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Walgreen’s now selling $99 Android tablet
- andrewjshults 16y agoHas anyone seen this in stores yet? For $100 it'd be fun just to hack with (both the software and the hardware, since I doubt that you could get all of those components for cheaper). Also, I love that the screenshot shows the browser with a IE-esque icon. Really shows the target market.
- xiaoma 16y agoYes. I played around with one of these in the Pearl Market in Beijing last week. All in all, I guess it's good for the price. I like the size, it's okay for video and access to the Android store is great. The touch screen takes a very heavy touch, though. It was annoying after just 10 minutes.
- shyknee 16y agoLooks like the guys over at droidforums.net got one: http://www.droidforums.net/forum/off-topic-forum/89150-maylong-m-150-universal-android-tablet-2.html http://www.droidforums.net/forum/off-topic-forum/89150-maylo...
- gcheong 16y agoWalgreens website says they are not sold in stores. http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/maylong-7-inch-m-150-wifi-middie-tablet/ID=prod6047418-product http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/maylong-7-inch-m-150-wifi-m...
- mrduncan 16y agoDoes anyone know if that picture is just an iPad with the screen photoshopped to Android or is that what it actually looks like?
- jonursenbach 16y agoAll of these cheap Android tablets look like the iPad.
- DougBTX 16y agoProbably not if you put them side-by-side though...
- jcromartie 16y agoIt is absolutely a picture of an iPad, since you can see that it (the iPad) has been stretched out to accommodate the screenshot. The square on the home button isn't a square anymore.
- poppysan 16y agoits not. They just copied the look. (Check out the epad, and the apad and other versions of this pad)
- patgarner 16y agoThen why do all the hardware buttons (sleep, mute, volume, home) exactly match the layout of the buttons on the iPad? It looks exactly like a stretched out iPad with a mocked up screen shot.
- regularfry 16y agoI wouldn't be surprised if the product design spec was a stretched-out image of an iPad :-)
- davidj 16y agothey have been selling this since july
- chaosmachine 16y agoDisposable computing is here at last.
- r0s 16y agoI tend to put laptops in this category. Like any good nerd I spent countless hours trying to figure a way to remove and use the screen on one of the broken laptops piled up in my closet. There's no good reason for that level of waste.
- weaksauce 16y agoany success on that project?
- brk 16y agoNobody has ever really had success with that sort of project, though I've been reading about people trying for the last 10 years or so. Earth LCD is your best resource for LCD hackery. They have a controller kit that will drive certain LCD panels. It's $200 and will drive a panel at a rez up to 1024x768 http://store.earthlcd.com/NK-GM2221-421-LCD-Controller-KIt?sc=7&category=99 http://store.earthlcd.com/NK-GM2221-421-LCD-Controller-KIt?s... By contrast, I just bought a brand new 32" TV at Best Buy for a demo monitor. It was $450 and does 1920x1080. Laptop LCDs use a variety of different interfaces, so it's hard to make a generic kit. By the time you do, the volume demand for such a kit is so low, you end up with having to price it in the $200-$300 dollar range to make your R&D and manufacturing costs back. For about the same money you can get an LCD monitor of similar size/resolution to the laptop display in an easy ready-to-use package.
- r0s 16y agobrk sums it up. It's one reason I don't like laptops in general. Tossing those perfectly usable screens attached to a faulty motherboard is pretty distasteful.
- gommm 16y ago
- aditya 16y agoI wonder if this will force apple to drop the price of the base iPad now. Probably not seeing as they didn't do it for the iPod which had a lot more competition, but the spread between $99 and $499 is a bit too much...
- petervandijck 16y agoI don't think so. It's like the spread between a 299$ netbook and a 999$ macbook.
- tibbon 16y agoApple isn't one to compete on price. Also for people that want an iPad, this isn't competition, in the same way that people who want a BMW a Kia isn't competition.
- nihilocrat 16y agoThis is probably the most succinct analogy on computer pricing discussion I've seen that a lot of people just don't seem to realize. Perhaps we haven't had the concept of a "luxury computer" long enough in our heads to make it seem natural in the same way we think of luxury / economy cars.
- msbarnett 16y agoIt's been around for a while now and is, by all reports, completely terrible. I don't think Apple is really going to feel the effects of this thing in the least.
