Reseller touts cheap-as-chips 7in Android tablet
Yours for 85 quid
Shocked by the high price of Samsung's Galaxy Tab? Rather spend considerably less than that? How about 85 quid?
Yes, that's what bargain basement seller Morgan Computers - Somerset-based Bentham Ltd snapped up the name in November 2009 after the original went titsup - wants for the "7 inch Google Android tablet with touchscreen technology" it's now offering.
"The perfect product for those of you who can't afford an iPad", says Morgan's website.
The princely sum of 85 nicker doesn't nab you much tech, mind. The tablet's ARM CPU is clocked at a mere 400MHz and there's just 2GB of storage, though thankfully the gadget has an SD card slot.
But the screen is a reasonable, e-book reader like 800 x 480, it has 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, a 0.3Mp webcam and a USB port.
Battery life is a sub-par three hours - the power pack is an 1800mAh job - and the tablet itself measures 195 x 120 x 16mm.
You can order the tablet now, but Morgan doesn't expect to see its stock until 18 October. ®
Thanks to reader Steve for the tip
COMMENTS
Gradually opening up a new market segment
It also only has 128 MB RAM, and perhaps unsurprisingly Android 1.7. So I guess you're not doing anything that requires much power on it. But as an ultra-simple portable web browser - think digital photo frame with net connectivity - it could be really useful, at that price.
And however cut-down, it's really refreshing that firms are bringing out Android tablets that aren't even trying to be iPad competitors, but are doing something quite different - and they're at a much more sensible price. More work needed for that breakthrough, eeePC equivalent for the cheap-but-great tablet market, but it's definitely edging that way.
Umm..... the Apad? iRobot?
They're a bit late to the party, aren't they? eBay's been littered with 7" Android tablets for a while now, and with a damn sight better specs than that as well - 600MHz plus a 600MHz DSP? I think they're probably down towards £90 now?
Not necessarily a bad thing
You can write on a resistive screen with a stylus. If you were using the device to take notes, it might prove to be vastly more useful than capacitive. A hybrid screen would offer the best of both worlds of course.
Android version what?
Love how they are posting the firmware version as the Android version because they just don't know any better. Looks like a re-bodied Eken or APad... In other words Android 1.5 and DOWN to the usual standard.
I don't care if it is £85, it's still rubbish. :-)
So so...
Pretty obvious its bankrupt stock and thus it'll not be upgradeable.
Oh sure a few techies will try to hack it for a few months. But when they move on to the next gadget the mere-human users of us will be left with a slate that can't do very much I fear.
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