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Lenovo To Offer $200 Budget Tablet
First time accepted submitter khellendros1984 writes "Amazon's not the only big-name company planning on a budget-level tablet release; Lenovo recently announced their Ideapad A1 tablet as competition. It includes a 1GHz Cortex A8 CPU, along with other features more commonly seen on higher-priced tablets, such as dual cameras, bluetooth, GPS, wifi, and a MicroSD slot. Is this the start of the Android tablet price avalanche?"
That's where all the HP touchpads went.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Except it's a 7 inch tablet with a widescreen ratio screen. So when holding in portrait it looks silly, too narrow and too tall.
These compromises are why they get overlooked.
I see news articles saying "Sub $200 tablet from (Big Vendor) due soon" then it turns out to be vaporware. Sick of these companies never following through.
In Australia we have for example the ZTE v9 7" WVGA tablet with 3G for $129. (Was $99 for a while). Easily unlocked, Android 2.2 or Cyanogen 2.3.
An 8 or 16GB micro-SD is a cheap add-on.
The Lenovo is certainly higher spec, except it seems crazy to have such a small (i.e. portable) tablet without 3G.
ARM9. That's even older than ARM11, which is what most pre-Cortex-A8 devices were based on. I'm impressed that they swapped out the compiler to make use of this extremely low end (think Nintendo DS) processor.
Ouch.
While my N900 has a resistive touch screen, I trust Nokia's quality controls (and have never needed to calibrate.) This has nothing to vouch for it.
> I guess it's not gonna happen.
No it isn't Android isn't 'Linux' so OEMs can load it without bringing down the wrath of Microsoft. Notice how there are zero ARM based netbooks/laptops for purchase. But they all have models ready to roll, sampling now, for the launch of Windows 8. They could have introduced a model running some version of Linux this year if for no other reason than to put moderate quantities of the hardware out into the world for wider testing. But there are zero available in the US. There are one or two that have popped up on liliputing being sold by unheard of vendors you could import if you were hellbent on it, but none have US distributors.
Zero is an important number. Had there only been one or two failures that would be the market talking. Zero means there is an unseen force at work. ARM is the buzzword, netbooks aren't as hot this year as last but still a major segment and running time, weight and cost are key specs. An arm netbook should be better on all three fronts at the only 'negative' of no Windows. Somebody should have at least tried, at least in an unfettered market.
Or finally look at the Chromebooks. Why did they have Intel Inside? Arm would have been better in every way. Except of course we would have been buying the shit out of them, ditching the Chrome silliness and installing Ubuntu like crazy. I know I WANT a light laptop that can run all fricking day.
Democrat delenda est
I'll be buying at least one, assuming it's not a botch. To qualify as a botch, Lenovo would need to make the same mistakes as all those no-name $100 tabs: no gpu, insensitive touch, bad display, bad battery life. To win, the tablet doesn't need to even pretend to be an ipad, or for that matter a media player or have any cameras. There is a market for a highly portable (small, 8hr battery, fairly light) touchscreen connectivity (wifi) device. To the user, the most salient aspect of a tablet is the display: it needs to be nice looking (decent IPS, AMOLED), with a modern GPU (snappiness is 99% of the feel of the UI), fairly nice to hold (doesn't have to be CNC-milled spacecraft titanium).
We already have touchscreen thermostats, fridges, home alarm systems, conference-room-status displays, POS terminals. why not just use a cheap android tablet instead? Heck, why not use them for menus at (sit-down) restaurants? Or to keep customers happy when they're having their oil changed or hair cut?
Since the dominant component in all tabs is the display, that's what needs to be optimized. My guess is that integrating touch into the active matrix itself is the main win, though just integrating would eliminate a sheet of glass (material cost, assembly cost, thickness and weight). Cameras don't cost anything, nor do accelerometers, etc. All the teardowns show batteries come after the display/touch assembly, then 3g-type interfaces. (wifi and bluetooth are cheap.) And people: quit the flash-size pissing match: you don't need even 8 GB for a fully-functioning surf-pad. There's no reason for a connectivity tablet to have space for multiple movies - it doesn't have to be a PMP!
Lenovo knows these things, and is not trying to prove anything (unlike, oh, say HP).
Since the time overpriced tablets hit the stores, on-line and off, I can't keep wondering why people fee the urge, buying these overpriced gizmos. The netbook, which was on the same boat few years ago, is now, obtainable around $200 price point, which gives you at least twice the CPU power in most cases, a full keyboard, multiple expansion ports, more memory and storage space, alas, no touch screen. But knowing the price point of a touchscreen, sacrificing all other advantages of a netbook over a tablet, should be able to compensate the cost of a touchscreen addition and then some. So, why people are buying tablet at 4-500 dollars price points is beyond my understanding. It is time that some sensible company to get a clue that, the yahoos of this world got their overpriced gizmos and the rest of us will not give them any of our hard earned money for a sub-par device, just because it is the hot thing to have while sipping your coffee at Starbucks. Kudos to Amazon, Lenovo and whoever else comes up with cheap but equally powerful, if not more, tablets to the market.
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