- hugh3 16y agoNo, but Apple will drop the price on the iPad eventually. Not too much, though -- they'll probably keep the base price at $399 and add more memory.
- jfb 16y agoApple price points don't tend to change (this is by design). I would expect the next version of the iPad to have additional features (a front-facing camera is guaranteed) and more memory and probably a slightly better processor, but I wouldn't count on spending any less money.
- tocomment 16y agoCan this access the app store? Are there only certain apps it can run? How would this be for reading?
- spiffworks 16y agoIts got a resistive touchscreen and probably no Market access, but it would be a really good Ubuntu tablet, if you don't mind using a stylus. The price is so low, I imagine a lot of hackers might start buying it. It shouldn't take long in that case to get a functioning port.
- r0s 16y agoMight make a decent car computer, with some add-ons. It's kind of crazy you can't buy a discreet touch screen this size for less than twice the price.
- hugh3 16y agoIf it had a GPS it'd make a great car computer. Never mind, I'll wait a year and probably be able to pick up something exactly as I described. Replace my car iPod and my GPS with one device. I suppose I could do this right now with an iPad but I'd have to pay for the 3G to get google maps -- I'd rather have internal maps.
- jrwoodruff 16y agoNo you wouldn't. You'd have to buy the 3G version to get the GPS censor, but there are plenty of apps available that store your maps on the iPad. I'm pretty sure the GPS censor works fine without a 3G plan...
- thehigherlife 16y agoit does.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- bronson 16y agoIf you're going to mount it in a car, just plug in a USB GPS. I'm skipping this one as a car computer because I bet the screen is junk and the memory is awfully small. In a year there should be a bunch of good ones to choose from.
- senthil_rajasek 16y agoThis runs Android v1.6 and at least according to Maylong's (the manufacturer) support you can't upgrade to the latest Android due to hardware requirements.
- borism 16y agoSame as with many mainstream manufacturers' (Sony, Samsung, Acer) older and even not so old Android phones. But that doesn't mean anything. Community should be fully able to maintain Android updates if manufacturer doesn't will (and haven't installed proprietary virtual brick walls to prevent rooting). I don't think there are any real hardware limitations.
- angusgr 16y agoThe WM8505 Android 1.6 release has some custom hacks in the UI library layer to work with their video hardware. Since VIA released Linux kernel source for this SoC a few months ago, some other people have successfully worked out more about the graphics driver and started developing an alternative kernel from scratch[1]. With this understanding, the possibility of the community porting Froyo is higher than it was before. However, AFAIK noone has really put strong effort into it. One of the reasons I lost interest is that 128Mb of RAM is apparently not enough to run 2.2 decently regardless, and that's all most of the tablets have. If this one has 256Mb then it might actually be up to it. [1] http://groups.google.com/group/vt8500-wm8505-linux-kernel http://groups.google.com/group/vt8500-wm8505-linux-kernel
- phlux 16y agoHere are the specs, since the walgreens page was made by an idiot: http://www.maylonggroup.com/M-150_MID.htm http://www.maylonggroup.com/M-150_MID.htm --- CPU ARM9(VM8505+) Memory RAM 256MB DDR Flash Built-in Flash Display Touch Panel 7" TFT LCD Resolution 800 X 480 Pixels WIFI 802.11b/g Input/Output Touch Panel Resistive type touch panel Speaker Built-in loud speakers SD/MMC T-Flash card slot Network/USB Dongle for RJ-45 network and USB connection Buttons/Switches Power On/Off, Volume adjustment Battery Built-in Li-Polymer battery Charger Input AC 100-240V, 0.5A Output 9V, 1500MA Physical Characteristics Dimension 7.5" X 4.6" X 0.3" Weight 12 OZ
- samps 16y agoWhat the hell is an Internet Explorer icon doing in the "Dock" on that screenshot?
- jcromartie 16y agoIt's a cheap Chinese ripoff of the iPad. Even their product image is literally just a photoshopped picture of an iPad. What do you expect?
- erikpukinskis 16y agoI read somewhere that the IE icon is a symbol for web access in general in some parts of the world.
- nihilocrat 16y agoI know that in Korea, IE / Windows is basically the only choice, no one really registers the existence of anything else, so I presume it would be pretty similar in the rest of east Asia.
