Argos MyTablet review

It's all budget tablets in the UK market at the moment - with Tesco launching the Hudl tablet, Argos has undercut the supermarket giant and launched a sub-£100 device.

It's not without charm either: compact, running a new-ish build of Android and a dual-core processor, we're seeing this price bracket finally spewing tablets that aren't total junk.

Argos, with the help of Bush, has created its first home-brand tablet just in time for the Christmas rush. We mention Christmas because the press release was clear this is what its intention is, to attempt to crack the 75% of British households that don't have a tablet and need gift ideas.

For a first foray into the over-saturated tablet world, Argos has gone the way of most budget tablets and produced something that's lacking in execution but wins on external functions. What do we mean by this? Well, the MyTablet looks really nice for a £99.99 tablet.

It has a metal back and a white front that commands a more premium feel than the price would suggest. On top of that it has so many connections (HDMI, USB, DC, external memory slot) and a decent 8GB of on-board memory.

But with the good must come the bad. The MyTablet looks very dated when you boot it up, the screen quality is low (1024x600) and by today's standards colours look washed out.

The immediate high of taking a first glimpse is decimated when you actually use it, and you're instantly reminded that this is in fact a budget tablet.

Design

Just based on looks, you'd be proud to call this 'My Tablet'. Modelled on the new Nexus 7, it's slim and more ebook shaped rather than the old thick Nexus 7. It has a metal casing that covers the back and is smooth to touch - making it feel more high-end than it actually is. It's almost like a massive iPhone 5S.

The speaker and camera on the back are unimposing and sit within a white strip. It's solidly built but the metal back casing does seem to scratch easily, which immediately makes it look worn even if it is brand new. It is however a solid slab and the thick white bezel on the front won't suffer from the same scratching problem.

It's quite heavy and feels cold and metallic to the touch, so holding it for an extended period of time might not be the best way to use the MyTablet. A lot of tablet designers now seem to be going for the rounded, rubbery, ergonomic design and it seems as if Argos missed the memo.

At a tall, oblong shaped, 7-inches the MyTablet looks like a slight alteration on the Nexus 7. It has a 1024x600 resolution, which is reasonable on paper but in execution it doesn't seem to have gone to plan.

Maybe we're too used to playing with the Nexus 7, or iPad mini, but the screen resolution simply isn't good enough for a 2013 tablet.

Colours look washed out and edges are pixelated; it's reminiscent of a 2011 tablet (so two years ago) rather than something that is coming out toward the tail-end of 2013.

More interestingly, this is clearly an effort by Argos to kick off a high-street chain rivalry with Tesco, which recently released the admirable Hudl. It's a shame because you want the screen to look as crisp as the exterior and there's definitely a steep drop in enthusiasm between fondling the tablet and actually using it.

Apps and games look bad, but movies suffer the most. With the dull colours and slightly blurred screen, a CGI heavy action film looks a bit flat and takes away some of the whimsy.

It isn't very bright either, which means it suffers in direct sunlight. This is definitely something to use at home rather than outdoors and on the move.

Unlike most modern tablets, MyTablet has a lot of physical connections. Impressively there are 5 different external ports including; mini HDMI, headphone, mini USB and microSD card. This amount of connectivity is common on cheaper tablets, most likely because they have to make up for other clear failings in performance.

The MyTablet tows the party line in this sense, but more on that later. On-board storage is a decent 8GB but this can be upgraded to 32GB with the microSD card slot, which is refreshing given that the current popular trend is to not include removable storage at all.

There are only two physical buttons, the 'on' and 'volume' buttons. The buttons stick out quite far and you might find yourself accidentally switching the screen off or changing the volume when you're watching a film, which gets annoying very quickly.

The MyTablet has a pretty basic 1.6GHz dual-core processor that struggles to keep up with modern, CPU consuming, media, which kind of leaves us confused as to what this device is actually for.

Probably something disposable for the kids this Christmas, but the exterior design suggests that it had - at some point in the design stage - a higher-end target market in mind.