For those who aren’t familiar, Dany is a name from consumer electronics business since 2001. In fact I remember buying a Dany TV device some 10 years ago.
Audionic, a popular audio equipment brand selling portable and multimedia speakers, is also part of Dany Technologies.
Dany launched its very own Android “Genius Tablets” few months ago but its only now that they are massively marketing them.
You might have seen TVCs lately featuring renowned cricketer Wasim Akram promoting Dany Genius Tablets.
We got our hands on Dany G5 Dual SIM tablet (read phablet) — priced at just Rs. 12,900 — and decided to do a short review for you guys, let’s start with the un-boxing.
The first thing you will notice about this tablet is its design as it takes most of the elements from HTC One and One Max.
The second noteworthy thing is Dany G5’s unconventional size. The slim body is all plastic, but the aluminum, leather feel and the build quality is remarkable.
Dany G5 is very light weight and just 8.9mm thin.
The front side on Dany G5 is dominated by a 6.5 inch capacitive touch screen with a SVGA resolution (190ppi density), which feels a little squeezed.
The screen isn’t IPS and doesn’t feature any protective coating, so a screen protector is recommended.
Above the screen there is 2-megapixel camera along with proximity sensor that divides the big speaker design. Actually there are two speakers in the upper part (an ear-speaker and a loudspeaker). Another loudspeaker is located below the screen along with a microphone incorporating the same speaker design.
There is nothing on the right of Dany G5 tablet, on the left side we have power/unlock key and volume rocker. The place is very odd but the raised key design makes it very easy to press them. Micro-USB port and 3.5mm headphones jack are located on the top.
The backside of Dany G5 has faux leather appearance, although it doesn’t feature stitches as seen on Galaxy Note 3.
There is a 5-megapixel fixed focused camera along with LED on the top along with a lid-covered micro-SD card slot. The Dany logo can be seen in the middle.
The backplate isn’t removable except the bottom portion, which reveals two SIM card slots. One takes Mini-SIM and the other takes a micro-SIM (you can use micro-SIM in both).
Dany G5 comes with Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2 out of the box. There is no bloatware and no fancy UI customizations. This device runs pure (vanilla) Android, except the bootscreen and the app drawer icon is changed with Dany logo.
Dany G5 comes pre-installed with Play Store and other Google apps as well as popular social media applications and book reading software.
The company promises to provide OS upgrades and bug fixes in the future, We would love if they upgrade it to the latest Android KitKat 4.4 in the near future.
Genius Tab G5 is packed with mediocre hardware featuring MediaTek MT6572 dual-core processor, Mali 400 GPU and 1 GB of RAM.
You won’t feel any lag while using basic functions on Dany G5. Browsing websites is snappy and you can easily run 4-5 applications at a time without any compromise on performance.
I’ve tested it by playing resource hungry 3D games on it and Dany G5 does a very good job. You won’t feel any lag in the games but don’t expect high graphic details.
Other demanding applications like Maps, Facebook & YouTube also run flawlessly. You can play 1080p videos on this device and can make VoIP calls over Skype & Viber. The front camera can also be used for video conferencing.
Genius Tab G5 can also take SIM cards so you can use it as phone too. The regular calling is nice and clear and the signal reception is also good. Though it doesn’t support 3G.
Dany G5 is equipped with a 2800mAh battery, which gives decent backup. Heavy users can get 1 day out of it and for normal users the battery can stretch up-to 2 days.
Other than the charger provided in the box you can charge it via USB cable from your Laptop or any other tablet/phone that supports OTG function. It takes almost 3 hours to charge fully. The unit we got had some kind of bug in the software, as it didn’t pop up any notification when the battery was low.
Camera & Video:
This tablet has a primary 5-megapixel (fixed focused) camera with single LED flash and a secondary 1.9-megapixel camera on the front for video calling.
As you would expect from a low-end device, the camera on a Dany G5 isn’t extraordinary. The image quality is mediocre and colors are little washed out.
On the other hand, the camera interface on Dany G5 is very simple, there are not much options to play with. You can take 5 or 3 megapixel photos with the primary camera and record 720p videos. The front camera has a maximum VGA resolution for the videos. You can use both of them for video calling.
A 4x digital zoom is present, but resolution deteriorates as you start to zoom the scene.
LED flashlight can also be used as a torch, there is no dedicated app but you can find many on the Play Store.
Have a look at the sample images:
Dany Genius Tab G5 is available at all major computer & mobile shops across Pakistan for a price of Rs. 12,900. The tablet is available in two colors; black & white (I recommend you getting the black version).
The accessories box including, the leather case, screen protector, headphones and cleaning cloth can be bought separately. It comes with one year international warranty of Dany Technologies.
Verdict:
The built quality of the tablet is good, it’s easy to handle and not so heavy. As compared to “Chinese Tablets” or other local brands it has better performance and ability to be used as a phone. There’s a need of improvement in the screen and camera departments but considering its price you have to make some compromises.
It provides a decent battery backup and you can run almost any application on it. The software is highly optimized as there are no crashes and no bugs. So if you are looking to buy a low cost tablet as your daily driver, you should also consider this device.
Do share your opinion about it and if you have any questions feel free to ask us in the comments section below.
