The eyeball grabber

With new ultrabook announcements coming practically every other day as of late, a tablet unveiling is a nice change of pace. We have iBall to thank for that, as it is lifting the curtain on the 7-inch Slide 3G 7334 tablet. First, a little word on this emerging brand.

Rising popularity of the iBall brand of IT and communication products is not solely attributed its brand ambassador, Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan. R&D folks at Mumbai-based Best IT World (owner of the brand) have worked overtime to ensure that their products deliver on the performance front as well. For evidence, take a look at their latest device, the iBall Slide 3G 7334 tablet. A stylish slate with high-end features and affordable too, at a discounted rate of R10,999. That?s not all. Company officials claim that their new device has many first to its credit. It is the first dual SIM tablet in the market. It is also the first with a built-in FM transmitter.

Compared with the earlier iBall tablets, this Slide is slightly thinner and lighter, with a sleeker, less boxy look. A gray-backed version was sent to us for a product review. It measures 195 mm x 121 mm x 12 mm in body dimensions and weighs a comfortable 333g. The tablet has a 7-inch TFT display screen, with resolution of 1024 x 600. The tablet?s capacitive touch screen sports a fairly high luminance with low black levels. Of course, this is an internet-enabled device as well, and it includes full access to the Google Play market and Wi-Fi connectivity.

Tablets with corners that don?t dig into your hands as you hold them always earn points on the comfort scale. The Slide 3G 7334, with its smooth, rounded corners, is comfortable to hold over extended periods and likely won?t give you blisters. At the heart of the new Slide 3G 7334 is the powerful Cortex A9 1 GHz processor. This means scrolling between the Home screen pages is smooth, as well as opening apps and folders.

The first dual SIM tablet also happens to be with a unique distinction of both of the SIM supporting 3G (normally dual SIM has one with 3G and another with 2G). It has high speed 3G support with 7.2 Mbps download and 5.76 Mbps upload speed.

There?s more on the duality front, with two cameras as well?a 2.0 megapixel camera on the back and a VGA camera on the front. The 3G video call support lets you greet your loved ones live. More so, their smiles can be seen vividly on the 7-inch high definition screen with a 1024 x 600 resolution, which is of course muti-touch and capacitive.

More features that make the Slide 3G 7334 irresistible are its 360-degree panoramic photography and multi-shot functions. It is built-in with GPS and AGPS. Another first is the tablet?s FM transmitter, which adds on to the usual functions of an FM Radio. Even in the middle of nowhere, listening to music will still be an option. Select songs transferred via Bluetooth or a USB with ease on the multi-touch capacitive screen.

The speakers, located on the back in the bottom corner of the right side, delivers high-volume sound even with the tablet placed on a flat surface. Still, don?t expect to use this Slide as a dedicated music player. At high volume, the sound is quite shrill at times and doesn?t deliver that deep bass you would want in such a device.

Power-packed features like these need the most advanced operating system, and the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is here to add the extra zing to this iBall Slide. And while all the regular apps such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Nimbuzz, Zomato, IBNLive, Moneycontrol and CricketNext are already bundled in the tablet, hundreds of more fun and useful apps are waiting to be downloaded from the Play Store. In my experience, accessing the apps was quick and easy.

For connections, the Slide 3G 7334 has one mini USB OTG, one high definition video output port and a microSD card slot (for cards of up to 32 GB). The mini-HDMI connection is for outputting content to your TV. It also has a headphone jack, power switch, volume controller and reset key. Soft keys include Return, Home and Menu. The homepage can be xtended beyond the wideness of screen to provide more space, which you can put new-added shortcuts and widgets.

My wrap up: scrolling through webpages was fluid; light gaming was a pleasure too. This nifty gadget is unique and outdoes almost every product below R15,000 segment with a best buy price tag of just R10,999. So what are you waiting for, just slide on and enjoy the ride on the latest iBall Slide.