| BeBook Live is a 7in Android 2.2 Froyo tablet and is slightly less glamorous but far more affordable mid-range market Price from: £229 inc VAT |
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BeBook running an older version of Android (2.2) rather than the tablet optimised Android 3.x, the experience isn’t going to match devices like the Asus Eee Pad when it comes to core tasks like managing your calendar or browsing your emails. But BeBook haven’t fiddled with Android 2.2 so it is essentially in its raw form, which means you don’t have to wade through mediocre adjustments to restore what is essentially a good device platform
BeBook have at least put some effort into the design of their tablet, so it isn’t just a clone of the black plastic slabs we’ve seen coming out of all quarters. It is an affordable tablet and with that comes a certain degree of compromise when it comes to materials. It is assembled from plastics, has a slightly hollow feel it, but mercifully has a matte finish so stays mostly clear of smeary fingerprints - the screen excepted of course.
The black front and back are trimmed by a silver edge which also houses various connections and controls, along with down facing stereo speakers, which aren’t the most effectively placed, as the sound may find itself muffled if you rest the tablet on anything soft, like a duvet or your lap.
In terms of connections you’ll find the BeBook Live is actually reasonably well equipped, with mini HDMI and Mini-USB present although we’d rather see the defacto phone standard Micro-USB to save on cables and chargers needed when travelling. An external microSD card slot is present, accepting up to 32GB cards as well, which can be changed on the fly thanks to its easy access.
The edge controls consist of a volume rocker, standby button and a sliding screen orientation lock, so you can keep it in landscape or portrait, which is a godsend when it comes to watching video or reading when lying down. These control buttons are finished in a mock chrome which looks a little cheap. There are also three more familiar buttons on the face of the BeBook Live, running down the side of the screen, offering back, menu and home.
These three buttons do feel cheap and the action isn’t very positive but they work well enough. One omission we found was that there was no option to access recently used applications - a long press on the home button would normally do this, but in the case of the BeBook Live it does nothing.
The front of the BeBook Live offers you a 7-inch 800 x 600 pixel display, a 4:3 aspect rather than the more common 5:3 found on most Android devices. This means you get a little more page width when reading, so in some ways is it better suited to reading websites and ebooks than other 7-inch devices.
The display, however, lets the side down in the number of areas. The viewing angle is poor with detail and colours quickly dropping out as you move away from the central viewing sweet spot. The glossy finish means it is prone to reflections and it isn’t bright enough to deal with outdoor use.
Arguably, you could say this about a large number of tablet devices and that’s true, but it needs to be made clear than although the BeBook Live comes from a company that has delivered ebook reading devices in the past that work well outdoors, the change in display technology to an LCD means the experience here is different. The box shouts “Read, Surf, Watch, Play” and of course, bringing a capacitive TFT-LCD to the BeBook Live also brings with it a range of features that previous BeBook devices didn’t offer.
The display quality isn’t brilliant in terms of colour reproduction: blacks aren’t very deep and it lacks the punch that more expensive tablets offer. This is typical of affordable devices and so can be accepted to a certain degree, but don’t be fooled into thinking you’ll get the same quality as you do if you part with a little more cash.
There is a forward facing 2-megapixel camera primarily designed for video chat, once you find a service that meets your requirements. Like many cheaper devices the quality isn’t especially good and the placement of the lens means you are likely to cover it with your fingers when holding the device - just make sure you wipe it clean before using it. It will offer you 720p video capture at the highest settings, but the results aren’t especially exciting. That’s probably not too much of an issue considering this is a tablet and you’re unlikely to use it for much straight video capture.
BeBook first noteced that it would only accept a charge when not being used, i.e., the screen had to be in standby or locked. This is something of a problem because the battery life didn’t seem to be especially good - even without placing many demands on the BeBook Live, the battery was complaining within a day of taking a full charge, when we’ve become more accustomed to getting through a couple of days with light use on other tablets.
The BeBook is not expensive but also don’t offer you the latest, or most appropriate, version of Android. On the plus side, you do get access to Android Market, along with the Google essentials meaning that out of the box the experience is better than some other cheap rivals. But BeBook otherwise don’t add anything to the mix: there is no real additional functionality or services that they supply, so it really is a case of buying the hardware and getting on with things.
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