Micromax Funbook Pro Review

Those using a smartphone for browsing the Internet or watching a video would know better that a bigger display makes the experience even better. We have seen a lot of 7-inch display based tablets ranging from cheap Chinese-manufactured ones to the expensive branded ones. You can actually count the number of players in the 10-inch tablet zone: Apple, Samsung and ASUS are the ones we presently know of in the upper price bracket. Micromax has stepped into this zone to try and give these higher brands a run for their money. Will they succeed or not lie in the hands of the consumers. We have the latest 10-incher in our hands. Check out some more details about the Micromax Funbook Pro.

10.1- inch display with a 1024 x 600 pixel resolution

Design and Build

The Micromax Funbook Pro seems like nothing more than a stretched out piece of the previous version – the Funbook P300. The product is almost identical to the P300 except for its larger size and a few important specs. The Funbook Pro is a very sexy looking tablet if compared to any other budget tablet in the 7-inch and 10-inch segment. The entire frame is built tough, but the top and sides are extremely glossy, making it an easy prey to be damaged by dust and fingerprints or dented and scratched by accidental falls. The front has absolutely no physical or capacitive buttons except for a VGA front facing camera neatly tucked in the upper right corner. The rear is identical to the P300 with a matte-finish all-plastic silver back. The slightly convex back panel can be easily discoloured with prolonged use if not safely kept around or handled.

Stereo speakers on the rear

The entire tablet is pretty slim at 11.5 mm and though it weighs around 600 grams, it does not feel too heavy. The top can be seen with just three buttons comprising of a volume rocker and a back button. The right side features the power/standby button. These four buttons are pretty tiny and gel into the entire frame to give a nice look, but are too small for productive use. This is a huge drawback, especially when taking the ergonomics into consideration. To add to the existing inconvenience, the buttons also lack tactility; however, there are always the onscreen buttons that come to the rescue.

Top - volume and back, Side - power/standby

The right side also features the power slot, headphone socket, mini HDMI interface, micro USB port and the microSD card slot to expand the storage by up to 32GB. Surprisingly, this tablet is one of the first ones we have seen with two micro USB interface sockets. A close look at the rear panel for the information on this socket revealed it to be a discrete socket for the USB host feature, which along with the bundled OTG cable can be used to connect standard USB peripherals such as external storage drives and input devices. Unfortunately, it works only with an external storage or input device and not with a PC. The usual micro USB interface can also be used for charging the device other than the bundled 2 A charger given with the product. We see this as a positive point because you don’t need to tag along the bulky charger with the tablet as you can charge it using any other charger that uses the micro USB connector. The rear panel has no camera, but features a stereo speaker towards the top.

1.2GHz processor, MALI-400 GPU, 1GB DDR3 RAM, 8GB storage

We managed to pry open the Micromax Funbook Pro to take a quick glimpse of the manufacturing quality inside as we know that most of the budget tablets sold in India are Chinese manufactured and re-branded and known to have very shabbily-finished interiors. But to our surprise, just like the older Funbook P300, the Pro is also very neatly finished and the manufacturer seems to have taken care about the interiors just as well as it has with the exteriors.  We did this to the product so that you don’t need to do the same and lose out on your warranty.

The inside story