5 ms·

A $45 Android tablet

41 points by yapcguy 13y ago

Ives 13y ago
I wonder if devices like that are good for Android, or bad. One the one hand they can bring Android who otherwise wouldn't have had the money to afford a device, but on the other hand the default browsing experience is apparently quite slow and it doesn't support the Google Play Store[1]. [1] http://rodmc.com/?p=494 http://rodmc.com/?p=494
- pallandt 13y ago
  This one in particular seems to have some major shortcomings. Quoting a review from a buyer: "Advertised on Walmart.com as a "Google" Android product, but Google play store and Google apps will not run on it. Returned for refund."
- fpgeek 13y ago
  I'm not sure whether or not devices like this are good for Android in and of themselves, but they're an inevitable consequence of something that is great fit Android: that people can take the Android source and run with it in a variety of ways, whether Google wants them to or not. For example, the first Android tablets pre-date the iPad by months and the first Google Android tablets by about a year. Or you could look at the variety of activity in the Android STB space, which has been substantially more interesting and successful than Google's official efforts, so far
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
guiambros 13y ago
Seems useless. From one of the reviews: "Advertised on Walmart.com as a "Google" Android product, but Google play store and Google apps will not run on it." For ~$100 on ebay, the (old) HP TouchPad seems a better option of a cheap tablet. You can install ICS with little effort, and run pretty much everything.
- solox3 13y ago
  If it comes rooted / can be rooted, then an android device can install Google Play and everything by mimicking a Galaxy Nexus (or any common device) by editing build.prop. There are lots of tutorials online about this topic. http://highonandroid.com/android-apps/how-to-install-google-wallet-on-any-rooted-android-smartphone-or-tablet/ http://highonandroid.com/android-apps/how-to-install-google-...
- foodstances 13y ago
  It doesn't have Google apps because they probably didn't go through Google's testing and licensing program, not because of some technical incompatibility. If you're going to go through the hassle of getting some EOL'd device to install an unofficial hacked-up port of Android, it would be much less painful to just side-load the Play Store app (or get Amazon's market app) on this $45 tablet.
thezach 13y ago
I refuse to do business with walmart... their buisness ethics are just horrible.
- danellis 13y ago
  Where do you go instead?
  - antidaily 13y ago
    Farmers markets
    - rschmitty 13y ago
      I have trouble going to farmers markets. Wife works in a bay area hospital and takes care of many Hispanic patients, a large majority do farm labor. I think working for Walmart would be a major upgrade vs what they get in return for working on the farm. However I do not know that all the farms that come to farmers markets use the same kind of employment or that is only for the mega corp farms selling to the rest of the country... I know organic food is already "expensive" but it seems like they should do something to increase these peoples quality of life
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - rdouble 13y ago
        Farm laborers get paid by how productive they are rather than by the hour. It's shit work but pays 2-3x more "per hour" than Wal Mart. Plus it's easy to pack in a lot of work, whereas Wal-Mart generally only lets employees work about 30 hours a week.
        qwerty888 13y ago
        Not according to this. "Farm workers had low individual earnings from farm work; the median income from farm work was between $2,500 and $5,000. Three-fourths earned less than $10,000 annually." http://www.doleta.gov/agworker/report/ch3.cfm http://www.doleta.gov/agworker/report/ch3.cfm
zw123456 13y ago
I got one similar to this using points from my credit card, I checked online, many similar ones for around $50 these days. The one I got was a profound piece of crap, I fooled around with it a little, then disassembled it for fun. Honestly, destroying it was the most enjoyment I got from it.
- notJim 13y ago
  To be fair, if you're an engineer, this could be true of many of your possessions :).
  - dkuntz2 13y ago
    You don't even have to be an engineer for that to be true...
chrisblackwell 13y ago
The Race to the Bottom!
deskglass 13y ago
If you don't have a smartphone and want a cheap "tablet," then look into buying a used smartphone. Doing so is super cheap because you don't have to buy a data plan. Besides, phones tend to be more portable. I got a Droid2 for $30 on Amazon.
- hkmurakami 13y ago
  sounds more like an "iPod touch" than a tablet per se but I approve of the clever strategy :)
  - lukifer 13y ago
    Give it a few years and all those 5.5" "phablets" will be cheap on the used market. :)
- Zigurd 13y ago
  The value sweet spot is almost certainly at a higher price than these products, but even a 7" tablet with a crummy screen has a better UX for browsing and Google Drive apps than a handset. The pricing of these devices could be the reason lots more poor kids get a real Internet experience, and that could be revolutionary.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    > The pricing of these devices could be the reason lots more poor kids get a real Internet experience, and that could be revolutionary. I really hope they remember the lousy experience and remember to code for low-spec devices in future. I love the nice whizz-bang websites, but it's frustrating when they use weird features for no real purpose and thus slow the page load down.
