Meet Torque EGO Phab 3G+ - Torque's budget phablet

After being silent for months, Torque has finally released a new line to compete for 2017! This Ego Tablet is for Filipinos looking for an affordable tablet.

Bright and colorful screen

Priced at the affordable PHP 3,099, it is one of the more affordable tablets out there. The question is whether or not it is worth it.

Let's find out!

Meet Torque EGO Phab 3G+

Unboxed!

It is packaged in a carton made gray box. Inside is the tablet, documentation, 5 volt/1.5 ampere power plug, USB to micro USB cable and screen protector.

Backplate showing the camera

The tablet is held together by a sturdy metal frame that is covered mostly with glass on the front and mostly with thick plastic at the back. It is not the prettiest device you will see but at the price, you can't really complain.

Mic on top

Headphone jack and micro USB port below

Left

Right

The metal frame is the most premium looking part of this device. It is solid with a heft to it. The subtle matte texture makes it stand out. The plastic back plate is the thick and lightweight but sturdy plastic that you find in most devices in this price range.

It feels hollow and flexes a little when squeezed. The body also scratches easily.

The micro USB port and headphone jack is on top while the power and volume buttons are on the right side.

The back of the tablet has the 5MP camera, flash and removable cover on the top, and the speakers are on the lower right. The middle has a shiny black diamond pattern while the tops and bottoms are matte plastic. 

Underneath the back cover are the 2 full-SIM slots and microSD card slot. The SIM card slots are not hot swappable and requires a restart after inserting SIMs.

Acceptable specs for the price!

Inside, the specs is a mixed bag. The 7-inch display is a great size with punchy colors and decent contrast. Our only gripe is if they would consider a 1080p display next time. I think it would have been better for a tablet to have 1080p from the get go.

The 1.3GHz SC7731 with 1GB of RAM with a 2500mAh battery are underwhelming given that a tablet is mostly for media consumption and thus would need more RAM to accommodate it seamlessly and would need a larger battery to consume content for an extended period.

The Phab 3G+ has a 5MP back camera and a 2MP front. The software is basic Android camera but with an added Beauty Mode. As for the quality, there is too much noise in pictures, and auto white balance tends to pick the wrong color. Resolution and contrast is low. We find the images soft and lacking that punch.

The front camera has no autofocus. The images are the same with the main camera. THe colors, contrast and resolution feel off.There is a beauty mode that removes spots and blemishes, and you can adjust how aggressive it is.

The rest of the features

The Ego tablet offers OTG support. It has an accelerometer, a proximity sensor and a sound sensor. It does not have a gyroscope or an orientation sensor. Because it doesn't have a light sensor, you don't have the auto brightness setting too.

In our initial experience we were clocking in at 5 to 6 hours of content consumption and of productivity use with this tablet. Charging time takes under 2 hours.

It boots w/ a near stock version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system.

Torque EGO Phab 3G+ Specs

Display: 7-inch 1280 x 800 resolution at 216 ppi 

CPU: 1.3GHz SC7731 quad-core processor 

GPU: Mali-400 

RAM: 1GB 

ROM: 8GB expandable via microSD card slot 

Back Camera: 5MP 

Selfie Camera: 2MP 

Battery: 2,500mAh 

OS: Android 6.0 Marshmallow 

Connectivity: WiFi, 3G, HSPA+, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS, dual SIM 

Others: OTG 

Price: PHP 3,099

Torque has release a competitive tablet for just PHP 3,099. If you are happy with the build quality and the 1GB RAM with the 1280 x 800 resolution, this is not a bad way to go.

Interesting!