BSNL Penta T-Pad WS703C Review

Interface and performance

The WS703C uses the Android ICS operating system with a stock tablet interface. The entire UI is a bit sluggish as compared to the older WS802C we reviewed a few months ago. The low sensitivity of the capacitive display could be the reason for the sluggish interface. After casually operating the tablet for a few days, we found that the entire operating system runs fine for some time, gets a bit sluggish at times, freezes for a moment and then runs faster than usual later on. 

Volume and power on the top

We tested the tablet to gauge the performance and compare it with similar existing tablets in the market. AnTuTu gave us a score of 3169, Quadrant resulted in 1911 and Linpack scored 13.443 MFLOPS in single-thread tests and 14.5 MFLOPS in multi-thread tests. Nenamark2 scored 28.9 fps. Looking at the scores, there is nothing much to talk about the performance; the core performance of this tablet is at par with other tablets in the same category. 

Media

As with all Android tablets, the WS703c plays the usual file formats such as AVI (H.264, DIVX, DIVX, XVID, rm, rmvb, MKV（H.264, DIVX, DIVX, XVID), WMV, MOV, MP4（H.264, MPEG, DIVX, XVID), DAT（VCD), VOB（DVD), PMP,MPEG, MPG, FLV（H.263，H.264), ASF, TS, TP, 3GP, MPG etc. Office documents such as EPUB, WORD, EXCEL, POWERPOINT, PDF, TXT are compatible. 

12 mm thick

The audio volume from the built-in speaker is very low and you cannot enjoy any music or video entertainment on its own. You would have to use the headphones but the audio volume from the headphones is also low. The bundled headphones are glossy white and look like a replica of the iPhone earphones. The earphones are calling headsets with an inline call button and microphone. The audio quality for calls of the headphones is surprisingly good and you will not need to replace them to get good call quality. Using the headset for calling is good enough, but as we mentioned, the lacking higher audio volume can be troublesome when you are in a noisy environment or out in traffic. 

Stock tablet user interface with a few freebie apps

Misc apps and freebies

As we mentioned earlier, the BSNL bundles along a sleeve for protection while carrying it around. Also bundled is a headset, a charger and a micro USB cable. An OTG cable is not supplied, which is a drawback, as you would have to hunt for one if you want to use a 3G-Internet dongle or USB peripherals with the tablet. Lastly, the tablet is flushed with a few free apps for games, entertainment and productivity.

A few productivity, entertainment and gaming apps are thrown in

Battery test

The power source used in the tablet is a 3000 mAh Li-ion battery. We did test the tablet for the battery life and found that it gave us a decent 5 hours and 10 minutes with continuous video playback and around 5 hours and 45 minutes whilst using it for browsing the Internet (3G and Wi-Fi), music, audio and video streaming, casual gaming and emails. On an average, the battery life seems to be good as compared to other tablets in the category.

Verdict

The BSNL Penta T-Pad WS703C is an average performer if we compare it to the other tablets with the similar specs and budget. The plus points it gains is the 3G SIM card support and Bluetooth feature, which others do not sport in the said price range. However, the display quality, sluggish user interface and low audio volume are a put off. What we also noticed is that BSNL has another variant to this model—the WS702C, which is available for a price of just Rs 700 more than this tablet and seems to have a better feature-set. The 702C features a 7-inch display with a higher resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels, sports 1GB of RAM, has a 2 MP rear camera and has a built-in memory of 8GB. Therefore, if you are getting a better display resolution, higher storage and more RAM for just Rs 700 more, why spend for the WS703C? We would recommend the WS702C in place of this tablet if you are planning to opt for a BSNL Penta product.