An inexpensive tablet but does it have good
performance?
The Ice Xtreme is another budget tablet
recently and is priced under Rs 10,000. It is a 7in, leather encased Android
table that has a black front with no physical buttons, while plastic shell.
The build quality is nothing to write home
about, very plasticky. The bezel has three buttons for on/off/lock toggle along
with a volume rocker. A tiny hole next to that mentions ‘reset’ in black. The
buttons feels flimsy while in use and there is a little lag between sleep and
waking up. The front has a 2 megapixel camera and the device also sports USB
2.0 ports for connecting USB storage or 3G dongles directly. Apart from this,
it also has an HDMI port, mini USB, 3.5mm audio out and a micro SD card slot.
Ice Xtreme uses an ARM Cortex A8 processor
with Mali 400MGz GPU and 1 GB of RAM. The tablet has 8 GB of internal memory
along with an 8GB external card. The screen has a resolution of 800x400 pixels,
commonly found in this category. Xtreme features raw Ice cream Sandwich with a
little tweak on the home screen.
The overall performance of this tablet is
not bad but we found some lag. The quality of images shot by the camera is
average, and can only be used for social networking sites. However, the sound
quality is better than average through the in-built speakers as well as with
third party headphones. The video output is usable but accompanied by a viewing
angle problem the colors seem washed out when viewed from an angle of more than
30 degrees! Quite an issue while playing games.
The battery lasted for nine and a half
hours with mixed usage. In the stress test mode, it decreased to less than
eight hours.
Overall, the Xtreme is not a bad tablet.
Though not being the best in its genre, it’s not the worst either. A slightly
better display and improved build quality would have helped to make a better
impression.
We say: Average build quality, ok
performance
Overall: 6/10
Olympus SH-25MR
A compact camera which shoot great video
The Olympus SH-25 MR is a compact digital
camera targeted towards amateur photographers who want it all in a single
camera. Full HD (1080) video recording, 16 megapixel censor, 12.5x optical
zoom, 3 in touchscreen display with added GPS functionality. It’s all your at
Rs 21,000.
Weighing 208gm and measuring 11x6x3cm, the
25MR is quite compact and easily fits in your pocket. It has a textured black
body, the back is largely occupied by the touchscreen and other buttons for
recording video, playback, menu etc, and a dial mode on the top right, with the
shoot button and zoom dial included iAuto, programme, scene, beauty, magic,
panorama, multi-record and photo features. Apart from the touchscreen (which is
a bit sluggish at times), the overall controls are easy and fast. The screen
resolution is decent as well, with a touch to focus, saturation, brightness and
color temperature control.
The scene mode has an array of 17 modes and
deserve a mention. All the modes are well demonstrated with picture and
illustration - huge while choosing the right mode. The 12x optical zoom covers
an impressive focal range of 24-300mm and the outdoor images are vibrant and
crisp. The camera has an ISO range from 80 to 6400. We found that images upto
800 are usable with a slight noise creeping in. Images above 1600 have ample
visible noise though.
The video performance, perhaps, is the best
feature of this camera. We shot several videos in varied lighting conditions
and more often than not, the results were rich, detailed and with less motion
blur. Also you can click still images while recording a video as well!
The Olympus SH-25MR is a compact camera
with tons of features. The price pretty much validates the features offered.
We say: Several preset modes, decent image,
quality, good price
Overall: 8/10
Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 64GB
Stylist USB3 with lots of features
The market for storage devices is an
ever-expanding one. Though external 2.5in hard drives are cheaper options as
they offer more storage at a lesser cost, their portability is an issue due to
their portability is an issue due to their physical size. And that’s why some
users prefer using a flash drive as opposed to a hard drive.
Featuring a slim and sturdy body, the
Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0 is elegant yet rugged, with a matte black finish and a
glossy slider. It measures 0.45 x 0.8 x 2.57 in and weighs half an ounce, so it
can easily slip into your pocket or can be attached with a keyring.
The 64GB drive actually offers a storage
apace of 59.5GB which comes pre-formatted in FAT 32 mode. The manufacturer also
offers an additional cloud storage of 2GB along with this drive. Apart from
these, it comes bundled with a copy of Sandisk Secure Access, which offers
password protection using AES 128 bit encryption and Seccure partition
facility. The bundled version is Windows only though a Mac user can download
the same from the Sandisk website. It also offers a package Club Sandisk which bundles
McAfee 60 day trial, RoboForm Password Manager and a trial of GoToMyPC.
Though the manufacture claims a speed of
170Mps and 190MBps while writing and reading respectively, we got a speed of
113MBps while writing and 109MBps while reading using a USB3 port. While using
a 2.0 port, it achieved a speed of 30MBps and 32MBps for writing and reading,
which is far ahead of others. The only competition in speed is the Kingston
DataTraveler drives.
With impressive overall performance and
neat design, we wish Sandisk reconsiders the pricing, so that the product can
be labelled unbeatable in every way!
We say: Good looks, great transfer speed
Overall: 6/10
