Olivepad Review: We test the Olivepad VT-100 Android tablet

Our reviewer finds the Olivepad very value for money indeed, thank you.

Though the temptation is high, let me start off saying I am not comparing the Olivepad VT-100 with the Apple iPad here. In October, Olive Telecom launched the OlivePad VT-100, the first 3G touchscreen tablet from an Indian company. Coming at a price of Rs 26000, it has enough features for a regular tablet user, though we won’t recommend it for power users. Handy and rugged, the OlivePad has several features we liked and some others we wished it had.

The OlivePad VT-100 tablet is powered by a processor which we suspect is just good enough. The ARM11 600MHz chip is less powerful than the standard 1GHz processor running most of the new smartphones. The OlivePad chip was fast enough for most games and apps we tested in our review, though we suspect that as more resource-hogging apps crop up in the Android Market, the new OlivePad will struggle.

Photo: Not the best screen among tablets, but does the job adequately

The OlivePad VT-100 tablet runs Android 2.2 FroYo, the latest Android version from Google supporting Adobe Flash. The tablet comes loaded with many Google apps like GMail, Google Talk, Media Player, Youtube and of course, the Android Market. Over 70,000 apps and games — both free and paid — are available on the Android Market. Downloading and installation of apps from the Android Market is smooth and hassle-free, and all apps we downloaded performed flawlessly.

The OlivePad VT-100 tablet weighs 375 grams, which feels heavy until you hear the Samsung Galaxy Tab weighs 380 grams and the Apple iPad 680 grams. It comes neatly encased in a leather jacket, about the size of a small diary. The tablet has two cameras which can shoot stills and videos — one on the front and one on the back. However, to use the rear camera for regular photography, you need to pull out the tablet from its case, which was quite an effort. Let’s say point-and-shoot is not going to be a USP of the OlivePad VT-100 tablet.

Photo: Olivepad's touchscreen keypad

The design of the OlivePad VT-100 tablet is more utilitarian than style-centric. The edges are curved, the front is flat, and that is about it. Though it’s not especially a stylish tablet in the Apple iPad league, it doesn’t sport any design horrors either. The people at Olive seem to have designed the product with clean, functional looks in mind.

The DC power inlet is at the front, which could be a hassle if the device is plugged in and you need to type. The power button is at at the top left, on the side of the tablet, and this is where we would have liked the power inlet to be. The OlivePad VT-100 tablet comes with USB connectivity, for easy transfer of data to and from your computer. The four Android buttons are easy to use, and far better than the hardware buttons on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 (Android 1.6) and the Samsung Galaxy S (Android 2.1).

Photo: The Olivepad's home screen - no autorotation here, though

Olive Telecom has preloaded the OlivePad with some interesting apps, including the Aldiko ebook reader and MapMyIndia GPS maps with free lifetime upgrades. The Ebook reader functioned perfectly fine during our review. Downloading ebooks from the Aldiko bookstore was a breeze. if you’re hooked to reading online, you can download more books from the Aldiko store. Or download and read ebooks in ePub format. Or, for a wider choice of 6,50,000 books, download the Kindle App for Android and raid the Amazon Kindle Store.

The GPS application took time to boot up and connect to satellites, though I admit it happens to my regular smartphone quite occasionally. The maps were decent and the voice commands clear. Most smartphones in India — except for the noble exception of Ovi Maps on some Nokia smartphones — do not come with preloaded GPS maps, and one has to rely on Google Maps and broken 2G connections to find one’s way around. Kudos to OlivePad.

The OlivePad VT-100 tablet also comes loaded with Zenga TV – essentially free online TV subscription to channels like Colors, MTV, UTV Bindaas, UTV Bloomberg & UTV Movies for 6 months. Quite a thoughtful step, we felt.

Photo: Olivepad's display is quite responsive

Though we did not run an exhaustive battery test, we felt that the OlivePad tablet battery was not powerful enough for a portable device which is supposed to run for long hours far from power sources. The Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Apple iPad may cost over ten grand more than the OlivePad VT-100 tablet, but that’s no excuse for the OlivePad to go on the blink after a couple of hours of gaming with WiFI on. Without a better battery, the battle for tablet mindspace is lost.

The games and apps we tested on the OlivePad VT-100 tablet functioned fine, but there have been complaints that some users found some games ‘spilling out’ of the corners of the OlivePad screen. We guess it could be a problem with the games and not the OlivePad itself, since Samsung Galaxy Tab too sports a similar seven inch display.

The OlivePad’s WiFI behaves fine, and hooked to the Airtel WiFi router without complaints. The mobile wireless network connection through the SIM card was fine too, though we’re not in a position to talk about the 3G speeds since we tried a 2G card on the OlivePad.

The minuscule internal memory on the OlivePad  — 512 MB — is a disappointment too. You can sure expand its memory by 32 GB with an extra SD card, but the device, we feel, should have has bigger memory. The MapMyIndia Sygic GPS maps could take up up to 150 MB if it is installed on the device memory. How much space does that leave for other applications?

The OlivePad VT-100 tablet’s 7-inch display is good enough if you use if more for e-reading and web browsing, but not so much if you use it for high-resolution gaming and resource-hungry applications. The touch response is not as good as its upmarket cousins Samsung Galaxy Tab and Apple iPad as we found during the review, but you could live with that. The OlivePad VT-100 tablet keyboard is especially disappointing and non-intuitive. Serious improvement required here – ease of typing is something that can gain or lose followers for a touchscreen tablet.

Ah, before we forget. The tablet can also be used for making phone calls, besides the Internet stuff it can do. Make and receive audio/video calls with the built-in speaker/microphone or extra headphone/speakers. Sure it is not entirely natural and a bit awkward, but we did it and it will do the job.

Now for the inevitable comparison and the verdict: At its price level of Rs 26,000 and the features it has and which we wish it had, we feel the OlivePad is a decent buy. The Apple iPad is not in India — officially at least — and the Samsung Galaxy Tab has a price tag of Rs 38,000. If you plan to use the tablet for web browsing, e-reading, emailing and resource-light apps (most apps are) use it for a couple of hours away from a power socket every day and are not particular about looks and design, the OlivePad could be all you need. If you are looking for a head-turning design, plan to use it for hours with wireless chips (WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth) on and playing movies and music, the OlivePad is going to let you down.