- orangecat 16y agoKorea is a special case; the government essentially mandated IE until very recently: http://blog.mozilla.com/gen/2007/02/27/the-cost-of-monoculture/ http://blog.mozilla.com/gen/2007/02/27/the-cost-of-monocultu...
- lusis 16y agoInteresting. I would suggest anyone considering a tablet of any kind, buy one of these. I bought the K-Mart Augen tablet on a lark. I figured it was a good way to gague how much I would actually use a tablet. Mind you this thing is an utter peice of shit but what it showed me was that I could justify buying a Galaxy Tab. With both the B&N and Amazon clients on there and the native Android applications, a 7" tablet is really the perfect size for me and has the exact functionality I want (youtube for the kids, google web apps and reader clients for me.) EDIT: You will be UTTERLY frustrated by the resistive touch screen on one of these tablets. That's one of the major reasons I'm looking forward to my Galaxy Tab.
- tocomment 16y agoWhat's so bad about the resistive touch screens?
- Brashman 16y agoI assume the resistive touch screen doesn't do multi-touch. In addition, it is probably less sensitive since it will require a bit of pressure and not just touch.
- lusis 16y agoExactly. the augen ships with a stylus which is annoying to have to pull out. I literally have an impossible time dragging down the notification shade on this thing. One nice thing about the Augen is that there are some custom roms for it that speed it up considerably. As soon as I get my Galaxy tab, i'll probably donate this one to some hacker cause.
- lukifer 16y agoNo multitouch, and responds better to a small hard tap than a large soft finger. Unlike iDevices, women with long fingernails would probably find it works better for them; for everyone else, a stylus is practically a necessity. Not the end of the world, but a subpar experience if you're used to a capacitive touchscreen.
- nitrogen 16y agoI'd like to compare the performance of this tablet to that of a 7" USB touchscreen connected to a SheevaPlug or BeagleBoard. I bought a Nokia N770 tablet back in the day for the same price, but was never able to get the development environment working right (everyone had moved on to the N800). I hope the Android OS on this tablet is as hackable as Maemo.
- angusgr 16y agoSo, to eyeball it: This is an ARM9, probably @ 350Mhz[1], hand-wavey-performance around 1.1DMIPS/Mhz, minimal video acceleration. BeagleBoard is a Cortex A8, 720Mhz, 2.0DMIPS/Mhz, with video acceleration (probably not via a USB video output, but via one of the Beagle adapters.) SheevaPlug is 1.2Ghz, no idea what ARM series the Kirkwood is equivalent to. Obviously no possibility of accelerated video there. N770 was a 250Mhz ARM9 with some video acceleration features. Speaking from my own experience, I have a tablet with the same WM8505 SoC (Eken M001) and it runs Android 1.6 fine. I find for normal browsing and such that its biggest limitation is the poor quality touchscreen, far before anything else. >I hope the Android OS on this tablet is as hackable as Maemo. Nope. I've already posted a comment about it, but there are a bunch of proprietary library-level video customisations that noone has yet fully reverse engineered. If you want a tablet with BeagleBoard-like performance and good hackability then there are some OMAP3 Cortex-A8 tablets for around the $200 mark (Wits A81e is one). Better performance, better open source support. [1] Despite what Walgeens say, all of the previous WM8505 devices top out at 350Mhz.
- nitrogen 16y agoI think it would be relatively straightforward to do accelerated video on USB touchscreens (like the MIMO) using a BeagleBoard. The GPU would be set up to render to an off-screen buffer, the udlfb frame buffer pointed at the off-screen buffer, and the udlfb damage ioctl called for the entire frame every time glSwap() is called (or using normal damage events for non-immediate-mode applications). It would probably be good for about 30fps.
- ikujhygtfghyjuk 16y agoOutfits like dealextreme.com have had $85 Android tablets with V1.5/1.6 for the last year. Until they support something newer (with app store ability) they are basically junk - so bad you might almost suspect Apple of building them just to poison the none-iPad market.
- jmathai 16y agoThis thread contains a review from someone who actually received one. http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102746 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102746
- 3pt14159 16y agoAre there any good Android tablets that are iPad size? I don't care about spending near iPad prices, but so far all I've been able to find is 7" crap Android tablets.
- greyman 16y agoNo, there aren't. Nor the iPad size, nor any other size (not counting smartphones ;-)). The first good one is Galaxy Tab.
- 3pt14159 16y agoI was about to make a comment complaining about them taking so long, but after looking it up the iPad has only been out for half a year. Seems like it has been longer than that.
