Lenovo introduced the A7-30 tablet with voice calling back in June for Rs. 9,979. We brought you the unboxing, photo gallery and the photo gallery of the tablet recently, here are the complete review tablet. It has 2G (EDGE) connectivity and has voice calling capabilities. There are several tablets in the Indian market with similar specifications, some even offer better specifications in this price range. Is the Lenovo A7-30 tablet any better? Let us find out.
Unboxing
We unboxed the tablet recently. Check out the Lenovo A7-30 unboxing.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpoUQEta6Io
Box Contents
The box contents include,
- Lenovo A7-30 tablet in white
- micro USB cable
- 2-pin charger
- Quick start guide
Video Review
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykpXA2qYr-c
Display and Hardware
The tablet has a 7-inch capacitive multi-touch display at a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels at a pixel density of just 169 ppi. The display is bright, but it has limited viewing angles. Since the display is shiny, it is a fingerprint magnet. It lacks an ambient light sensor, so you have to adjust the brightness manually according to the environment to view the content in the screen properly. Sunlight legibility is decent if you set the brightness is full.
Since the tablet has a huge bezel around the display, it is not easy to hold it comfortably for one-handed usage, especially for voice calls. It is not comfortable for reading a book, but watching videos in the landscape mode is good, since it is easy hold the tablet, thanks to the bezels. With dimensions of 119.8mm x 198mm, the Lenovo A7-30 is taller and wider compared to the Digiflip Pro XT 712 that we reviewed recently.
There is an earpiece on top, just above the Lenovo branding. The grill for the earpiece has a loudspeaker too behind it. It has a 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera that can record videos at VGA resolution. Since it’s just a VGA camera, you can’t expect good quality videos during video chats. It lacks proximity and ambient light sensors.
The tablet has two loudspeakers on the front. Combined with the Dolby Digital Plus, the stereo speakers offer brilliant audio output. Since the speakers are present on the front, you don’t have to worry about the audio getting muffled when the tablet is placed on a flat surface.
The power button and the volume rockers are present on the right side. The tablet is 9.98mm thick, which is decent compared to other 7-inch tablets in this range.
On the back there is a 2-megapixel fixed-focus camera without flash.
There is a flap on the other corner, which reveals the microSD and a normal SIM card slot when it’s opened.
Even though the tablet is made of plastic, it has solid build quality. It has smooth finish and not shiny, so it doesn’t attract fingerprints and also doesn’t slip out of your hands easily. The tablet weighs 327 grams, slightly heavier than other 7inch tablets.
Camera
The 2-megapixel fixed focus camera is just average. Since this is a fixed focus camera, macro shots are not possible. Even daylight shots seem dull, and the camera doesn’t have a flash, so low-light shots have a lot of noise. The camera UI is simple, similar to the UI seen on most other MediaTek-powered smartphone. It has normal, face beauty, panorama and sweep panorama modes. It also has HDR option. Check out some camera samples below. (Click to view the full resolution image).
Surprisingly, the tablet has option to record videos at 1080p full HD resolution, but the video quality is not up to the mark without much details since this is just a 2-megapixel camera. Audio is good though. Check out the video sample below.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSK2aSbgrOk
Software
The tablet was launched on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) OS, later it received Android 4.4 (KitKat) update over-the-air (OTA). It’s really a good thing that Lenovo has offered KitKat update in just a few months after launch. Lenovo also provides several minor update every few weeks.
Coming to the UI, it has a custom Lenovo UI on top of Android, similar to Lenovo smartphones. You can swipe down from the top left for notification and swipe down from the top right for Quick Settings. You can pinch to add or remove the number of homescreens or press and hold to add widgets. There is a new smart side bar that could be launched by sliding from the right or left corners of the screen. The sidebar can be enabled from the settings that lets you launch the video player, gallery, books and some apps. It also has display settings with three modes, standard, multimedia and reading.
Out of 8GB of internal storage you get 6.09GB of user storage, out of which 5.76GB is free. Out of 1GB of RAM, 961MB of RAM is usable and about 569MB of RAM is free when the table is idle. You can set the SD card default write disk, but cannot move apps to the SD card.
Apps
It doesn’t have a separate menu for the apps, so all the apps are present in the homescreen. It also supports folders. Apart from the usual set of Google apps and utility apps, the tablet has SHAREit and SYNCit HD apps from Lenovo. Other pre-loaded apps include, Skype, UC Browser, txtr ebooks, Norton Mobile security and WPS office ( previously known as Kingsoft Office) to edit office apps.
Music Player and FM Radio
The music player is stock, similar to most MediaTek-powered devices. It has FM Radio with recording and RDS. The stock video player can play 1080p full HD videos in a range of video formats smoothly.
Another important feature is the Dolby audio support that lets you adjust different equalizer settings depending on the type of audio you listen. You can also adjust them manually. Thanks to the stereo speakers, audio is brilliant without any distortion.
Connectivity
The tablet has 2G (EDGE) connectivity with voice calling, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and aGPS. Wish it had dual SIM support and 3G connectivity that is available in other tablets in this range. It even has USB OTG support. It is said to support 3G via dongles, but we did not try it.
Performance and Benchmarks
It is powered by a MediaTek MT8382 SoC with Mali 400-MP2 GPU. The performance is pretty good without any lags. Thanks to 1GB RAM, and the multitasking is pretty good too. Check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
Quadrant Benchmark
It scored 5972 points in the Quadrant benchmark.
AnTuTu Benchmark 4
It scored 16993 points in the AnTuTu Benchmark 4.
Vellamo 2.0 HTML5
It scored 1955 points in the Vellamo 2 HTML5 browser benchmark. Check out the complete set of Lenovo A7-30 Benchmarks here.
We tested several games, including some high-end games, and the game performance and the graphics were just average. It doesn’t support PS3 controller over Bluetooth or via USB. Check out the gaming review to know more about the gaming performance of the tablet in detail.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcAMft2rRS4
Battery Life
Coming to the battery life, the 3500 mAh battery lasts for a day with average use. Since it only has 2G support, it doesn’t drain the battery much even if the data is on. Intensive gaming drains the battery. You can enable power saving mode to extend the battery so that it would last more than a day.
Conclusion
At a price tag of Rs. 9979, the Lenovo A7-30 is slightly costly compared to other tablets that offer better specifications at this price. There are less benefits in this tablets to recommend it. Lenovo also sells the A7-50 tablet with better screen and 3G support at a price tag of Rs. 15,499, so if you looking for a tablet with better features you can go for that. To summarize, here are the pros and cons of the tablet.
Pros
- Solid build quality
- Good loudspeaker output
- Good performance
- Decent battery life
Cons
- Low-resolution display with limited viewing angles
- Lacks 3G support
- Average camera
- Lacks proximity and ambient light sensors