tapsboy 13y ago
I bought one such tablet couple of years back( Velocity Micro Cruz T301) for $69 on woot. The tablet was pretty much useless for daily use. Flashed AOSP and installed play store. Still useless, as most apps don't show up for that device. However, works okay as a cloud connected photoframe.
DanBC 13y ago
I understand why there are a bunch of these devices, but I don't understand why the manfs don't release more information about them. I'm finding it hard to work out exactly what processor is used in this device. Setting up a wiki with minimal information, and then seeding the hacker community with a few devices, would probably make one brand stand out over all the other minimal Android tablets there are. A device that could be rooted, could have a Linux installed, or could have a different Android version installed, would be interesting for hackers. The manfs don't have to offer any support.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Nearly all, if not all, of these are based on the "china special" which is an Android tablet built on top of the Allwinner CPUs (the A13 is popular in the cheap ones) Ars reviewed a $99 tablet[1] which was pretty funny. If you go to Alibaba.com and search for 'android tablet' you will find a bunch of these. And if you can navigate the Chinese there is a reference design on the Allwinner site which is pretty much exactly what you get. Put a capacitive touch screen on an Raspberry Pi and boot Android on it and you'll have a better tablet than this I suspect. If someone does a definitive teardown of the specific Walmart model that would let us know exactly which reference design they used. [1] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/11/worst-gadget-ever-ars-reviews-a-99-android-tablet/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/11/worst-gadget-ever-ars...
  - makomk 13y ago
    The A13 and A10 are substantially newer and faster than the Raspberry Pi. Video decode acceleration on them sucks though.
- kenjackson 13y ago
  It's possible it is sourced with the cheapest components they can find. They don't list the processor as it can change. People buying $49 tablets may not care as much what specific processor it is.
Zigurd 13y ago
The $45 tablet is a non-Google Play device. So not that impressive. This one is $59, and shows a screen shot with Google Play, GMail, etc. on it: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ematic-7-Tablet-with-4GB-Memory-and-Google-Mobile-Services/23350692 http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ematic-7-Tablet-with-4GB-Memory-an... A real Google logo device for $59 would be pretty astounding.
- DanBC 13y ago
  The $45 tablet has a FAQ on the manf website apologising for having screen shots of the Google Play Store; and saying that these are an error that they're correcting. The $59 device has a PDF for installing an alternative store so maybe they've made a similar error? (http://www.ematic.us/sites/default/files/Installing1MobileMarket_8.pdf http://www.ematic.us/sites/default/files/Installing1MobileMa...) The quickstart guide shows some other app store. (http://www.ematic.us/sites/default/files/EGL26BL_QSG.pdf http://www.ematic.us/sites/default/files/EGL26BL_QSG.pdf) EDIT: the manf website for the cheaper device is horrible. Here it is (http://xeliotablet.com/ http://xeliotablet.com/) they have a faq about the play store on there somewhere.
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    It would be great to see that 3rd tier OEMs can access the Google Play store. I have long wondered why Google would shun inexpensive tablets. Android can accommodate lo-rez screens and slower CPUs pretty well, and existing automated tests can verify compatibility.
bitwize 13y ago
Honey Boo Boo wanted an iPad, I said no, it's too 'spensive. But I saw these down at the Wal-Mart, and they's just as good and only fo'ty-five bucks! Honey Boo Boo! Don't tell me you broke that thang already! I tole you not to drop sketti on it!
- alaskamiller 13y ago
  Very poignant and witty. Better contender for Mark Twain than Sam can ever do.
cpursley 13y ago
Eventually, tablets will be free and will make money from services & advertising.
rudros 13y ago
I think it's more interesting to look at the range of prices from a company you've actually heard of. Take ASUS for example. ASUS makes the current nexus 7 ($199) : http://www.google.com/nexus/7/ http://www.google.com/nexus/7/ But they will also sell you another 16GB, 7" tablet for $99 ASUS MeMo Pad : http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-MeMO-ME172V-A1-GR-7-0-Inch-Tablet/dp/B00BDS25VA/ http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-MeMO-ME172V-A1-GR-7-0-Inch-Tablet... Perhaps the lesson here is, by going back a generation, you can halve the price of a tablet. As we've hit the $199 mark for 7" tablets for some time now, $99 tablets from brands you actually know should be no surprise. As the price of these tablets fall to 150 and lower, one generation older tablets for 75, 60 or even 50 will become the norm.

