This tablet has great build quality and delivers powerful performance Tablets sales in the country are sky rocketing,feels CyberMedia Research (CMR). The dramatic uptake in the shipments is mainly due to entry of new vendors and introduction of offerings from existing vendors at low to medium price points. Tablet sales touched an all-time high of 0.55 million units in Q2FY2012 (quarter ended June 30,2012) recording a quarter-on-quarter increase of 59% and year-on-year increase of a whooping 673%,says CMR. Close to 90 vendors launched their tablets till the second quarter. The average sale value of the tablets in Q2FY2012 dropped to little above R13,000 from R26,000 in Q1FY2012,as a majority of vendors in early 2012 launched their products in the R5,000-10,000 price range. Close to 47.4% of tablet sales in the second quarter were from new entrants with a strong focus on addressing application areas in the education and entertainment segments. This trend demonstrates clearly that vendors are positioning their devices at the youth segment. Moot point is that tablets made by homegrown players are fast becoming smarter,both in terms of build as well as performance. Take for instance,the Zync Z-999 Plus Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) tablet priced at R11,990. Its creator,Zync Global,has been rolling out affordable Android devices with increasing frequency. A lot of you are probably wondering whether Zync Globals new slate will stand a chance in the tablet tussle. Take my word,the new device is pleasant to use with a good design and decent build quality. It comes with a powerful 1.5 GHz single core ARM Cortex A8 processor and 512 MB RAM and is on par with other Android tablets on the market. It has a 7-inch LED screen with an 800 x 480 pixel resolution along with 3G and voice calling. Remarkably,this is the companys first ever 7-inch display based tablet with Android 4.0 to feature 3G calling and data connectivity through an onboard SIM slot. The fit and finish is great and it has a comforting weight to it that feels substantial but not heavy. The tablet comes with a big 4200 mAh lithium-ion-battery. It supported up to 6.5 hours of music and 5 hours of video in my test-run. Its size and light weight of 340 gm makes it an ideal device in the low cost tablet market. It measures only 192 x 121 x 12.2 mm (H x W x D) in dimension,which is pretty slim in its category and is portable and ideal for everyday use. The Z-999 comes with an inbuilt Wi-Fi for file transfer along with a 2 megapixel back camera and VGA front camera for video chat. It is also equipped with a HD video playback support,HDMI support,8 GB iNand memory expandable to 32 GB,keyboard support function and has an inbuilt 3G SIM card slot. Screen display is something I was worried about,but the device passed my visual test by being able to run high quality video and graphics. The tablets high resolution LED screen is perfect for watching movies,multi-player games and downloading and sharing data. The heart of the Zync Z-999 isnt the device itself though but the vast number of content it provides from the Android market. The tablet provides the facility of Web browsing,e-mail,chat,social networking,music and HD video,gaming,e-book,news and several applications from the Android market. It also provides several pre-loaded applications which are apt for the Indian market. If you dont have a tablet already,the Zync Z-999 is definitely a go with a tonne of work and entertainment content. Recommended for those on a tight budget! Estimated street price: Rs.11,990 SPeCS * Dimensions: 192 x 121 x 12.2 mm (H x W x D) * Screen size & type: 7 inches,capacitive touchscreen * Operating system: Android v4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) * Processor: 1.5 GHz single core ARM Cortex A8 processor * Display resolution: 800 x 480 pixels * Camera: 2 MP rear and 0.3 MP front * Connectivity: 3G,Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n * Memory: 8 GB,expandable to 32 GB
