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XOLO Play Tegra Note review: A powerful and versatile tablet

Tegra Note is fairly light, comfortable to hold and has a highly responsive stylus, good camera capabilities.

Things are not looking good for the poor old PC. If you walk into any of the shopping malls, take a ride in the metro or simply glance around, you?ll notice a good number of people hooked on to their tablets, either playing games or replying to urgent office-related email. And when they are playing a gripping game, they often throw a tantrum if their device either hangs midway or is too slow to respond to their moves. Fact is, when you?re playing games on the move, you want a device that?s powerful and versatile, with a great screen and access to a huge range of entertainment.

If you are looking to buy a tablet?that isn?t the iPad?that provides a good experience across a wide range of productivity and entertainment applications, then the XOLO Play Tegra Note can be a good option. Its maker, the XOLO smartphone brand from Lava International, has already

debuted a few good-performing mobile phones in the recent past; its latest 7-inch Android tablet, priced at Rs 17,999 will certainly impress users with its top-notch features and smooth performance.

The tablet (Tegra Note) is fairly light and comfortable to hold. It has a highly responsive stylus, good camera capabilities, rich stereo sound, powerful graphics capabilities and a good battery life. Switching between different apps quickly and scrolling through webpages is as smooth and zippy as I have ever seen on any tablet. Also, its screen is one of the brightest around.

First, a few words on the rapidly evolving world of games in the tablet space. Tablets games have matured significantly in the past few years, and some of my favourite, most addictive games are now available only on tablets. They are definitely different than hardcore console games and judging by what I have seen in the last few months, gaming on tablets is coming very much into its own.

Back to the Tegra Note. This Android Jelly Bean tablet sports a proven, sensible design, a bevy of useful features, and fast performance. The Nvidia DirectStylus technology is a unique addition. In tech parlance, the compute capabilities of Tegra 4 is used to analyse data from a standard touch sensor and recognise the difference between fine-tip stylus, finger, eraser and palm. From a technology perspective, you can use a fine-tip passive stylus to draw lines of different widths by simply varying the applied pressure. From an end user perspective, users can write accurately and naturally using a simple passive stylus, while the opposite end of the stylus can be used as a marker or eraser. This results in finer point and broader stroke control, resulting in a more natural writing experience.

You can use the stylus to natively edit, sign and annotate PDF?s with Adobe Acrobat Reader for Android. You can

also use the built-in Tegra Write and Tegra Draw, and many other third party stylus-enabled apps to take notes, create to-do lists, draw sketches, jot down thoughts and ideas, quickly and easily. You can do this in a comfortable and natural way by resting your palm on the screen, without having to worry about the device picking up false inputs. For general tablet though, I feel that usage of your finger is still the best tool for the job.

Sure, the stylus is the reason most will even notice this tablet, but it?s the Nvidia Tegra 4 quad-core mobile processor that makes this a viable gaming platform. I have reviewed many tablets in recent months, but the Tegra Note 7 delivers amazing performance for intensive applications such as Web browsing, facial recognition, image processing, advanced gaming effects and snappy user interface responsiveness?all thanks to its

mobile processor.

In the realm of entertainment, Tegra Note has some of the best speakers available in a tablet on the market. With stereo front-facing speakers flanking either side of the display, the tablet offers deep, rich sound with one of the widest frequency ranges in a tablet. Prop it up using the slide cover accessory, and be prepared for an immersive experience, whether you?re streaming an HD movie or your favourite songs. The tablet has a good battery life, upto 10 hours HD video playback.

Tegra Note also brings you powerful graphics, controller support and amazing games. The Nvidia TegraZone library provides easy access to a growing list of Tegra-optimised games with good visual effects. I played some of the widely popular games such as Temple Run, Asphalt, Modern Combat, and the gaming experience was smooth, fast and simply superb. The tablet also supports a variety of Bluetooth game controllers for console-class gaming.

The bottom line: Thanks to its stellar performance and affordable price, the Tegra Note is the Android tablet to get.

SPECIFICATIONS

* Dimensions:190 x 120 x 9.4 mm

* Display: 7-inch, HD IPS display with LED Backlight

* Processor: NVIDIA Tegra 4

* CPU: 1.8 GHz Quad+1 Cortex A15

* Operating system: Android v4.2.2

* RAM: 1 GB DDR3L, 12.8 GB/s

* Internal memory: 16 GB eMMC

* Camera: 5 MP (rear); VGA (front)

Estimated street price: Rs 17,999

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First published on: 23-01-2014 at 02:34 IST
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