The Aroccom 7″ tablet enters a busy market with a price of £179, making it far more expensive than low cost tablets, a little more expensive than an 8″ Samsung tablet, and only slightly cheaper than the 10.1″ Samsung Galaxy Tablet.
Given the price things didn’t get off to a good start, with the logo on the back coming off in my hands as I was unpacking it!
The big unique selling point for Aroccom is the glasses free 3D screen. It does work to a point, but seems like a gimmick rather than a must have. The tablet comes pre-loaded with 3 apps that take advantage of the screen, a photo viewer, game centre and video player. Opening the photo viewer and you’re presented with a range of photos to take a look at, including some scantily clad women, the manufacturers clearly aren’t targeting a family audience then!
The photo app worked fine, the games app was OK, the video app was rubbish and didn’t work. Ignore those 3 apps and load up your own and things start to look a little better. The Aroccom tablet ran Netflix well and video looked good on the screen. There is a HDMI out port so you could use this with a TV, although frustratingly no HDMI cable was included (but a minion keyring was, go figure).
Gaming on the Aroccom was a similar mixed bag, a newer racing game ran, but not as smoothly as on some mobiles. When swapped for an older game the tablet had no problems, the game ran smoothly, responded well and was good fun to play on the 7″ screen. It’s light enough that game playing doesn’t also mean getting a workout from holding the tablet up for long periods.
Other apps ran fine, for example Spotify looked great and was very smooth.
The tablet has a SIM card slot should you wish to use this as a giant mobile (or to just give it data access on the go).
The camera is meant to be 5MP, but the reality is it’s utter rubbish and one of the worse cameras ever tested.
Aroccom’s inclusion of a SIM card slot and the 3D screen have pushed the price of this tablet up to a silly price. These are two function you likely wouldn’t miss and have meant the areas you might want to use have suffered. There’s a lot of competition with Android tablets and unfortunately this one is priced too high for an average performance.
Do yourself a favour and either go cheaper, such as the Tesco Hudl or Samsung Tab 3, or spend a little more and get the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
