We unboxed the Tecno PhonePad 7II the other day and have since used it for some time. Here is my experience of the gadget and how it has fit into my life. The PhonePad 7II is as the name suggests, a cross between a tablet and a smartphone. So as much as it looks like a tablet due to its size, it is actually optimized for a smartphone – starting from the fact that it is a double SIM.
Camera – With a 5mp back and 2mp front camera, the PhonePad 7II is clearly not optimized for photography. But it will still do the job especially for fun every day photography. On a trip out to Maasai Mara though, you may need a better camera to capture decent photos. Some smartphone cameras too will do a fairly good job with photos for your keeps – not for National Geographic :-D.
Screen size – I’m loving the 7” screen size especially for reading. I’ve taken to doing my reading in the morning. I know how my day gets the minute I step out of the house and into the rat race and because I don’t want to lose out on my reading, I spare mornings specific for that. The kind of reading I’m talking about especially in the context of this gadget is not heavy. Not whole books or biographies, rather long and short reads which I will usually have saved on the read-later app Pocket. Other than this, any time I need to read anything longer I also download and save direct into the PhonePad so that it also acts as an e-reader of sorts. The screen resolution of 600X1024 does well for reading.
The bigger screen size also makes watching videos and playing games this much more pleasurable.
Battery life – At the moment, the PhonePad is not yet my primary device and seeing that I mostly use it for social media and reading, the battery lasts for no less than 2 days. On days when I watch videos and edit photos though, it will comfortably go a day. With a 4100 mAh battery, we’re looking at almost 12 hours of continuous video. Running it for a full day as a primary device is therefore nothing that it can’t handle.
Design – First of all my piece is in metallic champagne gold colour and I’m loving it the colour and feel of it. It helps a lot that it also comes with a free similar coloured cover so I did not have to struggle looking for and getting mismatched covers in the shops. At 7”, the phonepad7II is quite big to be used as a phone but with phones getting bigger and bigger, this may not look too strange with time. It is a double SIM and if one got used to it as a phone, it will actually eliminate the often necessary need to carry two gadgets – a phone and a tablet.
Other features
- Double SIM. One standard SIM and one micro SIM.
- 4G ready.
- It runs on the latest Lollipop (Android 5.1).
- 16 GB memory 1 GB RAM
- SD can support upto 32 GB
A good gadget I would say. The price is Kshs.14,499/-