Yet another competitor for the Apple iPad Mini and the Google Nexus 7 in the suddenly packed 7” tablet market, the Alcatel One Touch Evo 7 HD might just compete with the big branded boys and certainly makes the most out of some impressive specs, plus excellent scalability and adaptability.

Once one gets past the dull (really dull!) look of the One Touch Evo 7 HD, plenty more may be admired in this fairly-priced tablet. The Evo 7 HD may be purchased in WiFi-, 3G- and 4G-compatible versions, with the latter two including a SIM card port to upgrade to cellular (or in the case of the 3G version, 4G). Other spec goodies in all models include micro SD slot, micro USB port and two cameras.

Under the hood is where things get most impressive – well, mostly. A 1.6 GHz dual-core CPU and quad-core GPU bring truly outstanding power (and thus operating speed) to the One Touch Evo 7 HD – particularly at this price. The OS is the as-of-this-writing most current Android, 4.2. The negative: Just 4 GB of internal storage to start. Really? *4* GB? Come on, this is 2013 here… And then there’s the screen. Billed as a “HD”, the initial notice of the 1280 x 800-pixel resolution can be off-putting, but have no fear: Pictures and videos truly look fantastic and one would never guess Alcatel has employed the standard measure herein.

So perhaps “One Touch” isn’t quite the North American or European household name that say “iPad” or “Galaxy Tab” is – but as the international market shrinks, we figure the folks working at those companies might want to start looking over their shoulder at this gaining 7” tablet…