41 points by yapcguy 13y ago

Ives 13y ago

I wonder if devices like that are good for Android, or bad. One the one hand they can bring Android who otherwise wouldn't have had the money to afford a device, but on the other hand the default browsing experience is apparently quite slow and it doesn't support the Google Play Store[1]. [1] http://rodmc.com/?p=494 http://rodmc.com/?p=494

pallandt 13y ago
This one in particular seems to have some major shortcomings. Quoting a review from a buyer: "Advertised on Walmart.com as a "Google" Android product, but Google play store and Google apps will not run on it. Returned for refund."
fpgeek 13y ago
I'm not sure whether or not devices like this are good for Android in and of themselves, but they're an inevitable consequence of something that is great fit Android: that people can take the Android source and run with it in a variety of ways, whether Google wants them to or not. For example, the first Android tablets pre-date the iPad by months and the first Google Android tablets by about a year. Or you could look at the variety of activity in the Android STB space, which has been substantially more interesting and successful than Google's official efforts, so far

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

guiambros 13y ago

Seems useless. From one of the reviews: "Advertised on Walmart.com as a "Google" Android product, but Google play store and Google apps will not run on it." For ~$100 on ebay, the (old) HP TouchPad seems a better option of a cheap tablet. You can install ICS with little effort, and run pretty much everything.

solox3 13y ago
If it comes rooted / can be rooted, then an android device can install Google Play and everything by mimicking a Galaxy Nexus (or any common device) by editing build.prop. There are lots of tutorials online about this topic. http://highonandroid.com/android-apps/how-to-install-google-wallet-on-any-rooted-android-smartphone-or-tablet/ http://highonandroid.com/android-apps/how-to-install-google-...
foodstances 13y ago
It doesn't have Google apps because they probably didn't go through Google's testing and licensing program, not because of some technical incompatibility. If you're going to go through the hassle of getting some EOL'd device to install an unofficial hacked-up port of Android, it would be much less painful to just side-load the Play Store app (or get Amazon's market app) on this $45 tablet.

thezach 13y ago

I refuse to do business with walmart... their buisness ethics are just horrible.

danellis 13y ago
Where do you go instead?
- antidaily 13y ago
  Farmers markets
  - rschmitty 13y ago
    I have trouble going to farmers markets. Wife works in a bay area hospital and takes care of many Hispanic patients, a large majority do farm labor. I think working for Walmart would be a major upgrade vs what they get in return for working on the farm. However I do not know that all the farms that come to farmers markets use the same kind of employment or that is only for the mega corp farms selling to the rest of the country... I know organic food is already "expensive" but it seems like they should do something to increase these peoples quality of life
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - rdouble 13y ago
      Farm laborers get paid by how productive they are rather than by the hour. It's shit work but pays 2-3x more "per hour" than Wal Mart. Plus it's easy to pack in a lot of work, whereas Wal-Mart generally only lets employees work about 30 hours a week.
      - qwerty888 13y ago
        Not according to this. "Farm workers had low individual earnings from farm work; the median income from farm work was between $2,500 and $5,000. Three-fourths earned less than $10,000 annually." http://www.doleta.gov/agworker/report/ch3.cfm http://www.doleta.gov/agworker/report/ch3.cfm

zw123456 13y ago

I got one similar to this using points from my credit card, I checked online, many similar ones for around $50 these days. The one I got was a profound piece of crap, I fooled around with it a little, then disassembled it for fun. Honestly, destroying it was the most enjoyment I got from it.

notJim 13y ago
To be fair, if you're an engineer, this could be true of many of your possessions :).
- dkuntz2 13y ago
  You don't even have to be an engineer for that to be true...

chrisblackwell 13y ago

The Race to the Bottom!

deskglass 13y ago

If you don't have a smartphone and want a cheap "tablet," then look into buying a used smartphone. Doing so is super cheap because you don't have to buy a data plan. Besides, phones tend to be more portable. I got a Droid2 for $30 on Amazon.

hkmurakami 13y ago
sounds more like an "iPod touch" than a tablet per se but I approve of the clever strategy :)
- lukifer 13y ago
  Give it a few years and all those 5.5" "phablets" will be cheap on the used market. :)
Zigurd 13y ago
The value sweet spot is almost certainly at a higher price than these products, but even a 7" tablet with a crummy screen has a better UX for browsing and Google Drive apps than a handset. The pricing of these devices could be the reason lots more poor kids get a real Internet experience, and that could be revolutionary.
- DanBC 13y ago
  > The pricing of these devices could be the reason lots more poor kids get a real Internet experience, and that could be revolutionary. I really hope they remember the lousy experience and remember to code for low-spec devices in future. I love the nice whizz-bang websites, but it's frustrating when they use weird features for no real purpose and thus slow the page load down.

tapsboy 13y ago

I bought one such tablet couple of years back( Velocity Micro Cruz T301) for $69 on woot. The tablet was pretty much useless for daily use. Flashed AOSP and installed play store. Still useless, as most apps don't show up for that device. However, works okay as a cloud connected photoframe.

