Torque Droidz View: Connecting the Pinoy way
MANILA, Philippines - The price war between must-have gadgets keeps getting fiercer by the week, if not by the day. A trip to my suking tindahan last weekend showed me as much.
The tablet, one with at least a 7.5-inch screen, is something that many people aspire to own. And they have definitely come within reach of many buyers as these gadgets’ prices have dropped to under P5,000. Take for instance the case of the Torque, which not only has a price that is below P5,000 — it has been marketed to a young demographic.
The Torque’s endorsers include the likes of Luis Manzano, Iya Villania, Carla Abellana, and Billy Crawford. The marketing for the Torque goes as far as calling its users “The Torque Generation.” Now, who wouldn’t want to be part of that well-connected group, right? I got a chance to fiddle with the Torque Droidz View a bit and I was pleasantly surprised at what it can do — and perhaps even more surprised with what this gadget is equipped with.
The Torque Droidz View has a seven-inch display with two-point Touch screen. It has a speed of 800 Mhz CPU + 400 Mhz DSP bundled with Android 2.2 Froyo OS. Its G-sensor feature allows the user to be more interactive with the device.
I got to a Wi-Fi spot and got connected. I browsed through my e-mail for a bit, did a little surfing and then checked on Facebook and Twitter. Connections were made — and quite smoothly.
I asked my suking tindera what most of the buyers of the Torque look for. “Gusto nila yung pwede sa Facebook,” came her quick reply. “Yan ang una nilang tinatanong sa akin ‘pag kukuha sila ng tablet.”
Join the new generation: The Torque poster ad She added that the buyers were not too concerned about whether they could play games or check their e-mail. But, they were insistent about being able to connect to Facebook. Buyers of the Torque were concerned about the capacity of its memory, and whether it had a memory card. “Kasi, mahilig mag save ng mga pictures ang mga nag fe-Facebook,” she added. “Gusto nila yung may memory card para madami silang ma save na photos.”
The Torque Droidz View comes with two GB internal memory. It has a micro SD slot that accommodate up to 32GB. The Droidz View also has a VGA camera in front as well as a multimedia player with high-quality video playback for playing and watching your videos. Next to Facebook, it is YouTube that most of the buyers of the Torque are interested in.
The Torque is touted as a homegrown brand, as in proudly Pinoy made. At the start, these Pinoy gadgets had to struggle to gain notice. After all, cell phones from the well-known brands were also competing in the same market. But, with the entry of the tablets, things changed. The cell phone is still the number one gadget of choice, but many more Pinoys are turning to the affordable tablets so that they can connect with people both here and abroad.
Other features of the Torque Droidz View are a 3.5mm audio jack for headphones or speakers. The Droidz View has a slot that accommodates a special adaptor. This adaptor has an Ethernet slot to hook up the Droidz View to an active LAN connection, another way to connect to the Internet other than 3G and Wi-Fi. The adaptor also has a pair of USB ports that enables you to attach devices with USB Type A receptacles. While the other more pricey tablets run on Android Gingerbread and Honeycomb, the Torque Droidz View still operates on Froyo. But no one is complaining. After all, the connections on Facebook are made and the chats are kept constant. That’s all that really matters, I guess.
The Torque has found its niche in the Torque Generation.
