Digiflip Pro XT 712 review

PRODUCT REVIEWS

Flipkart entering the tablet space is hardly surprising. In a world dominated by iPads, the budget or entry-level tablet space has been left up for grabs for a long time now. Samsung has enjoyed its fair share of success in this segment and so has Asus, when they slashed the price of the 2012 Nexus 7.

Currently, there’s nothing from Amazon or any of the big names which are worth looking at in the sub-Rs 10,000 price segment. Flipkart seized this opportunity and today, we have the XT 712 under the Digiflip Pro brand.

Design and Build
Getting a tablet out in the market isn’t very difficult these days. The trick is finding the right ODM in China and making the right compromise on components in order to achieve your target price. Flipkart seem to have struck a fair balance with the XT 712.

Sleek design

The tablet does remind us of past devices from unheard brands due to the silly writing behind the ports but apart from that, it looks pretty good. The bezels are fairly slim all around which makes it easy to grip and the metal back gives it rigidity. From the front, you could mistake it for the older Nexus 7.

The back panel houses the SIM cards and microSD card

The buttons are a bit fiddly but have a good tactile response. The 5MP camera protrudes a bit from the back which would scrape off the chrome trimming eventually. The plastic bit on the top is a real pain to remove and snaps off rather violently. The two SIM card and microSD slots are under this flap, which means you may have to remove it every now and then.

The button indications on the sides negates the otherwise premium look

Overall, the XT 712 is exactly what you’d expect from a China-designed tablet, but a lot less crude compared to what’s out there.

Features
The Digiflip Pro features a 7-inch HD IPS display (1280 x 800) which offers good colour reproduction and viewing angles. The brightness level could have been better as the display tends to wash out under direct sunlight. An ambient light sensor is present but there isn’t a notification LED.

The typical Android interface you see on most Indian devices

The tablet runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with minor customisations to the stock UI. The interface is smooth but it’s not ‘Nexus smooth’. The animations throughout the interface aren’t rendered at 60fps and that’s very obvious by just flicking through the home screens.

Powering the XT 712 is a quad-core MediaTek MT8382 SoC that’s been under clocked to 1.3GHz from its stock speed of 1.6GHz. You also get 1GB of RAM onboard. This chipset is very similar to the MT6582 used on most budget phones these days, except for the fact that the CPU’s L2 cache is halved at 256KB instead of 512KB. Apps and games run smoothly however and the benchmark scores are only slightly lower when compared to MediaTek’s smartphone equivalent.

Puts up a pretty good show in the benchmarks as well

The tablet comes bundled with a couple of apps like Flipkart, Flipkart eBooks, MXPlayer, GPS Info, Bluetooth Proximity and a File Manager. The lack of finesse is evident from the way these apps work. In the app drawer, icon labels are truncated if they’re too long. It’s not a major issue but it’s details take away from the experience. The tablet also comes with a theme chooser which can be accessed from the home screen.

Since this tablet supports voice calling, we decided to test the call quality. We found the earpiece volume to be quite inadequate. Even indoors, we struggled to hear the caller on the other end. So don’t think about using this as your phone.

Media and Connectivity
Media playback is handled by the stock audio and video player. You get 12GB of usable space out of the 16GB, which is expandable. Audio quality is decent and the loud speaker has a high enough volume for alerts.

The display is good for watching videos on the move

The Dual SIM cards support 3G up to 21.6Mbps, plus there’s Wi-Fi ‘n’, Bluetooth v4.0, GPS, USB OTG and Micracast. There’s no NFC or GLONASS.

Camera
The 5MP shooter at the back supports auto-focus but as you’d expect, it’s below average. We don’t expect tablets to double up as great cameras so we won’t fault the XT 712 too much here. The front camera lacks auto-focus so your selfies might suffer.

The stock camera interface

The camera sensor is strictly average

Battery life
The tablet takes a really long time to fully charge, at least longer than usual. The 3000mAh battery is simply too less when you look at most 7-inch tablets which pack in at least a 4000mAh battery. Battery life therefore is strictly average. The tablet won’t last you a full day under typical usage with a 3G SIM installed. We managed to get about 6.5-hours in our battery of tests.

For the price, the tablet is pretty hard to beat

Verdict and Price in India
As a debut attempt, we have to hand it to Flipkart for getting a good mix of features for the price.

The Digiflip Pro XT 712 is available for Rs 10,000 through Flipkart exclusively. To sweeten the deal, you also get some launch offers worth Rs 7,000. Compared to what’s in the market, the XT 712 does offer the best combination of features and performance for the price. But like any other budget tablet, it has its fair share of problems too. The earpiece volume is quite low, which is big issue if you plan on using this for phone calls. You can mitigate this with the headset but still, it’s an issue that shouldn’t have been there. Battery life is another area of concern.

We’re waiting to see what they do next. Hopefully, we can expect more premium aesthetics and some sort of a customised interface to elevate the online shopping experience rather than just pre-installing the app.

SPECIFICATION

Screen

Screen Size(Inches)	7
Screen Resolution (pixels)	1280 x 800
Screen Type	IPS Capacitive Touchscreen

Memory

Internal Storage	16GB, 1GB RAM
Capacity (Card)	MicroSD
Upgradeable Upto	32GB

Camera

Megapixel	5MP
Video resolution / frame rate	1080p
Front facing camera	2MP

Sound

Speaker	Yes
Audio connector	3.5mm

Connectivity

2G	Yes
3G	Yes
Bluetooth	Yes
Wi-Fi	Yes
WiFi (802.11b/g/n)	802.11b/g/n
USB	Yes

Software

OS	Android
Version	4.2 (Jelly Bean)

Hardware

GPU	Mali 400
Processor	Quad Core
Speed	1.3 GHz

GPS

GPS	Yes
A-GPS	Yes

Battery

Type	Li-Ion
Capacity	3000
Standby Time	168 Hrs

Dimensions

Dimensions (H x W x D)	113.7 x 185.3 x 9.2 mm
Weight (g)	285

After Sales Service

Warranty	1 Year

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