DanBC 13y ago

I understand why there are a bunch of these devices, but I don't understand why the manfs don't release more information about them. I'm finding it hard to work out exactly what processor is used in this device. Setting up a wiki with minimal information, and then seeding the hacker community with a few devices, would probably make one brand stand out over all the other minimal Android tablets there are. A device that could be rooted, could have a Linux installed, or could have a different Android version installed, would be interesting for hackers. The manfs don't have to offer any support.

ChuckMcM 13y ago
Nearly all, if not all, of these are based on the "china special" which is an Android tablet built on top of the Allwinner CPUs (the A13 is popular in the cheap ones) Ars reviewed a $99 tablet[1] which was pretty funny. If you go to Alibaba.com and search for 'android tablet' you will find a bunch of these. And if you can navigate the Chinese there is a reference design on the Allwinner site which is pretty much exactly what you get. Put a capacitive touch screen on an Raspberry Pi and boot Android on it and you'll have a better tablet than this I suspect. If someone does a definitive teardown of the specific Walmart model that would let us know exactly which reference design they used. [1] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/11/worst-gadget-ever-ars-reviews-a-99-android-tablet/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/11/worst-gadget-ever-ars...
- makomk 13y ago
  The A13 and A10 are substantially newer and faster than the Raspberry Pi. Video decode acceleration on them sucks though.
kenjackson 13y ago
It's possible it is sourced with the cheapest components they can find. They don't list the processor as it can change. People buying $49 tablets may not care as much what specific processor it is.

Zigurd 13y ago

The $45 tablet is a non-Google Play device. So not that impressive. This one is $59, and shows a screen shot with Google Play, GMail, etc. on it: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ematic-7-Tablet-with-4GB-Memory-and-Google-Mobile-Services/23350692 http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ematic-7-Tablet-with-4GB-Memory-an... A real Google logo device for $59 would be pretty astounding.

DanBC 13y ago
The $45 tablet has a FAQ on the manf website apologising for having screen shots of the Google Play Store; and saying that these are an error that they're correcting. The $59 device has a PDF for installing an alternative store so maybe they've made a similar error? (http://www.ematic.us/sites/default/files/Installing1MobileMarket_8.pdf http://www.ematic.us/sites/default/files/Installing1MobileMa...) The quickstart guide shows some other app store. (http://www.ematic.us/sites/default/files/EGL26BL_QSG.pdf http://www.ematic.us/sites/default/files/EGL26BL_QSG.pdf) EDIT: the manf website for the cheaper device is horrible. Here it is (http://xeliotablet.com/ http://xeliotablet.com/) they have a faq about the play store on there somewhere.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  It would be great to see that 3rd tier OEMs can access the Google Play store. I have long wondered why Google would shun inexpensive tablets. Android can accommodate lo-rez screens and slower CPUs pretty well, and existing automated tests can verify compatibility.

bitwize 13y ago

Honey Boo Boo wanted an iPad, I said no, it's too 'spensive. But I saw these down at the Wal-Mart, and they's just as good and only fo'ty-five bucks! Honey Boo Boo! Don't tell me you broke that thang already! I tole you not to drop sketti on it!

alaskamiller 13y ago
Very poignant and witty. Better contender for Mark Twain than Sam can ever do.

cpursley 13y ago

Eventually, tablets will be free and will make money from services & advertising.

rudros 13y ago

I think it's more interesting to look at the range of prices from a company you've actually heard of. Take ASUS for example. ASUS makes the current nexus 7 ($199) : http://www.google.com/nexus/7/ http://www.google.com/nexus/7/ But they will also sell you another 16GB, 7" tablet for $99 ASUS MeMo Pad : http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-MeMO-ME172V-A1-GR-7-0-Inch-Tablet/dp/B00BDS25VA/ http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-MeMO-ME172V-A1-GR-7-0-Inch-Tablet... Perhaps the lesson here is, by going back a generation, you can halve the price of a tablet. As we've hit the $199 mark for 7" tablets for some time now, $99 tablets from brands you actually know should be no surprise. As the price of these tablets fall to 150 and lower, one generation older tablets for 75, 60 or even 50 will become the norm.