 "Swipe Velocity Tab Review")
We have seen a drastic change in the types of Android-based tablets in the market ranging from screen sizes, to processor speeds and even the overall dimensions. Well, after all, the aesthetics of a tablet is what really matters first. The buyer is always impressed by the looks of the tablet initially and then proceeds to check out the specifications and its performance. If you look at the newer tablets entering the market, they all look pretty impressive and will definitely make it a tough decision for the buyer. Take for instance the Micromax Funbook Pro, Wammy Desire, HCL ME Tablet G1, the Zync Z1000, and a few others that sport a classy look. Same is the case with the newly launched Swipe Velocity. It is sleek, slim, light and awesome looking. Let’s check out this tablet and see if it is really a beauty with brains.
Swipe Velocity Tab – 8-incher Dual core Android tablet with JB v 4.1.1
Design and build
The Swipe Velocity Tab is definitely one of the slickest Android tablets we have come across till date. Measuring just 10.5 mm in thickness and 330 grams in weight, the tablet feels very nice to hold and operate upon. The chassis is a dual-tone silver and black. The rear panel is made of matte-finished aluminium and is very neat and tidy with no large, distracting or gaudy looking manufacturer logos. The rear panel just sports a speaker grille, a camera and the volume rocker. Towards the left side is a black plastic patch, which highlights the markings for the ports or interface slots. The right side features the power button, a headphone jack, a micro USB PC interface and OTG connector, a mini HDMI interface and a micro SD card slot. A tiny hole sports a reset button within.
Lastly, the front panel sports the 8-inch IPS display panel along with a front facing camera and nothing else. The display panel is lined with a black matte-finished plastic skirting, which neatly tucks in the display panel to give it a detail. The overall build quality is superb and the frame is rugged unlike other plastic-based tablets that can threaten to crack the display panel or the chassis thanks to the metal rear plate and the IPS panel that gives the entire tablet its firmness.
8-inch display with IPS panel featuring a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution
Features and performance
The Velocity Tab packs a powerful ARM v7 Cortex-A9 NEON dual-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz, under its hood. The processor is complimented with a MALI-400 GPU and 1GB of RAM. This hardware runs on the latest Android operating system—Jelly Bean v 4.1.1. An internal storage of 8GB is provided for user data, which is not entirely available for data storage. It is shared between the ROM, app storage and app data and the remaining available space of around 4.13GB is available for user data storage. The display is an 8-inch IPS panel with an HD resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. Two cameras are included on each side of the tablet, the rear one being a 2MP while the front camera is a 1.3MP. Connectivity options are Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and a micro USB PC interface that doubles as an OTG port for 3G Internet dongles and other compatible USB peripherals. Presently, dongles from Vodafone, Idea, Airtel, TATA Photon and Reliance are compatible. MTS and Reliance Netconnect (Model: Huawei EC 159) are not supported as yet. You can also connect the tablet to a physical network using an Ethernet cable via a USB Ethernet dongle over the OTG interface. Missing here is a Bluetooth interface which could have added value to the product. Powering the entire unit is a 4500 mAh battery. Bundled along with the tablet is an OTG cable, a USB PC interface cable, a pair of earphones and a power adapter.
Matte-finish metal rear panel
We did play around with the tablet to gauge the performance of the user interface and we were impressed. None of the dual-core Android tablets we have reviewed till now performs as smooth as this one. The user interface is fluid and so seems the processing. Casual operation, videos and gaming are totally enjoyable thanks to the powerful NEON extension on the ARM processor and the HD IPS panel. We did our usual benchmarking using apps such as AnTuTu, Quadrant, NenaMark2 and Linpack to understand the performance of the tablet related in numbers. AnTuTu scored 11265, Quadrant scored 4123, and NenaMark resulted in 47.9 fps. Linpack gave us results of 34.079 MFLOPS and 58.463 MFLOPS in single-thread and multi-thread tests respectively. On comparing the tablet with others in the similar category of dual-core processors, we found this one to be a tad slower than the HCL ME Tablet G1 and the Wammy Desire. But as per our experience and the hands-on usage of the Velocity Tab, we have to state that the tablet is truly a good performer. We would like to justify this by pointing out the fluid user interface, the completely flawless full-HD media playback and the fun while using HD games. We are not sure what caused the performance benchmarks resulting in lower scores, but what finally matters is the smooth interface and the speedy performance whilst using it.
The business end of the tablet
Display and media
The display is IPS-based sporting a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels on an 4:3 ratio 8-inch sized LCD panel. The display has very good viewing angles along with a bright and crisp display quality. We couldn’t find a flaw in the display section as yet. Watching a high definition video or playing high-graphical games are equally enjoyable due to the higher resolution. As stated earlier, the media playback is flawless and we could not find a better playback quality on any budget Android tablet as of yet.
Android Jelly Bean operating system on a 1.6GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM
The audio quality from the rear speaker is good and loud enough. The audio is clear and not too shrill, which makes the audio tracks in movies and music very clear and pleasant. The bundled earphones have a decent audio quality too. It has a good blend of highs and mids and is loud enough to enjoy your movies and video clips. But if you are a music buff and enjoy higher bass in your tracks, we would advice you to change the earphones.
Mirco USB, microSD card slot, Audio and power jack, mini HDMI
User interface and misc. apps
The Velocity Tab runs the latest Android v4.1.1 Jelly Bean operating system and the home launcher is stock. A few free apps are pre-installed, but most of the free apps provided with the tablet are stored as SPK files on the internal storage. The user has a choice to install it or discard it accordingly. This is a good option given by the manufacturer as it prevents unnecessary wastage of internal storage space.
10.5 mm thick, volume rocker seen on the top
Battery life
The battery inside the Velocity Tab is a 4500 mAh and the manufacturer claims almost 9 hours of usage on a single charge. To check this out, we did our standard battery benchmark by looping a single video time and again until the battery died. The battery managed to play videos continuously for almost 4 hours and 10 minutes. We then redid a battery test while employing standard usage like media streaming, browsing, entertainment with movies and music, gaming and so on. The tablet this time gave us a battery life of approximately 4 hours and 30 minutes. But as we always state, the battery life completely depends on its usage and hence, it will vary from person to person.
Verdict
The Swipe Velocity is a really impressive tablet and the performance is definitely good. What makes this tablet a piece of desire is the IPS panel with an HD resolution, the dual core processor with 1GB RAM, the build quality and lastly, its design. Its size and weight is just right to make it easy to carry around. If you want a larger screen, then you can check out the Wammy Ethena or the HCL ME Tablet G1. The Velocity Tab is priced at an MRP of Rs 13,999 and the street price is as low as Rs 11,490. The price seems to be a tad higher, but it is justified by the IPS panel, the sleek design and the performance it offers. We would definitely recommend this tablet if you want a real entertainer tablet. This one does deserve the title of Beauty with Brains.
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