Zync Quad 10.1
Street Price: Rs 14,000

 

Zync has been trying hard to cement its place in the budget tablet segment. Their previous attempts such as Z-990 and Z999 Plus had failed to impress us. While their early products went unnoticed, the company's new Quad series of tablets have managed to grab a lot of eyeballs. Its flagship, the Quad 10.1 is the biggest and most expensive of this new lot. It packs in a full-HD IPS screen, which is rarely seen at this price point. So let's find out how it performs in the real world.

Design And Build
All the Zync tablets that we had reviewed in the past had extremely poor build quality. However, its latest Quad 10.1 tablet is well made. The aluminium finish at the back gives this tablet a somewhat premium feel. The rounded corners and an edge-to-edge glass on the front make it look like an iPad. Like the Google Nexus 10 tablet, Zync opted for on-screen buttons over the capacitive keys.

When held in landscape mode, the top side features a 3.5 mm audio jack, charger port, and a pinhole to reset the tablet. The right side of the tablet sports a plastic strip that houses Power button and volume rocker. Beside it is a plastic flap that reveals a microSD card slot, HDMI-out, and microSD card slot. So finally, Zync has managed to pull off a non-tacky tablet with good build quality.

Display And Key Specs
The tablet features a 10.1" display with 16:10 aspect ratio. With pixel dimensions of 1920x1200, the screen is impressively sharp. Being an IPS type display, the colour reproduction is very good. It delivers vibrant colours with quite impressive contrast. Considering the price tag, the screen is reasonably bright. On the flipside, the screen is a smudge magnet, and cleaning it isn't easy either. But the bigger issue here is the backlighting that isn't uniform across the screen area. Wondering whether we received a faulty unit, we asked for another piece. Surprisingly, that too had dark patches in the same area. So I think it's a manufacturing fault that should have been spotted by Zync’s quality control department.

The tablet packs in serious raw power. Zync has generously thrown in a 1.5 GHz quad-core processor coupled with Mali-400 GPU. There's 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of internal storage (11 GB user accessible), 5 megapixel auto-focus camera, 2 mp front-facing snapper, microSD card slot, microUSB Port that supports OTG, HDMI-out, and 8000 mAh battery.

UI And Performance
The Quad 10.1 comes with Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). Zync hasn't made many changes to the stock ROM, save for the addition of a few third party apps. As already mentioned in the review, the UI navigation is taken care off by the on-screen buttons. The tablet version of Jelly Bean comes with a Honeycomb-style notification panel located at the bottom right corner of the screen.

Although the tablet features a quad-core processor, it fails to deliver smooth Android experience.  It stutters a lot even while performing basic tasks such as swiping through home screens. Either Zync hasn't bothered to optimise the software or maybe it's the full-HD (1080p) screen that's taxing the processor. In AnTuTu, the device scores 11,237. Check out the chart below to see where this tablet stands among other Android devices.

Coming to the subject of apps, the tablet comes preinstalled with a file manager, audio recorder, FireReader, and 4K Player. The Quad 10.1 has access to Google's Play Store, which allows you to download a plethora of apps.

Multimedia
Like every other budget tablet, the Quad 10.1's sound quality is underwhelming. The tablet ships with a pair of IEMs, but don't get your hopes high as they're ordinary at best. The bright spot here is the tablet's video playback capabilities. The preinstalled player had no issues at all when playing 1080p MP4, DivX, and XviD clips.

 

Although the company boasts of a 5 megapixel autofocus camera on the paper, in reality it hardly matches the quality of a 2 mp snapper. Even in well-lit scenarios, the photos turn out to be grainy. Since it lacks a flash, low-light photography is out of question. Honestly, I do not expect much out of cameras on tablets. But the one here is below par even for tablet standards.

Battery
The slate packs in an 8000 mAh Lithium polymer battery that lasts for around 6 hours under moderate use. In our video playback test, it only lasted for 2 hours and 50 minutes, which is barely enough to watch a full-length Bollywood movie. Again the full-HD display along with poor optimization of quad-core processor and OS take a toll on the battery.

Verdict
For around Rs 14,000, the Quad 10.1 might sound like a great deal. However, its performance is not up to the mark. What's more worrying is the dubious screen quality. So basically, this tablet is a classic example of how impressive specs and numbers don't always translate into a good product. What Zync needs to do is make sure that the screen issues are resolved in the next batch. And given its impressive hardware, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the company to work on an Android 4.2 update and fix the lack of optimization.

Features: 4/5
Design And Build Quality: 3.5/5
Performance: 3/5
Value For Money: 3/5
Mojo: 2/5
Overall Rating: 3/5

Specifications:

• Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), Google Play Store.
• 10.1" 10-point multi-touch capacitive IPS screen with pixel dimensions of 1920x1200.
• 1.5 GHz quad-core CPU, Octa-core Mali-400 MP4 GPU.
• 2 GB RAM, 16 GB internal storage, Up to 32 GB microSD support.
• 5 megapixel rear camera with autofocus, .face detection, panorama snap, colour effects.
• 2 megapixel front camera.
• Wi-Fi (with hotspot), Wi-Fi Direct, microUSB, HDMI-out.
• Sensors: Accelerometer, Gravity.
• 8000 mAh Li-ion battery.
• Weight: 471 grams.
• Package Contents: Tablet, Earphones, USB data cable, Charger.

 

TAGS: Tablets, Android, Zync