ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG Review

One of the most successful tablets of ASUS is the ASUS Fonepad series. This family compose of tablets with phone functionality and today, we’ll review the latest ASUS Fonepad 7 in the country, the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG. This tablet packs a 7-inch display, a Z2520 Intel Atom processor, and a phone functionality. Do you want to know more about this tablet? Check out my review below.

Design & Construction

The first thing I noticed is the ASUS Fonepad 7 is a very handy tablet. Unlike other tablets, the ASUS Fonepad 7 is comfortable to hold in one hand. The rubbery-like texture of the back of the ASUS Fonepad 7 also helped add more grip to the tablet.

The tablet is very light and very comfortable to use. Actually, it feels more like a phablet than a phone because the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG fits in all of my pockets. The tablet is very pleasant to use whether I’m using it on landscape or on portrait. The tablet feels handier and comfortable too because the design and construction is taller than I expected. A taller design isn’t really a bad thing.

Despite having an affordable price, the tablet doesn’t feel cheap. It actually looked good and the bezels were very thin which makes the tablet prettier and elegant. What I like about the Fonepad 7 is that the combination of the design of the Fonepad and its UI feels very clean and premium.

Unlike other tablets, the Fonepad 7 FE171CG is kinda a little bit different because this tablet packs a dual-sim card slot. Yep, you can use both sim cards for receiving and making calls and of course, sending text messages and using it for mobile data. However, there’s no LTE on the Fonepad 7 FE171CG. In case you’re worried about the storage of the tablet, the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG also supports MicroSD and OTG too.

I’ve use the tablet for text and calls for a while and I didn’t had any problems with it. Actually, It felt more comfortable to use this one for texting because the screen is larger and I can type on the keyboard with two hands especially on landscape mode.

Display

The ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG got a 7-inch display with a resolution of 1024×600. The resolution isn’t that high but I’m still satisfied with how it looks. The viewing angles of the tablet are pretty good and I’m satisfied with its outside visiblity and the colors were vivid too. Compared to other tablets the ASUS Fonepad FE171CG lacks a little bit more brightness but for its price, I wouldn’t complain.

Software and Performance

The ASUS Fonepad FE171CG runs on a very familiar skin, the ZenUI which is also present on the Zenfone 2. Just like the one on the Zenfone 2, the interface of the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG is clean and pleasing to the eye. However, it isn’t as fast as the one on the Zenfone 2 because this one only runs on an Intel Atom Z2520 Processor with 1 GB of RAM but don’t worry, it isn’t that laggy and I’m still satisfied with its performance.

Multi-tasking on the tablet might give you some hiccups but the tablet can handle well. The 16GB Internal storage is already enough but if you want, you can expand the storage of the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG. When it comes to Antutu, I got a score of 18519 which is as expected on a tablet with a hardware like this.

The ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG comes with company’s own apps like the ZenLink apps. PC Link lets you mirror the display of the Fonepad to your PC, Remote Link lets you control your PC using your tablet, ShareLink lets you transfer files to another device using WiFi and Party Link which allows you to connect to nearby devices and share your pictures.

There are also some apps that aren’t really useful but you can’t uninstall like Zinio, Kindle, and Mirror. But don’t worry, there are only a few of them and they don’t take too much space from your internal storage.

When it comes to games, some heavy games might not be smooth but it is very playable. Some of the games that I tried on the Fonepad 7 FE171CG are Asphalt 8 which lags at first but gets playable after some time and Chaos Rings III that works pretty great.

As of this posting, the ASUS Fonepad FE171CG is still running on Android 4.4 Kitkat and I expect that the Android 5.0 Lollipop would arrive soon.

In case you didn’t know, Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are now available on Android devices and most of the time, I use Microsoft Office suite on the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG and it works great.

Camera

I’ve always said that tablets aren’t really made for taking photos and most of the time, their cameras can’t fare with most smartphones. But in the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG, they’ve packed in a good camera for a tablet. There’s a 5-Megapixel Pixelmaster Rear camera which shoots that can shoot brighter than most tablets in lowlight.

Most of the photos that I shoot using the tablet takes decent shots. It’s not the best that you can expect but it is decent for a tablet at its price. Some of the shots lack colors but sometimes, the tablet got it right. At low-light mode, the images are brighter but there are noticeable noises on the photos. Check out the photos that I took below

Battery Life

The ASUS Fonepad FE171CG got a decent battery life. The tablet lasted for 2 days on my average use (A bit of games, social media and of course, browsing). At heavy use, surprisingly, the ASUS Fonepad FE171CG lasted for more than a half a day. Actually, if you’re planning on using it watching your favorite TV series or using it for Clash of Clans, you would be able to use this tablet for more than 14 hours.

And in case you need more juice on this tablet, the ASUS Fonepad FE171CG features a Power Saver app which gives you mode in where you can save more battery.

Verdict

We know that the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG isn’t the best tablet out there when it comes to performance but the ASUS Fonepad FE171CG offers something that others don’t and it’s the phone functionality. Another interesting thing about this tablet is its affordable price and its elegant body. If you’re planning on buying one, you can get the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG nationwide for P6,995. However, if you don’t want to leave your home, you can get the ASUS Fonepad 7 FE171CG at the ASUS Philippines online store at http://store.asus.com/ph.