By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
The uses for a 3G-enabled tablet range from keeping families connected and entertained on trips, aiding cab drivers in navigation or communication, and a student’s companion for note taking and keeping in touch with family or friends.
Alcatel OneTouch seems to understand consumer needs and can create products that fit very specific needs but at affordable prices. This is evidenced by its various Android smartphones, its upcoming smart watch and the underrated OneTouch Pop 8 tablet.
There are many 8-inch tablets in the market but there are only a handful that can use SIM Cards to access 3G data aside from the pretty standard WiFi connections.
Most of these 8-inch tablets are also very expensive and most of the ones I checked out (iPad mini, Nexus 6) do not have expandable memory, so the amount of storage you get out of the box is what you’re stuck with.
The Alcatel OneTouch Pop 8 is reasonably thin and portable. I will fit into a jacket pocket or slide into a handbag. Build quality is above average with subtle design touches and textures that keep things interesting even if most tablets in this category are rather plain.
The 8-inch 1280x 800 WXGA IPS Display is quite bright and clear, it reproduces colours naturally without some of the unnatural saturation we’ve seen from AMOLED based displays.
The Alcatel OneTouch Pop 8 is running a rather old version of Android, which is 4.2 Jelly Bean, there’s really no indication that Alcatel will be updating the OS to newer versions of Jelly Bean or even the current version Android 5.0 Lollipop, which introduces a whole new user interface as well as improved support for multi-core processors.
The Alcatel OneTouch Pop 8 is powered by a quad-core 1.3GHz Cortex A7 processor and 1 GB of RAM with 4GB onboard storage, this makes adding memory via the microSD card a crucial upgrade as you’ll need at least 8GB for this tablet to be usable.
The OneTouch Pop 8 features Miracast which ensures easy streaming of content to Miracast compatible monitors and HDTVs, a convenient feature we've come to expect from more expensive tablets.
A 4,060 mAh battery is good for around 5-8 hours of use depending on various conditions and which radios are on.
These specs are by no means high-end and are rather dated but for a tablet that’s being offered for $240 contract free and can be had for $0 on 2-year tablet plans from TELUS, it won't disappoint users who want a basic tablet that’s good to go and can access the Internet via WiFi or via 3G.
TELUS says the manufacturer’s rated peak download speeds of up to 21 Mbps (expected average is 4-6 Mbps), this is more than enough for mail, messaging, Facebook and accessing streaming audio services like Spotify or navigating using Google Maps or Waze.
The uses for a 3G-enabled tablet range from keeping families connected and entertained on trips, aiding cab drivers in navigation or communication as they go about their business and a student’s companion for note taking and keeping in touch with family or friends.
The Alcatel OneTouch Pop 8 features a 2.0 Megapixel rear camera and a 0.3 Megapixel front-facing camera which is just okay for video chats and conferencing. The OneTouch Pop 8 continues the trend of outfitting tablets with mediocre cameras, the software and settings for taking pictures and video are quite intuitive.
Conclusion
A few years ago, a device like the Alcatel OneTouch Pop 8 would cost around $600 and would likely be thicker, have an inferior display and no microSD expansion. We’ve a come a long way with basic Android tablets that offer decent HSPA+ connectivity.
Alcatel OneTouch has managed to make this readily affordable for users who can now consider a decently featured Android tablet that should cover all their mobile needs, provided having the latest software and hardware isn’t high on their wish list.
Rating: 4 out of 5