Swipe 3D Life Tab X74 Review

We expected a 3D wallpaper or 3D home launcher

Media

The display incorporated in the x74 3D tablet is a standard TFT screen with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels and does not have any 3D features like you see in high-end monitors, TVs and phones. Though the display quality is quite clear, you cannot fail to notice the tiny pixels that make up the entire screen. This reduces if you move away from the screen and watch from a fair distance. The viewing angle is also pretty bad—while watching any movie or photographs, you have to view it at an angle of 90 degrees or else the display starts looking like a negative or else starts getting patchy. Viewing angles from the top or the sides are proper. Overall, the playback of movies is pretty good and there is no lag whatsoever. High definition movies play well and without any glitches. The audio clarity from the onboard speaker is pretty decent, but slightly lacks in vocal clarity. The audio volume should have been a bit higher too.

Some 3D based apps, but equally useless.

The bundled earphones are completely white to match the rear panel of the tablet. The build quality of the earphones seems pretty good, but the audio quality it produces is just the opposite. It feels as if you are listening to an audio clip in a tunnel. There is no bass or treble, and the vocals are equally bad. Switching to another pair of decent headphones is recommended.

Connectivity
The tablet has connectivity options similar to any conventional china-based tablets in the market. Except for an HDMI port, this one connects to a PC via a mini USB cable, to the Internet via Wi-Fi or 3G dongles by using the bundled USB host cable. The tablet also lacks Bluetooth connectivity.

Miscellaneous apps and freebies
The product bundles a pair of free red and cyan glasses for viewing anaglyph 3D images and movies on the screen. The glasses have a good build quality and don’t feel cheap. You could also opt for any standard or freely available cheap pair of anaglyph red and cyan 3D glasses form the market in case you want an extra pair or lose the original one. Apart from the glasses, the product package also specifies free pre-installed 3D apps such as 3D games and 3D entertainment. What we found inside are a few low quality anaglyph movie clips and a few anaglyph photos. Jet Car Stunts and TurboFly 3D were available on it, which are regular games and not 3D. Apart from these, apps such as CricBuzz, Dhingra, Book My show, Drop Box, Instagram and more were installed. A few games such as Angry Birds, Cut the rope, Guns’n’Glory and RacingMoto were also installed. An app named 3D Zone was also seen which is nothing but just a file manager link to a folder on the SD card which stores the 3D movies and photos by the manufacturer.

Some 3D based apps, but equally useless.

Battery test
We did a battery test to check how long this tablet survives when entertaining you or when being used outdoors as a productivity device. We ran a single SD video continuously in a loop for as long as the battery could power the device. We got a maximum playback runtime of just around 3.5 hours, which we feel is a pretty low for a tablet. However, this battery time can differ completely in usage and handling from person to person. Factors that can affect the battery life of the tablet are display brightness, volume levels, network usage and file format type of the movies played which can stress the processor.

Verdict
The Swipe 3D Life Tab X74 is just a good-looking tablet with a standard set of hardware beneath its hood. The 3D portion is simply anaglyph photos and videos and is just a gimmick which can be achieved on any tablet, be it cheap Chinese versions or expensive branded ones. Apart from the build quality and the aesthetics, the product is an average performer. For a few hundred rupees more, you could opt for the Micromax Funbook which features a GPU and performs slightly better than this even with a slower processor.