Pierre Cardin PC-7006G tablet review
The explosion of tablets onto the market lately means all sorts of companies are trying to get in on the act – the Next fashion house recently produced a stinker. Pierre Cardin, also more famed for fashion design, has produced the PC-7006G.
We expect something special from one of the world’s leading fashion houses, and Pierre Cardin provides a discreetly labelled chic leather case to hold the PC-7006G. The tablet itself feels very solid, and in general features good build quality. The PC-7006G features glass in front and black glass on the rear with chrome edging all round. It’s very similar to Apple design, and a circular Home button below and Menu and Ruck buttons on the right follow suit.
Weighing 530g, the 7006G is quite heavy, so there’s a price to pay for the sturdy construction. Pierre Cardin PC runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, with a minimal custom interface on top, and we find all of Google’s native apps, as opposed to the half-baked in-house substitutes as often found on budget tablets. There’s also a nice little eReader app pre-loaded. Also users have access to the full Android App Store, not some third-party bargain basement. Yet folk should ask themselves if they’d be happy with the older Gingerbread operating system when they could get their hands on a Honeycomb tablet for the same price.
But browsing on Pierre Cardin PC-7006G is a fair bit slower than on the Acer Iconia A100, which is surprising considering how quickly it’s possible to navigate around the OS and open apps. Such games as Angry Birds run magnificently. Under the covers purrs a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 chip, the very same as that found inside the original iPad. This CPU is coupled with a healthy 512MB of RAM, and basic storage room of 4GB, expandable to 16GB via the microSD card slot. 3G can be used with a purchased USB dongle, but is not offered out of the box – users have to settle for WiFi-g, which is a disappointment. There is a forward-facing 1.3MP camera, but nothing ‘au derriere’.
For connectivity Pierre Cardin have provided two mini-USB ports, an HDMI connection and a microSD card reader.
Unfortunately, the fly in the fragrant parisian ointment is the screen – one the lowest quality displays we have seen so far. The 7-inch, 480 x 800 panel is grainy and viewing angles are ‘une horreur’. Compared to say HTC Flyer and BlackBerry PlayBook, the resolution is too weak. At least brightness and contrast of Pierre Cardin PC are acceptable. Picture capture delivers photos with dull contrast, and video captured in 720p is grainy.
The Pierre Cardin PC-7006G doesn’t permit USB charging, so users will need to keep the adaptor handy. However battery life delivered a towering 8 hrs 36 mins of video looping, trouncing the Iconia tab’s sub-four hour showing.
But for the same price, Acer Iconia Tab A100 offers Honeycomb at a higher resolution, so here is one designer label we can afford to ignore. A100 starts at $349 for 8GB model.
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