Droidpad review

I was invited for a bloggers review on CSL's latest android codenamed the droidpad last Saturday at Gurney Plaza. Being a tech enthusiast, I went for it to see what they had to offer.



Regional sales deputy manager, Wee Jit introducing the pad...oops I mean droidpad to us.

7 inch Multitouch capacitive screen

Documents to go...

The group of bloggers during the introduction session

Review and hands on

Then came their maskot. Reminds me of ET don't you think so?

Google maps app

The group of bloggers waiting patiently for the announcement of a droidpad winner

This is the prize!!!

So how did they pick one out of the 20 bloggers to win it?

Basically you pick a girl... No... not to bring her home... Just to pick one goodies bag from them

And open the bag.. Find something that looks like this(as apple tan gestures)

The proud winner of the droidpad

She didn't introduce herself to me so I will just name her as the "form" girl cause she is walking around collecting forms from all of us.

The other "form" girl

This is what is inside the goodies bag I got.

So after all the crap and distractions or should I say attraction?, now the serious stuff. So what is it about this phone and how it did in comparison with the other phones or pads...

Pros:

• It's an android - That speaks for itself with all the apps you can download and errmmmm crack?
• It acts as a router
• Cheaper than ipad or if you prefer it to be a cheaper version of ipad.
  
• High standby time
• Documents to go - Like Microsoft office...
  

Cons:

• The size is in between an iphone and ipad. The problem starts when normal user feels the iphone is large but thinks it's the largest acceptable pocket sized phone. At 11cm width, it will need a cargo pants to hold one. I feel I wouldn't want to put it into a bag to carry around just to make calls.
• 512 RAM and ROM, 600MHz - Slower processing than most of the phones I had(Comparing to the Samsung Jet that I had for over a year now). The graphical transition isn't that smooth.
• 3mp camera. Smaller mp compared to most smart phones which comes with standard 5mp build in camera. No flash???
• No wired handsfree. Relying on bluetooth headset or loudspeaker(batt consumption).

Neutral:

• 3.5g HSDPA
• Dual camera
• Wifi
• Touch screen
• Loudspeaker
  

Conclusion:
I doubt this is able to take out the ipad market anytime and CSL being a new company, had much more to do in market research. Only thing I can think of is the price of the unit but I would call it a tablet instead of a phone. Carrying around for simple work related matter is Ok but not hardcore computer tablet replacement nor a phone replacement. It's like an animal caught in between being a chicken and a duck but neither one. Like what I said to one of the bloggers, it's a nice additional thing to have but it's not a must have. I think the engineers really do need to decide if they want a phone or a tablet. Combining both will be futile unless it can really do better than what both a phone and a tablet can do. I know the people in CSL isn't going to be real happy over my review but this is my honest opinion. Take it positively and use it to drive and strive to do better in the next model release. Consider integrating USB ports....