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Hands-On Test With the Dirt-Cheap CherryPad Tablet
MojoKid writes "A small company out of Palo Alto, CA — Cherrypal — made headlines recently with the announcement of their dirt-cheap $188 CherryPad tablet. The CherryPad is a 7-inch slate that comes preloaded with the Android 2.1 operating system and is driven by an 800MHz ARM11-based processor by Samsung, backed by a meager 256MB of DDR2 system memory. The device is also based on a resistive touch display, so it takes a bit of getting used to, if you've been working with devices like the iPhone or similar, where capacitive touch displays are ubiquitous. Just what does $188 buy you in an Android tablet? In short, the CherryPad falls down a bit where Cherrypal decided to cut corners from a cost perspective. The device needs another 256MB of RAM (for 512MB total) and a higher quality touch screen (perhaps a 1GHz CPU?) and that would have likely pushed its price northward a bit to be sure."
i pooped
Try Googling "Cherrypal scam" for some interesting links...
Does it run FreeBSD?
The important question is, can it view this site correctly
I have a smartphone, and I think they're way too small to read. I've tried the iPad, and it is way too big and too heavy to lug around. I lug a sub-notebook, but I don't really need that keyboard.
I really want something about this big, less than 350g, with at least XGA video and ability to actually use a pen to write stuff, so that it can work as a reader and let me annotate.
Good to see some products that start to feel the market in my direction.
Resistive? I'm in. I love resistive. You can use a real stylus and get accurate results. Summary just sold me on a new device for note taking in lectures as my ~3" HTC Kaiser is just too damn small.
I thought the difference was
slate - runs windows
tablet - runs linux/android
pad - runs osx
I think tablet is the generic term and usable without threat of lawsuit
Does anyone know how design patent suits work? Because this thing looks incredibly like an iPad. Check out the photos underneath the video—that black thing is similar a patch seen on the back of iPod touches where the camera would be. The back is curved in the same way, the bezel is similar... and I think the corner radius is about the same, too.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
I lost my CherryPad
It always comes back to a cheap open source iPad. iPad will never be open source so I think most are doomed to a lot of frustration. Rather than stressing about finding a cheapie knock off either deal with the expense and limitations of an iPad or be happy with your smart phone and laptop. This mythical cheap open source device is never going to happen. Either the hardware will be crap or the UI. Deal with it and let's get on with our lives.
YouTube review video. You can get them for around $140, a little less if you're in China (Taobao is your friend!). Android 2.1, 256 MB RAM, 4 GB Flash, full-size SD slot (32 GB goodness loaded in mine), glass screen, metal body, lasts for at least 8 hours of book reading or at least 2 movies (so far, that's all I've ever used it for at one time, on a long plane flight). Same 7" screen which is great for most uses, resistive screen is plenty responsive (and perfect for doing quick sketches and note taking, which I do a lot of), HDMI output, and it has two USB ports, the mini USB being an OTG port as well. Games, music, movies, books - great little entertainment device for a LOT less money than an iPad.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
There's a difference. The car has a 20-year-old antecedent. The industrial design of iDevices does not necessarily, except for those elements borrowed from Dieter Rams's work for Braun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chastity_belt
I'm not surprised they are from Palo Alto, $188 is probably a reasonable price for dirt there :D
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
"Speakers 1 high quality stereo speaker"
i might not be up to par on my audio terms, but...i dun get it.
does more for me too
Any relation to this vaporware?
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/04/10/12/1622247/Cherry-OS-Claims-Mac-OS-X-Capability-For-x86
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
Its called a "Pandigital Novel" and it can be bought at Kohls with coupons and the right sale at around a hundred bucks.
Fifteen minutes to flash it with your choice of a half dozen different Android 2.0 images from Slatedroid, and bobs your uncle.
Work on 2.1 and 2.2 on the PDN is underway.
I have one, and its a perfectly workable browsing/email tool. Only problem is that everywhere I take it, people ask me a million questions about what it is and if they can buy one already done up with the firmware mods.
Apparently, they strongly endorse the mayor of Palo Alto.
From their website:
"Unlike other manufacturers we never experienced any mayor quality issues with our products ..."
http://www.cherrypal.com/store.htm
I don't know if I trust a company that prints the spec: "Speakers 1 high quality stereo speaker:"
Sort of what I am looking for, a cheap device to show photos take notes, pass time on a plane with simple games, ect. At this price point, why not? Just pulled the trigger on one. Price has been such a reason to stay away from the ipad. I know, its so far from perfect, but its a toy, no way I would pay $5-600 for an ipad toy, but this, why not?
Do not purchase from this company. I ordered one of their $99 netbooks earlier in the year, and it never showed up. I tried to contact the company via email and phone on several occasions and no contact was ever made. My bank eventually reversed the transaction, but it was still a major pain in the ass. Google yields plenty of results for people with similar experiences from this company.
Handbags are always popular among ladies. Famous brands are everywhere, which one is your favourite? If you have never bought one of Gucci handbags , then it may be your new try.
Narrator: IN A.D. 2010, WAR WAS BEGINNING.
Captain: What Happen?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the Cherry BOMB.
Opeartor: WE GET WiFi SIGNAL.
Captain: WHAT !!
Operator: All your lameness filter are belong to us.
You will not type the rest of this parody because you
are too lazy to fix it.
Mark your time.
Operator: Medium-sized SCREEN TURN ON.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
One can obtain from our secure online store with free shipping and fast delivery, discount and high quality.
