Tecno DroiPad 7D is a new entry-level tablet released just recently. We unboxed the device just a week ago and you can read all about that in this article. This isn’t the greatest tablet in the world and it’s not in the league of heavyweights. And to be honest, the technical specifications are not exciting, but considering the price of this device and its target market, one might reconsider and start seeing it in a more favorable light.
Form factor
Tecno DroiPad 7D looks like any other tablet when viewed from the front. There’s no branding and it looks quite generic. At the top of the screen is an 8MP camera aided by a single LED flash for low-light selfies.
The 7-inch screen has a resolution of 1024×600 px, the same resolution on the DroiPad 7c and the navigation keys are placed on-screen.
At the top of the phone are the earphone jack and USB cable. On the right side are the volume rocker and power button.
The back of the phone is a contrast to the rather plain front. There’s a beautiful Kevlar pattern on the (non-removable) back cover.
At the top-left corner is the 5MP camera with an LED flash just beside it.
You can take off this top part of the back cover to reveal the two SIM slots and microSD slot.
Display
Tecno DroiPad packs a 7-inch display with the resolution pegged at 1024×600 px, this is below the average 720p you would expect on a 7-inch display. The downside? It’s not as crisp as what you would see on a high-end tablet and you can’t stream on YouTube at FHD or even HD. Anyway, we should be reminded that this is an entry-level tablet.
Camera
The device has an 8MP rear camera which seems to have a fixed focus. You can’t tap to focus and this applies to the 5MP front camera too. Both front and rear cameras are equipped with LED flash.
The camera software lets you adjust white balance, scene mode, color effect, and exposure but when it comes to actual camera performance, it gives you nothing more than what you would expect from an entry-level device.
Here are a few sample images taken with the camera:
And here is a selfie taken with the front camera:
Storage & Performance
Tecno DroiPad 7D has a 1GB RAM and there’s a 1.3GHz quad-core processor on board. We ran it through Antutu Benchmark and got a score of 24033.
Kids games are going to run just fine but when you try to run resource-hungry titles like Asphalt 8, Mortal Kombat X and others, you may start to notice slow application launch and lag.
Tecno DroiPad 7D comes with a 16GB storage out of which just bout 9GB is usable. Of course, you can expand this via the microSD slot.
Network & Connectivity
Tecno DroiPad 7D is a dual-SIM tablet and you can use both at the same time. It doesn’t support 4G/LTE but your 3G SIM cards will work fine. As with all modern smartphones, you have all other connectivity options like WiFi, WiFi hotspot and the rest.
Kids Zone?
A Kids Zone app is advertised with this device but this is absent from in review unit. This is said to limit your kid’s access to just a few selected apps when activated. Unfortunately, it’s absent on this one and my guess is that our unit of the DroiPad 7D isn’t the final version being sold in the market.
Software & Battery
Tecno Camon runs Android 7.0 Nougat with HiOS. Well, it’s not the full HiOS as we know it, most part of the UI still retain stock Android Nougat look. However, standard HiOS apps are pre-installed. As mentioned earlier, I’m not sure if the software on this review unit is what’s available on devices in the market.
Signing in to Google Play started crashing the calendar app and one other bug I noticed was the presence of two separate Contacts app icons.
It comes with a 3000mAh which I thought was pretty bad. I was expecting at least 4,000mAh battery but the battery performance isn’t bad. Perhaps this is due to the low-power processor and low screen resolution of the device. Our regular video loop test (with battery at 100%, device in Airplane mode, volume and brightness at 50%) saw us playing videos for almost 9 hours with VLC.
Would I recommend the DroiPad 7D?
If you need to get a nice little tablet for your kid without breaking the bank, you should get Tecno DroiPad 7D. The advertised Kids Zone (which I didn’t get to experience) looks like the perfect tool to put your kid in check. However, if you’re considering using it for stuff other than surfing the web, social media and reading e-books and documents, you should be ready to ignore the shortcomings.
Still, it’s one of the best tablets you can get in this price range.
