Good build quality, HD screen, good-value processor, expandable memory, 3G
No 4G, poor cameras
Hot on the heels of EE announcing its Eagle budget tablet, Vodafone has released the Smart Tab 4, available for even less.
Chassis and screen
For a low-cost tablet it's refreshingly slim at a sliver under 8mm and lightweight too at 328g. It's standard glossy black on the front with a thinner-than-usual bezel down the sides and rubberised plastic in dark grey on the back. In short, it doesn't feel like a budget tablet, and on first encounter you'd expect it to sit in the midrange with a price tag that's perhaps a £100 or so heavier.
That impression continues with the 8-inch IPS screen, which delivers an HD resolution of 1,280x800 pixels. It's not quite the 1080p Full HD shilling but it's bright and more than sharp enough for comfortable browsing and movie viewing. The Kindle Fire might give you a stonking 2,560x1,600 pixels -- and you can certainly see the difference -- but you'll be paying around £200 more for the privilege.
Where the Smart Tab 4 has the advantage over the Kindle and many other tablets is its network access. There's a covered port on the side for your Vodafone SIM card so you can get online sans Wi-Fi, but it won't get any faster than standard 3G -- no 4G capability as yet, unlike EE's £199 Eagle.
Software and processor
It's running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean out of the box -- another clear sign of its budget status in these KitKat (and soon to be Lollipop) days. In practice that's nothing to worry about -- it's a perfectly fine operating system, and Vodafone has done very little to tweak it -- but this isn't the tablet for you if you're keen to keep up with the latest in Android innovation.
The quad-core 1.2GHz MediaTek processor is backed by 1GB RAM and while it would be fair to say the speed isn't blistering, it doesn't feel painfully relaxed either. More powerful processors might have that sense of pace when opening apps or rendering web pages but you won't feel short-changed. Our AnTuTu benchmark test gave it a score of 16,818 which puts it ahead of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 for instance. The sizeable battery put up a pretty good fight, delivering a good day and a half of steady use without complaint.
Photography
So far so good, but the camera is the Smart Tab 4's weak point.
It's a basic 2-megapixel model with limited functionality -- there are only Panorama and Night modes to play with. If you're careful you can take some passable snaps, but don't expect much in the way of detail. It doesn't handle less than ideal light levels very well either. There's a VGA camera on the front for video calls, which is functional, but that level of video quality is seriously below standard these days. There's 8GB of memory on board but you can add up to 64GB more via microSD card.
Conclusion
The Smart Tab 4's limitations show thanks to the older version of Android and the below-par camera, but for the price, you get a decently speedy processor and a pretty good HD screen. With 3G network access thrown in (albeit with a potentially expensive pay as you go contract, especially if you do a lot of network-dependent browsing or downloading) you get a lot of tablet for your pennies.
CPU: Quad-core 1.2GHz MediaTek
Operating system: Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
Memory: 8GB
Display: 8in IPS (1280x800 pixels)
Camera: 2 megapixel rear camera; VGA front camera
Wireless: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, wireless LAN, Bluetooth 4.0
Ports: Micro USB, microSD card slot, 3.5mm headphone jack
Battery: 4060mAh
Size: 209x123x8mm
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
