A tablet made for mobile data
Most tablets can only get on the internet via Wi-Fi; they don’t have a SIM for mobile data like a smartphone. But that may not matter too much, because most people who have tablets also have smartphones, and most smartphones can function as a personal hotspot. Wherever you can get a signal, your phone can act as a Wi-Fi network for your tablet to connect to.
So why bother making a budget tablet with its own 4G SIM? Well, if you happen to run a mobile network, you probably know that, while there isn’t much money to be made selling cheap tablets, there’s plenty to be made from expensive data tariffs.
Enter Vodafone’s Tab Prime 6, which runs Android 5 (Lollipop). On a pay-as-you-go contract it costs £150. Compare that to £419 for the iPad Air Wi-Fi + Cellular, Apple’s cheapest full-size tablet with 4G, and it sounds like a good deal. By signing up for a monthly tariff, you can get the Tab Prime 6 for free, which by our maths is infinity per cent cheaper than the iPad. Now that sounds like a great deal!
When you work out how much you end up paying, though, it comes to £744 for a two-year contract. You’d have to be spending a lot of time away from Wi-Fi to justify that kind of outlay. And the problem is, this isn’t a tablet you’re going to want to spend a lot of time using.
At first glance, the Tab Prime 6 ticks a lot of boxes: at 7.9mm thick and 406g, it’s a similar size to the Air and even lighter than the more expensive Air 2. Although it’s more plasticky, its soft-touch rear panel is less slippery to hold.
But switch on the 9.6in display and you’ll see just 1280x800 pixels, more like the very first iPad than the latest models. To make matters worse, it covers little more than half the iPad’s colour range and isn’t very bright. Everything looks fuzzy, block-like, washed-out and dim. If you’re choosing a photo for your background wallpaper, try to pick something green - it can just about manage green.
Apple has always pushed the boundaries of mobile performance with the iPad. The Tab Prime 6 also pushes a boundary, but it’s the one that separates the processing ability of a tablet and a roof tile. The Tab Prime 6 is about half as powerful as the Tesco Hudl 2 - an excellent budget tablet you can buy for under £100, albeit without 4G. As a result, web pages judder uncertainly into place, and even 2D games stutter. Forget about the iPad’s console-quality 3D experience.
More basic Android apps work all right. Battery life is decent, at eight hours 44 minutes in our tests, and the 16GB of built-in storage can be expanded with a microSD card of up to 32GB. The 5-megapixel camera on the back is poor, but thanks to the low display quality you won’t really notice. A 2-megapixel front camera handles video chat.
The Tab Prime 6 is very affordable on pay-as-you-go, especially if you bypass Vodafone’s business model by not topping up and sticking to Wi-Fi. But there are good reasons to spend more for a really good Android tablet like Google’s Nexus 9, or even an iPad. You’ll get more value out of something that works well.
If you need to keep the cost down, and can do without 4G, the even cheaper Hudl 2 is a better choice. The Tab Prime 6 may look at first glance like a reasonably priced tablet, but once you turn it on and try to use it, you won’t think you’ve got much of a bargain.
VERDICT
iPads are expensive, but it's hard to make a tablet for substantially less without sacrificing the usability that makes them attractive - as this one demonstrates.
SPECIFICATIONS
9.6in 1280x800-pixel screen • 5-megapixel rear camera • 2-megapixel front camera • Android 5 . 802.11n • 3G/4C • 146x244x7.9mm (HxWxD) • 406kg • One-year warranty