I like the idea of a Tablet computer and today I went into Toys-R-Us to look at what prices they were charging for PS3 games and came across a stand offering a 7″ Tablet for £89.99 while they had the much bigger 10″ Tablet for £149.99. I checked the box of the 7″ model, limited memory combined with android 1.6 and not something I wanted. I checked the specifications of the 10″ Model and it had Android 2.1, 1024×600 screen and other good stuff.
Technical Specifications
Looking at the picture above – 10.1″ Screen looks good, 1Ghz CPU should be good, the memory on-board is tiny. It only has b/g wireless plus the rj45 adaptor seems to be an optional extra (which I have no idea where you buy this from). It states 3 hours battery (which is very bad for a tablet device) but I have read about 188 minutes. Notice it only has Resistive touch screen and not captive touch screen.
Keyboard add-on
You can buy for this a case which comes with a keyboard (pictured above) and the price of this is £29.99, this lets the tablet be used more like a laptop. If you installed a VNC client on this device or a Terminal Services client – then you can use this cheap laptop as a means fix a server for example remotely. I have tried this on my HTC Hero and by all means it works but with a larger screen and such – I can see this as a very good device.
Try before you buy
I had read many reviews of these cheap tablet computers and how they all fail to be a good experience. I asked the manager (who happened to be close by) if he either had one on display or we could open up a box to try it out. He informed me that they will not have one out and although they can open on, they cannot switch it on – which I saw as pointless. I tried in vain to look for some reviews on my HTC Hero and never come up with anything conclusive. While I probably could buy one, take it home and test it out to death and then return it when I work out that it is in fact garbage, I did not want to go down that route, after all this would be an impulse buy and something I probably do not need.
What I’ve read so far
On my brief travel around the internet looking for information, I have learned a few things that so far has put me off actually buying this. No word on the elonex site about upgrading to Android 2.2 and above, I have already been through this with my HTC Hero and do not wish to be stuck on this device as well. It does not have mutitouch on the display from what I can see, this is a major thing for me to shy away from the device.The battery life I find really bad – 188 minutes is no use at all and I would be forever having it plugged in, I would much prefer the battery life like the iPad.
My thoughts then on this is while it looks a good deal for the price, you do get what you pay for. This means that NO you will not get a ipad type device for a fraction of the cost, what you will get is corners cut with the display, the wireless and various other aspects (no camera for example. As a portable VNC Device – given the limited resolution, I cannot see this been used as much as I would like to think it would. As a web browser with flash (Skyfire) I could use it to watch live streaming shows and such but given the limited battery life, I can see me going back to a proper computer instead (or even my netbook in that case).
