Cortex-A8 CPU and has 512MB RAM. The touch screen is capacitive in nature, eliminating the need of a stylus. The capacitive screen on this device isn’t as responsive as the competition but it gets the job done.

Playing Angry Birds Space and Pool Master Pro on the device was a fun experience. The touchscreen response was average, graphics were smooth and the audio was surprisingly good.

Browsing the web on the device was a mixed experience. The response of the keypad wasn’t the best, courtesy the average touchscreen but the web pages rendered well.

The Micromax Funbook claims 1080p video playback support and we were more than happy to put this claim to the test. We ran two 1080p trailers in .MP4 format on the device and they ran absolutely smoothly without any jitters. The display though crisp lacked brightness and was easily susceptible to glare.

The device also comes with a mini USB to full USB adaptor enabling the device to connect to a 3G dongle to connect to the Internet.

The Funbook has a 2800mAh battery, which is a low capacity when compared to the competition. With average use, the device lasted us under a day. You can expect 3 to 5 hours of life at a stretch depending on your usage.

Apart from access to the Google Play Store, the device also comes preloaded with some Micromax apps. These apps offer a variety of content ranging from Educational, Games, Movies, Apps, Entertainment, and Live TV. Majority of these apps are free but the live TV is a paid app and users will need to pay a subscription fee. The channels on the live TV range from Movies, news and entertainment. There are 50+ channels to choose from in the live TV app.

Verdict

The Micromax Funbook is the cheapest ICS budget tablet to hit the streets at Rs. 6,499. Its biggest compromise when compared to the competition is the build and the battery. The screen too is a bit disappointing. Having said that, this is the slimmest budget ICS tablet available today. The 1080p MP4 playback was smooth and games like Angry Birds Space and Pool Master ran well. If you are in the market to pick up a budget tablet and are on a really tight budget, you can consider the Micromax funbook.

Particulars	Micromax Funbook	HCL Me Tab U1	Zync Z990	iberry Auxus AX02
Price	Rs. 6499	Rs. 7999	Rs. 8990	Rs. 9990
Screen Size	7-inch	7-inch	7-inch	7-inch
Screen resolution	480×800	480×800	480×800	480×800
RAM	512MB	512MB	1GB	1GB
Processor	1.22 GHz Cortex-A8	1GHz Cortex A8 CPU	1.2GHz	1GHz Cortex A8 CPU
Front Facing camera	0.3MP	0.3MP	VGA	0.3MP
Rear camera	NA	NA	NA	2MP
Internal Storage	4GB	4GB	4GB	4GB
Expandable Storage	32GB via MicroSD card	32GB via MicroSD card	32GB via MicroSD card	32GB via MicroSD card
Ports/Connection	DC in, Mini USB, Mini HDMI, MicroSD card slot and the headphones jack	mini USB port, a headphone jack, microSD card slot, DC in and a full sized USB port	DC in, USB hub, micro USB port, 3.5mm jack as well as mini HDMI out	mini USB port, mini HDMI out, a headphones jack, microSD card slot, DC in
battery	2800mAh	3600mAh	3600mAh	4000mAh
App store	Google Play Store	No Google Play Store. Hcl Me App store	Google Play Store	Google Play Store
3G	Yes via a USB dongle	Yes via a USB dongle	Yes via a USB dongle	Yes via a USB dongle
Wi-Fi	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Bluetooth	No	No	No	No
Benchmark Scores	Higher is better
Quadrant	1674	1173	1156	1733
Antutu	2702	NA	2148	2941
Linpack Single thread	15.86	NA	7.04	14.53
Linpack Multithread	14.01	NA	6	13.58
GlBenchmark (Egypt Standard)	4384	NA	1541	4265