£180 7in Android tablet launched
Disgo fever
Another day, another 7in Android tablet. This one's from Disgo and follows the usual pattern.
So we have a 7in, 480 x 800 touchscreen; Android 2.1; 1GHz ARM CPU - an iMap X200 - 256MB of memory; 2GB of storage which can be augmented with Micro SD cards; 802.11n Wi-Fi; a pair of mini USB ports; 3.5mm headphone socket; and a mini HDMI port.
Disgo describes the device as "ultra thin" before going on to say it's a centimetre and a half thick - not what we'd call skinny.
Priced at £180 - the same, you'll note as the 10in Android tablet Next is selling, as we reported yesterday - the Disgo Tablet 6000 is unlikely to sport a top-of-the-line display, so expect a resisitive touchscreen rather than a finger-friendly capacitive one, though Disgo has yet to confirm this, describing the screen simply as "high responsive".
The Tablet 6000 goes on sale this month from the likes of Play.com, Amazon and HMV. ®
COMMENTS
android market?
not mentioned in the review is android market... has this tablet been officially sanctioned by google to run android market? many of the cheapo android tablets don't have it and are a bit useless.
Resistive vs capacitive
I know it's always said that the cheaper end products probably have resistive screens, but what is the price difference? Are we talking a significant chunk of the product price or just a few quid?
I've just read a review* of the Orange San Francisco (still waiting for the el-Reg review!!) that says it comes with a " 3.5″ OLED capacitive screen and 800×480, just like the Nexus One, Desire, Galaxy S. It’s crisp, clear and the colours look great. If this is a cheaply made phone, it doesn’t show here, that’s for sure ". Accepting that the 'cisco screen is only 3.5", but Orange have still managed to supply a high-quality screen at a very low cost... so it's doable!
*Source: http://hemorrdroids.net/orange-san-francisco-review/
For all of it's features it seems about the right price
SUBJECT to it's warranty and after market repairs.
I have several Chinese tablet to hand but the 1 Gig processor makes it worth the money.
Strange gap there
Really, there's a very strange gap between the decent but expensive gadgets from Apple and Samsung and all the dirt cheap tablets. Some recent Android, $20 phone and GPS chips, a mic and a speaker (to make the thing work as a phone and so satisfy Google to license the app market) and a capacitive touchscreen just can't be THAT expensive. Maybe $100.
There must be plenty of room for decent Android tablets in the $300 to $400 range. There're none though.
I get the feeling that all the major brands just start to realize that many people do not need expensive computers at all and would be very happy with a simple tablet for their needs. Selling $300 tablets and not selling expensive laptops anymore then would be suicide. So they're stalling and/or selling expensive tablets.
They're rubbish because ...
The ubercheap ones are running an older version of Android (in this case 1.6) than what is coming out right now. As such, they are Android of course, but they will not necessarily be as functional as the newer devices sporting Android 2.1 and later.
Google are already about the fragmentation of Android and these cheaper devices are going to add to the confusion. It won't be long before the word Android will be associated with "junk", maybe.
Look, if you know exactly what you are doing by buying one of these cheap £180 or £110 priced Android tablets then go ahead, fill your boots. As long as you know that some will not have 3G radios in them, being WiFi only - it is not absolutely clear that is the case.
