Swipe

Swipe MTV Slate is the tablet I am using for this post, in every sense. We have had this surprisingly well made Tab for a week now. Motive was to obviously test this Tab at all fronts. We have done it thoroughly, and now it’s time for you to know how did the Swipe MTV Slate fare on our testing parameters? We will take you through our experience with this Tab right from the beginning. Following is the hands on review:-

The moment we opened the box, we saw a white iPad Mini, wrapped in frost plastic sheet inside. We thought that Swipe has trolled us by sending us iPad Mini to review in place of their own tablet but we were quick to notice that there was no ‘Home’ button on the face of the front and hence, this wasn’t an iPad. But it has stark similarity to the Apple’s smaller tablet in terms of screen size, tablet dimensions and looks. More on that in a while.

The front is clean, without buttons and just four small blank dots on an otherwise white border for an earpiece, front 0.3 MP camera, two sensors (one ambient light and other proximity sensor) and a notification light.

The back is full brushed metal, aluminium perhaps, but not close to the quality of one used at the back of iPad. The idea is the same, but the execution isn’t. Also, it isn’t as solidly attached to the panel. That said, it does provide a comfortable hold to the device while maintaining the grip and an assuring feel that it won’t slip out of your hands.

The device feels solid to hold in hands and seems tough enough to take occasional falls. It’s light and comfortable to hold in one hand and operate, no problems here. Although you have to use two hands for typing.

There is an audio jack on the top with a white plastic module, which houses the WiFi and cellular antennas. The same module has a pin hole and comes out so that you can put a full sized SIM card. The left side is clean. The standby/wake button is at the right with volume buttons. On the bottom there are two speaker grills and a mini-USB port with OTG support.

The device runs on MediaTek MT8389 which is a 1Ghz quad-core processor and an 1GB (972 MB usable) RAM. It comes with 1GB of internal storage space for apps and 5GB for media and document files. Jelly Bean 4.2.2 is stocked with the device with support for lockscreen widgets.

The screen is bright, bright enough to be read in direct sunlight. We had no problems in reading off the screen in the sunlight.

The device is snappy, really snappy like the ones we have seen with few high end Android devices, but not as fast as last year’s Nexus 7. Not that you’ll notice, or care. Apps launch with very less delay, sometimes making us feel as if the app is already loaded in the RAM. Not much to complain here.

The resolution of the screen is with par on the iPad Mini. It does boast of 768 x 976 pixels, providing sharp enough texts to read without gouging your eyes out.

The rear of the device has a 5MP camera and a reset hole.

Now the most important part of the post for the gamer community out there. How was the gaming experience? Allow me to state it point wise:-

1) Games run seamlessly smooth.

2) Even heavier games, as heavy as Fifa, Vice City can be played without any hiccups.

3) In the budget segment, this Tab is proving very promising as it houses a quad core processor which helps gaming a great deal.

Seldom things are perfect. So let us now see what are not so good with Swipe MTV Slate:-

1) Its design will remind you an iPad, but obviously of a lower quality. An original design would have been much more appreciated.

2) A typical Chinese charger and typical Chinese alerts, which might get on your nerves , if you aren’t very tolerant.

3) No support for dongle. Albeit, inbuilt 3G SIM slot is there to cater to your fast internet needs. But at times we want to attach an external dongle and get our job done.

4) Screen appears to be quite delicate and demands a screen guard. We say this as we found a few scratches on the screen, despite of the fact that we took utmost care. So better to have a screen guard.

This is as much we had in our experience with the first hands-on with the device. Stay tuned for more reviews of the tablet.