Great mix of price, specs, and performance

While it’s not hard to find smartphones that have a good mix of solid specs and price, it’s considerably more difficulty to find an Android tablet that has both. We’ve seen a couple of devices before that managed to impress us, but not as many as we would like. The Kata Fishtab 3 is set to join that particularly sparse roster, toting a price of only Php 7,699.

Kata Fishtab 3 specs:

• 1.8GHz Quad Core Rockchip 3188 processor
• 2GB RAM
• 8GB internal memory expandable via MicroSD up to 64GB
• 7.9-inch LG IPS LCD display (1028 x 768 pixels)
• 5 megapixel rear facing camera
• 2 megapixel front facing camera
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, 3G via 3G dongle, USB (On-The-Go) OTG capable
• GPS, A-GPS
• 4,400 mAh Li-Po battery
• Android 4.2 Jellybean
• SRP: P7,699

Uninspired design, but quality build nonetheless

We’d forgive you if you mistook the Kata Fishtab 3 for an iPad Mini, as the design really closely resembles Apple’s diminutive tab, down to the button placements (they even copied the home button lol). As uninspired as the design is, it’s still very solidly built and very handsome in person.

HD Display

The 7.95-inch display has a resolution of 1028 x 768, which translates to only an HD display. Nevertheless, the images are bright and crisp, and had accurate color reproduction. We did notice that the Kata Fishtab 3 does suffer from glare when it’s under direct sunlight, something to keep in mind when using it outdoors.

Relatively obscure processor gets the job done

Kata opted to use a rather uncommon chipset called Rockchip over the usual Mediatek for the Fishtab 3. To be honest, we don’t know why other manufacturers don’t use this in their devices instead of the Mediatek one, as its performance in the Kata Fishtab 3 was pretty good, netting the device a score of 19575 in AnTuTu.

The 1.8GHz quad-core processor performed extremely well in our tests, and we experienced little to no lag while playing games like Dead Trigger 2 and watching videos.

Mediocre camera, standard fare for tablets

While we generally don’t recommend anyone using a tablet to take pictures because of the sheer awkwardness of it, we still took some test shots with the Fishtab 3. Like most tablet cameras, the Fishtab 3’s shooter lack focus and general detail, although the 2-megapixel front camera is good enough for our usual Skype sessions.

Average battery life

The Kata Fishtab 3’s battery life is pretty middling. On heavy use, the 4,400mAh battery only managed to give us around 7 hours of useful battery life (heavy gaming, online streaming and blogging). We did manage to stretch the battery to almost 10 hours with moderate use. On standby, it will last for around a day and a half.

Verdict: Powerful tablet that won’t break the bank

We wholeheartedly recommend the Kata Fishtab 3 for 3 reasons: value for money, excellent build quality and excellent performance. Probably the only thing that’s holding it back is that it’s a Wi-Fi only tablet, but that can easily be resolved by using portable Wi-Fi devices. The Kata Fishtab 3 is a great tablet for people looking to stretch their budget as far as possible.