- PanMan 16y agoWhy is it good? I have played around with the tab, and while It wasn't bad, I expected it to be way cheaper. Since they are about the Same price, choosing an iPad would be a total no-brainer for me
- greyman 16y agoYou are right, but the question was if such an Android tablet exist. Maybe someone would choose tab due its more portable size.
- ZeroGravitas 16y agoArchos do a 10-inch tablet and generally it's okay spec wise e.g. capacitive screen. I've not read any reviews yet as it's only just out.
- WiseWeasel 16y agoThis reminds me of a Palm Zire I got free with a set of tires, way back when people actually carried PDAs around with them. I quickly discovered how much of an impractical piece of junk it was to use, and it's been collecting dust in a drawer or box somewhere ever since. I predict a similar fate for many of these underpowered resistive screen tablets.
- geuis 16y agoJust put in an order for one. I'll do a review here on HN when I receive it.
- geuis 16y agoHere is the FAQ http://www.maylonggroup.com/support_tablet.htm http://www.maylonggroup.com/support_tablet.htm
- curtisspope 16y agoI just ordered mine
- ajju 16y agoSo from reading a couple of forum posts of people who actually bought this, the device does not have Android Market installed and does not have a setting which allows you to put it in "USB Debug" mode - which is a prerequisite for installing apps you have developed. In short, hold on to that $99 if you are looking for anything other than a paperweight.
- angusgr 16y agoAs it's a WM8505 based system then I'm sure these two things will be fairly quickly worked around. The modder community around this device's predecessors ($99 Eken M001 & others) is fairly strong and there are a lot of custom firmwares, with both these features. EDIT: The slatedroid.com forums are probably the best reference source if you're interested in what people are doing with them.
- qeorge 16y agoFWIW, there's a bunch of similar Android tablets at DealExtreme. I can't speak to the quality, and I assume its not good, but you can get a 7" tablet with Android 2.1 for $160. http://www.dealextreme.com/search.dx/search.android%20tablets http://www.dealextreme.com/search.dx/search.android%20tablet...
- rufugee 16y agoYou know, with all these commodity tablets popping up, I wonder how you can actually trust the manufacturer. Each tablet appears to run a customized version of Android...how do you know that the manufacturer didn't modify it to send along all of your private data as you use it?
- angusgr 16y agoIt's funny you say that because the version of Android developed for the WM8505 (the SoC in the Walgreens) silently phones home to a company in China for "license verification". Or, at least it did a few months ago. http://projectgus.com/2010/07/eken-m001-phone-home/ http://projectgus.com/2010/07/eken-m001-phone-home/ (As I said in my blog post, nothing in the device indicated it was phoning home and the code was obfuscated to disguise these details. There's nothing particularly stopping any of these small companies from choosing to send other details if they wanted to.)
- mdaniel 16y agoThis, along with a thousand other reasons, is why it is so important that the hardware not impose restrictions on what the owner can load on the device. Running custom ROMs is not just for phones, but is for anyone who has special requirements (privacy, speed, specific usage domain, etc).
- angusgr 16y agoI wonder if Walgreens is complying with GPL by including a notice for source with the device, and some way for customers to access it. Certainly Maylon Group doesn't seem to have anything on their site. (Sorry to sound like a broken record.)
- mdaniel 16y agoI mean this in a genuinely inquisitive spirit: is it Walgreen's responsibility to provide such a thing, considering they are just the retail outlet for the device? I would expect that Maylon Group (or whoever is the actual system integrator) is on the hook for publishing customizations.
- angusgr 16y agoIf Walgreens are distributing (ie selling) a product containing GPL licensed software, my understanding is that they are legally responsible for GPL compliance. Of course, in practice, it's really the Maylon Group or whoever that will have to provide the source. However, to the best of my knowledge, the customer's only legal contract is with Walgreens, and its up to Walgreens to deal with Maylon Group (or whoever their supplier is) and ensure compliance - the end customer can't make any claim on Maylon directly.
- dholowiski 16y agoDoes anyone know if these cheap android devices can be hacked to run real Linux? One of these plus a Bluetooth keyboard might be kind of fun
- joezydeco 16y agoI feel bad for the thousands of kids (with well-meaning parents) that will get this under the tree instead of an iPad this Christmas.