If you’ve been looking for a smart home hub of sorts for your home, you really should take a look at the Alcatel 3T10 tablet. This is a feature rich tablet that comes with either a keyboard, or a Bluetooth speaker in the box (depending on what bundle you buy) and does some impressive things with it. I recently got a chance to use the Alcatel 3T10 with the Bluetooth Speaker and I’ve been liking it so far, so here are all the cool features and highlights of this tablet.
Audio Station
Like I said earlier, the Alcatel 3T10 comes with a Bluetooth Speaker in the box. It’s a nice, clean looking speaker, and since it’s Bluetooth you can always use it with any device you want to, but you can pop-open a flap on the top of the speaker, and slide the Alcatel 3T10’s smart connectors right on it to get some impressive features.
Fast-Access Display
For one, the moment you put the tablet on the speaker, it rotates into landscape mode (as it should) and launches what Alcatel is calling the ‘Fast-Access Display’. It’s named as such because it allows you to get quick access to important information.
Weather is displayed right on top, along with the time, and all that is followed by important stories from the day so you can keep an eye on the headlines as well.
Google Assistant
Remember how I said that this is a good option to look at if you’re considering a smart home hub? Well that’s because Google Assistant is built right in here, and you can access it hands free from as far as 3 meters, thanks to the tablet’s far-field microphones. With a display and the Assistant, this is basically what a smart home display is.
You can ask Google to play a song, a podcast, watch videos on YouTube, create reminders, and so much more. All without ever having to do anything more than speaking it out to your tablet.
Basically, this thing becomes a Nest Hub thanks to the large display, and the thumping sound from the Bluetooth speaker.
Personally, I’ve been using this for the kind of stuff I usually use my Nest Hub for, and it seems to work just fine. You can get recipes on the screen to help you along if you’re keeping this in the kitchen, or you could just keep this in the living room, and enjoy your favorite music on the included speaker with just a voice command. It’s pretty good.
Auto-connect to Bluetooth
The tablet also auto-connects to the speaker when it’s docked on it, so you don’t have to manually open the Bluetooth settings on your tablet and then select the Bluetooth speaker every time you dock the tablet into this mode. Once it’s connected to the speaker, sounds play via your Bluetooth speaker instead, which makes the audio experience even better. So you can hear your favorite songs on a Bluetooth speaker, or make a video call without having to worry about not being able to hear the person on the other end.
Design
So the Alcatel 3T10 is very much like what you’d expect a tablet to look like. It has a large 10-inch display, a front and rear facing camera, and dual stereo speakers (which is just great). But the highlight for me, at least, is that it has smart connectors on the bottom edge, and that’s where the magic really happens, but more on that later.
The Alcatel 3T10 is built out of plastic, but that’s okay, and it keeps the tablet lightweight which is definitely important for a huge 10-inch tablet like this one.
Bluetooth Speaker
This Audio Station functionality in the Alcatel 3T10 is made possible thanks to the Bluetooth speaker included in the box. The speaker here has 2x5W speakers, and the sides are passive bass radiators for a more thumpy sound. It also gets fairly loud, so that’s nice. Plus, there’s a 2,000 mAh battery inside the speaker which Alcatel claims can last up to 7 hours on a charge.
There’s also a bunch of ports here, including support for 3.5mm AUX input, and a microSD card if you still use that sort of thing.
Performance
Performance wise, the Alcatel 3T10 comes with a quad-core processor clocked at 1.28GHz, along with 2GB RAM and 16GB storage. This can be expanded up to 128GB with a microSD card. The display here is an HD display, which is not that good, and it’s not helped along by the large 10-inch screen.
Still, for every day use, and considering the price point at which Alcatel is offering all these features, I’d say these specs are alright.
Keyboard
If you go for the slightly lower priced keyboard bundle for the Alcatel 3T10, you’ll get a keyboard folio case along with the tablet instead of a Bluetooth speaker in the box. With this, you can just slide in the Alcatel 3T10 in the case, pair it up with the Bluetooth keyboard, and use it as a laptop replacement when you’re trying to get work done on-the-go.
In the time I’ve used this tablet with the keyboard, it does seem good with responsive keys. However, I do wish the keyboard had a trackpad in it somewhere because using touch along with the keyboard just doesn’t sit right with me. If that’s not a problem for you, go for it.
It still remains an Android tablet, at the end of the day, so it’s definitely not going to replace your laptop. However, if you’re shooting off an email to your team, or finishing up a report on the go, this is a great way to get those things done.
Price
The Alcatel 3T10 comes in three different bundles. You can go for just the tablet at Rs. 7,999. If you’re looking for something to work on, you can pick up a bundle that brings a keyboard along with the tablet for Rs. 11,999, and if you’re looking for the smart-speaker-like experience with a display on top, you can get the Alcatel 3T10 Audio Station for Rs. 14,999. All these come with 2GB RAM and 16GB storage, along with the same quad-core processor, and a large 4,080 mAh battery that should last you a fairly long time.
Buy the Alcatel 3T10 Audio Station from Flipkart (Rs. 14,999)