Do I want a slick, nicely designed piece of hardware with well thought out software, or do I want some rip off piece of junk hardware with crappy software that was slapped together in no time?
Yeah it's cheaper, but so is that $10 drill from Walmart, that doesn't mean I want to replace my Makita with it.
Here's one "available" retail in the UK which is certainly from the same litter as the CherryPad, better specified memorywise but not so good with regard to processor speed and rather cheaper at 90 quid (about 145 dollars).
I like the look of the next one up: eTouch 10" Android Tablet PC which looks a more capable thing all round, apart from the abysmal battery life. At 150 quid, it works out at about 240 dollars.
Note the damn things are at ToysRUs and are out of stock. Either the Christmas supplies aren't in yet, or people want something that looks a lot like Apple product, has the features they want and comes in at a third of Apple prices (at least here in the UK).
Looks like this is at least the SEASON of both the Tablet PC AND Linux in the hand!
There will a some perfectly usable tablets in the $200-299 range before long and I expect they will fulfill most of the things the iPad is bought for but a fraction of the price.
Seriously? Why is Slashdot advertising that piece of crap? It's ANOTHER knockoff Chinese clone... similar to the Augen Tablet and a thousand other clones, but more expensive.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
A number of these companies (especially those where the original product comes from China) continue to violate the GPL as applied to the Android Linux kernel.
Now some people may not care about such things but this is /. so I hope people here care :)
And you think that Apple's design and form factor of the iPad is somehow groundbreaking?
GP was refering to design patents - these cover the cosmetic design of products and the rules are quite different from the regular patents that we love to hate.
So, this isn't about the Cherrypad being a touch-sensitive tablet computer: its about how closely some of the non-functional cosmetic details resemble those of the iDevices.
Did the Dynabook concept include a stylized-fruit logo "etched" into the centre of the slightly curved "brushed aluminium" backplate?
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Here is an incredibly slow Android 2.1 tablet from DX for $157.90. That's kind of tempting, if I had disposable money right now I might dispose of some in that direction. They have another, faster unit but it seems so sketchy I won't even link it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I like it, someone posts specs for a cheap tablet then says it needs X, Y and Z to be better. Erm, it wouldn't be cheap then would it?
There's already a 7 inch tablet that is high quality, it's made by Samsung and the iPad is actually a better buy as it has a bigger screen. The samsung's price is too close to the iPad.
(Tongue in cheek subject)
For what it's worth the iPad has 256MB. Given the lower resolution of the Cherry Pad 256MB should be enough. From what I've been able to scrape together from Googling, the performance of the 800mhz ARM 11 CPU is comparable to the iPhone 3GS (although the ARM is more versatile). Multitasking is a confounding factor, but iOS 4.2 beta users have not been leaking that there are performance problems multitasking on the iPad, so IMHO the CPU is holding back the speed more the RAM.
I'm disappointed the reviewer didn't put in this minimal amount of effort before publishing his review.
http://www.techgadgets.in/displays/2010/30/maylong-m-150-tablet-now-available-through-walgreens/
You can also buy the Pandigital Novel at Walgreens for $160. I have never seen the PDN for $100.
Barnes and Noble is coming out with the Color Nook for $250.
The article says that it comes with Android Market. But I thought that Google didn't license Android Market except for phones. So is it pirated?
This company is a scam. Cherrypal appeared on Slashdot before with its scam $99 PC. Mostly, it didn't ship at all. When it did ship, often with specifications below advertised.
It's from Telechips, likely TCC89XX series and has the best by far hw video codec. 1080p capable.
256M is fine, look at your droid phone. My white Pandigital Novel has 200M free with custom fw, also actually has a Samsung CPU s3c6410 SoC.
Slowness is likely due to lack of hw 3D accel which no Chinese tablet mfg has implemented. Both SoCs here have the ARM Mali-200, basically equiv to PowerVR SGX530 found in most cortex based SoCs.
That's the case of a mobile hotspot and some phones like n900 (and I heard, some Androids) can do it. Why buying another device that will make it more expensive, and will take-over your SIM card, preventing you to actually call, or use your phone for other purposes? Not even saying that the MiFi device plus a normal phone will be quite a cost ... which will cover the cost of a Nokia n900 (or that Android phone which I can't recall the model name).
I live in China.
Yesterday I went and tried a few android tablets.
There are about a dozen local branded ( "apad", "iRobot", "Hipad"....) tablets available here, all more or less within the same price range, and with resistive screen.
Overall, they very cheap devices apparently usable, but all somewhat laggy.
Touch sensitivity did not feel very satisfactory, but these tablet also offer better connectivity than the iPad, opening the possibility of connecting them to a usb keyboard .
I have a very hard time trusting a company that religiously edits its own Wikipedia articles to remove various facts deemed unsavory. They actually did it so much, they were banned from Wikipedia!
In the end, the Streisand effect always wins.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Wow, a video version links to lots of stuff on 9/11 investigations being problematical.
Guess that just goes to show that Information is not knowledge. A related poem I wrote a while back:
On Information, Knowledge, Intelligence, Wisdom, Virtue, and Effectiveness
By Paul D. Fernhout
Information is not knowledge,
Knowledge is not intelligence,
Intelligence is not wisdom,
Wisdom is not virtue, and
Virtue is not effectiveness.
So, to have is not to organize,
To organize is not to embody,
To embody is not to value,
To value is not to act, and
To act (especially in ignorance)
is not necessarily to succeed.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.