Torque Droidz Avatar TV review

It’s my first time to try mobile TV in an Android device and good thing, the people behind Torque allowed me to have a rundown of this dual core Android phablet. Here’s the remainder of my review.

MAIN MENU:

Running on Android 4.2.2 Jellybean, I love that it is stock Android. As it is in 4.2, you can have the double finger swipe on the notification bar to check your data, profile, screen time-out and so on.

PHONE AND MESSAGING:

There is one regular and 1 micro sim to this device. The messaging app is as stock as well as the phone app for that said Android version. The calls are also ok using Globe for both sim slots plus it has proximity sensor so it even made easier to take or to do a call

CONNECTIVITY:

I’m happy that both sim slots support HSPA+ connectivity and it can really delivers strong mobile internet. I had a Speedtest in a supermarket in a Sunday evening using a Globe prepaid sim and the pic below will tell the story. Connecting to WiFi is a breeze as I tried it inside a mall and also thru a WiFi-tethered device (which is also from another Android phone). Bluetooth is not that good, not that bad as I tried to pair it with my Bluetooth 4.0 wireless speaker. I experienced some stuttering on the sound when I’m about to change a track by pushing the next track button. I’m not sure though on what Bluetooth version does the Droidz Avatar TV have. A bit of downer that there’s no USB OTG function as this size is already enough for me to do documents and to blog to using a USB keyboard or if for gaming.

MOBILE TV:

I already had an experience on mobile phones with analog TV and my guess is right to this take on Android. As a southie, I already expected no signal from channels 2 to 9 but channels 11 to 49 are already a-ok. In Pasig (which is about the center of the metro), all channels are viewable. I’m not contented that I had to travel to Nuvali, Sta. Rosa, Laguna. One sweet spot is the Solenad 2 which I can view the channels clearly. You can curve the TV antenna until you get the desired signal. There’s also a screenshot function when you press the camera icon. Go to the menu capacity button to adjust the video settings and record your favourite TV show. When I tested to record a 30-second TV show, it took off 2.1 MB in .3gp format on 320 x 240 resolution which is another a-ok for me

CAMERA:

As I found out that it is only 5 MP rear camera in fixed focus and VGA front camera, I already expected that it can do perform at its best during daytime and places with enough lighting. This device is not for use for night shots as you can check my camera samples. The flash in night shots was not helping at all. The rear camera has f/2.8 aperture

BENCHMARKS:

With 1.3 Ghz Mediatek MT6572 dual core chipset plus Mali 400 GPU, it got an Antutu score at over 11,600 which is normal to this device plus the lower FWVGA resolution had it’s help. Here are my other benchmarks.

VIDEO BATTERY TEST:

With it’s 1,500 maH battery, it lasted at 5 hours and 31 minutes from 100% to 2% using MX Player (7 in brightness, 10 in volume) 1 sim on, no Bluetooth/3G/WiFi by looping some 720p mp4 videos. The phone brightness was set at the lowest brightness and with it’s stock earphones. In my real life usage by texting, calling, 3G mobile intenet, videos, blogging and photo editing, I got a max of 14 hours which is enough for the battery capacity.

TV BATTERY TEST:

A first for local tech blogs as I did a TV battery test as patterned by my own standards for video battery test. Volume is set at 7 out of 13, only sticking to one channel, using stock earphones, phone at lowest brightness, TV brightness at 33%, 1 sim on, No Bluetooth/WiFi/3G and I got 4 hours and 41 minutes from 100% to 13% . I can’t say for the moment if it is battery efficient or not as I have to check on more Androids with TV soon. Where lucky at this time that if you are really a TV junkie and you will run out of battery, there’s a powerbank for you for back-up specially on what happened during typhoon Glenda days.

EXTRAS:
Good thing that Torque has a nice built-in screen protector based on our review unit as I returned it nice and smooth (which I hope all of the local mobile phone brands will do the same even on their budget offerings) . One thing that I already addressed to some Torque officials is the slow charging time. For it’s battery capacity of 1500 maH plus 1 ampere charger, I expected that it can do from 0% to 100% at less than 2 hours but that’s not the case as usually fully charge it at around 2 hours and 45 minutes. I already had phablets with the same screen size and same capacity for the charge and I got at around 2 hours and 30 minutes with batteries ranging from 2,000 to 2,750 maH. I’m not sure if is in the circuits inside the device or on the USB cable. I’m happy that this device is CTIA complaiant which means you can pause/play the music or video player using the button on it’s stock earphone. The storage is not unified which has a separate memory for apps and phone storage. You can move your apps to micro SD and install apps from micro SD. Based on my review unit, there are times that I had to reboot the device coz either the micro SD is not detected when I tried to take a picture or a screenshot to the mobile TV even though that I already set-up the memory to external storage. The FM Radio has RDS support.