Asus Fonepad 7 FE375CXG review: Talk-worthy

Phonebook and telephony

The dialer and the phonebook share a single app although there are two shortcuts. It uses a tabbed interface - recent with dialer on the first, the contact list on the second, followed by favorites, and groups.

The Phonebook

Contact info is displayed as a list of all available details. Custom ringtones can be selected for each contact and duplicate contacts can be merged into a single entry.

The dialer supports Smart dialing and works great - it's looking up both names and phone numbers so you always find what you need. If both SIM cards are active you'll automatically get two green call keys under the dialer, one for each of the SIMs.

The Fonepad 7 supports voice call recording and it can do it automatically on each call if you like.

The Dialer • settings

The Asus Fonepad 7 FE375CXG scored a Good mark on our loudspeaker tests, meaning you'll hardly miss any calls and notifications. Note that we've used the Music preset from the system-wide AudioWizard sound app. If you decide to leave it on Battery Saver mode, you'll get a really poor performance.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overall score
Sony Xperia Z Ultra	64.0	65.1	61.7	Below Average
Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact	66.2	66.3	65.3	Below Average
Apple iPad mini 2	65.7	62.1	72.3	Below Average
Asus Memo Pad 7 ME572C	73.7	64.6	66.6	Average
Asus Fonepad 7 FE375CXG	66.7	65.8	75.7	Good
Apple iPad mini	68.2	65.7	75.7	Good
Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4	68.7	66.5	75.8	Good
Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9	75.7	69.6	82.7	Very Good
OnePlus One	74.8	73.5	80.2	Excellent

Messaging and email

The messaging section is business as usual. All SMS/MMS communication is organized into threads - each thread consists of all messages between you and one of your contacts. You can select multiple threads to mass-delete. Adding multimedia content is hassle free.

If you both SIM slots are occupied and active, you'll get two SEND keys, one for each SIM card.

The Messaging app

The standard client has a clean simple white interface with your email folders on the left and your list of messages on the right. If you add more than one account and you get a combined view of all your emails from each accounts. The Email app can handle Exchange, POP or IMAP inboxes.

The standard email app

The Gmail app is also onboard, with nice and clean interface but there is no option for unified inbox for your multiple accounts. We suspect everyone will be using Inbox soon though.

Google's Gmail app

Text input is done through ASUS keyboard, which looks a lot like Google's keyboard but with a different paintjob. On this screen the keys are comfortably large in both portrait and landscape mode. There is support for swipe typing, handwriting and Google voice input.

Asus keyboard