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Hands-On Test With the Dirt-Cheap CherryPad Tablet

Posted by timothy on from the stocking-stuffers dept.

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."

28 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Cherrypal scam? by hillbluffer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Try Googling "Cherrypal scam" for some interesting links...

    1. Re:Cherrypal scam? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      warning goatse

    2. Re:Cherrypal scam? by zombie_striptease · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I ordered their Africa netbook as a gift for someone last spring. The "Linux" version was actually Windows CE with all the windows logos scrubbed. Cute trick :P

      Also it loaded from flash instead of having an actual BIOS, so attempting to install my own OS was non-trivial. They're false-advertising bastards to be sure.

  2. The most important question has not been asked by sakura+the+mc · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does it run FreeBSD?

  3. resistive? by bhcompy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:resistive? by emj · · Score: 2, Informative

      All cheap android tablets are resistive. I've seen people say good things about wits a81e, also a resistive and the Android versions has been shipping since june/july I think.

    2. Re:resistive? by rajeevrk · · Score: 4, Informative

      Hmmm... I've been using the with a81E for a month now, and it's been reasonably good. Decent build quality, for a Chinese device. Andeoid 2.2 works like a charm, pretty responsive on the ARM Cortex-A8 cpu. Stability and battery life is still an issue, they cant seem to figure out how to get even the battery-level meter working. IMHO, it's a firmware version or two away from being ready for primetime. Also, on it's resistive touchscreens, i have to say it's emminently usable, IF you calibrate it properly. I once messed up the calibration so bad, i had to re-flash :)

    3. Re:resistive? by moonbender · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I've got a phone with a resistive screen, and all those advantages don't mean much, because it's just not much fun to use with your fingers. You have to press really hard, and ideally with your fingernails. Other people using my phone have a really hard time getting it to work at all.

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  4. slate ? I prefer to buy a tablet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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

    1. Re:slate ? I prefer to buy a tablet. by bmo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'd like to see Apple try to defend its "ownership" of the word "pad" against a company that thinks it's worth its while to wrest it from Apple's clutches.

      Merely descriptive words are not supposed to be trademarks, and Microsoft almost lost theirs for the word "Windows" to Lindows/Linspire when Microsoft said that changing the name to Linspire wasn't good enough. Microsoft pushed too hard. Linspire said in court "hey, just one second here, can you really own a generic descriptive word?" Microsoft wound up paying Linspire to shut the hell up about it.

      And then Linspire proceeded to squander the money, but hey, it was funny to watch Microsoft almost lose "Windows" entirely.

      --
      BMO

    2. Re:slate ? I prefer to buy a tablet. by John+Hasler · · Score: 2, Informative

      > Merely descriptive words are not supposed to be trademarks...

      Descriptive words can be trademarks for products they don't describe: APPLE for example. You would have to show that "pad" was commonly used to describe that sort of device before Apple started selling theirs.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    3. Re:slate ? I prefer to buy a tablet. by SlothDead · · Score: 2, Funny

      They were always called "pad" on Star Trek. Or does that count as future use of the word?

    4. Re:slate ? I prefer to buy a tablet. by mattack2 · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, they're PADD on Star Trek.

      http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/PADD
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCARS

    5. Re:slate ? I prefer to buy a tablet. by bmo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Pad describes the form factor, such as a legal pad.

      There are only so many ways to describe the form factor of the ipad. Tablet, slate, pad, and... what else?

      Apple can trademark an "iPad," because when you append letters and mis-spell, you no longer have an English (or other language) word. I (and the vast majority of people) have no problem with this. This is what many marketers get paid lots of bucks to do. For a long time, this was the only way you could get a trademark as purely English words were not allowed to have a trademark. I'm unsure when the use of purely English words was allowed, but it was a bad idea and it's caused no small amount of trouble since then.

      For Apple to stretch the concept and claim the word "pad" for themselves is abuse of trademark and they should be slapped for it if they try to bring it to court.

      Slashdotters get upset here at Monster Cable for suing an indoor golf business (and a lot of other small businesses that can't afford to defend themselves) by Monster Cable claiming the use of the word Monster in the name is exclusively theirs. We should get similarly upset at Apple if they try to claim the word "pad" for only their products.

      --
      BMO

    6. Re:slate ? I prefer to buy a tablet. by robogun · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IBM and Lenovo have been making ThinkPad computers since 1992, but Jobs probably would try for it anyway.

    7. Re:slate ? I prefer to buy a tablet. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'm not homophonic! Some of my best friends sound the same...

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  5. Holy design, Batman. by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 2, Funny

    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.

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    1. Re:Holy design, Batman. by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Considering it's a scam and will never ship I don't think Apple will have to go too far to stop them.

    2. Re:Holy design, Batman. by Nerdfest · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There are a series of 7" Android devices already shipping in the $100 range. They're similar to this but run version 1.5 or 1.6. The processor is generally slower as well. They should be able to actually ship for this price.

    3. Re:Holy design, Batman. by bmo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And you think that Apple's design and form factor of the iPad is somehow groundbreaking?

      Go read the paper on the Dynabook concept from the 70s. Right down to the capacitive screen.

      There is no intellectual property here. All the big thinking was done 40 years ago at PARC.

      --
      BMO

    4. Re:Holy design, Batman. by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm not saying that this price range is out of the question, just that, as noted in another post in this thread, Cherrypal has a history of not shipping orders.

  6. Re:I like the form factor by hitmark · · Score: 2, Informative

    Heard about the samsung galaxy tab? And i think they will be selling a stylus for it, even tho it is capacitive.

    --
    comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
  7. You can buy this right now for around $100 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  8. Got the Mono? by WCVanHorne · · Score: 2, Funny

    I don't know if I trust a company that prints the spec: "Speakers 1 high quality stereo speaker:"

  9. Re:I like the form factor by hitmark · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While it is not substitute to seeing and handling it in a shop, here is a review (or part 1 of it) from a guy that have had it for a while now:
    http://carrypad.com/2010/10/28/samsung-galaxy-tab-full-review-part-1-overview-hardware-screen-keyboard/

    --
    comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
  10. Do not purchase from this company by LurkersA · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  11. Be carefull buying these el-cheapo tablets by jonwil · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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 :)

  12. Design patent != invention patent by itsdapead · · Score: 2, Informative

    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?

    --
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