Asus Fonepad 7 FE375CXG review: Talk-worthy

Abysmal 2MP snapper

The camera mounted on the back of the Asus Fonepad 7 FE375CXG is capable of capturing 2MP (1600 x 1200px) stills and 720p videos. It features a combined interface which allows you to take either a still image shot or use the camcorder functionality via side-by-side buttons.

There's a wide range of effects that feature live overlays, while the settings menu allows you to adjust all sorts of features like white balance, ISO levels, exposure, and more. There's a wide range of shooting modes including the more common panorama, HDR, and low-light modes, alongside some more surprising extras like Time rewind, Smart remove, and Depth of field.

The Camera app is full of options

As far as quality is concerned, the Asus Fonepad FE375CXG is just bad. Colors are washed out and the level of resolved detail is low even for this resolution. Looking at the images in full-res reveals an aggressive de-noise filter that results in an oil-painting effect that detracts from the level of detail even further.

Exposure and contrast accuracy is very hit-and-miss, with some images coming out better than others, but many being very poor.

Asus Fonepad 7 FE375CXG camera samples

HDR mode tends to improve cameras with poor dynamic range, and that was the case with the Fonepad 7, but the image quality is still really poor.

HDR on/off

The Fonepad 7 is actually capable of shooting good panoramic shots at 4400x1100px in portrait and 4400x700px in landscape mode. The stitching is very good, as are the details and contrast.

Fonepad 7 panoramic samples

Video recording

The Asus Fonepad FE375CXG churns out 720p videos at 30fps with stereo sound. They carry a bitrate of around 5Mbps and a lowly 96Kbps audio bitrate. Video recording carries over the same problems that we saw with the still images.

The level of resolved detail is very poor as is the dynamic range - it looks to be upscaled from a lower resolution.

Here's a 720p@30fps video sample (7MB, 10s) taken directly from the device.