Lava E-Ivory Tab
Price: Rs 9,000

Rating: 3/5

Specs: Seven-inch display; Android 4.1, 2MP rear camera; 1.2GHz dual core processor; 1GB RAM; 4GB internal storage, expandable memory card slot; Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, dual SIM slot; 3000 mAh battery

There are a plenty of tablets in the 'less than Rs 10,000' price category that deliver great performance. The latest entrant is the E-Ivory tab from Lava. How does it measure up against the competition?

This seven-inch tablet has a regular design. A wide bezel runs around the edges. It has 1024x600p resolution. The rear has a grey metal panel in the middle that detracts from the look. There is a power button and the headphones jack on the top. Two SIM card slots and a microSD card slot placed on the left panel are left uncovered, so there is a good chance of losing the cards. Overall, the tablet looks cheap.

The user interface is neat and simple. It has the stock Android UI that is highly customizable. One downside is that the tablet runs on the old Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean operating system. It is powered by 1.2GHz dual core processor from MediaTek and is paired with 1GB of RAM. 

However, the performance is not too impressive. While it handled emails with ease, there was a lag while loading web pages and games. With multiple apps running in the background, the tablet slowed down considerably. However, it did manage to play many video formats many tablets cannot. While playing videos, the sound from the speaker was loud but not clear. While taking calls, however, it was fine. 

The storage capacity is also low, only 2.47GB is available to the user from the 4GB internal storage. For saving images, videos and games, one will have to rely entirely on the expandable memory card slot. The tablet also has a 2 megapixel rear camera and a 0.3 megapixel front camera.

The battery backup was just about average providing close to 4 hours on average use. 

Bag it or Junk it: Google's Nexus 7 (2012) with its price drop nearly kills this tablet.