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Sub-$100 Android 4.0 Tablet Coming Soon
jfruhlinger writes "One of the reasons the iPad has stayed at the top of the tablet heap for so long is that — in contrast with the story of the Mac and PC 25 years ago — the iPad has remained competitive with its rivals on price. That may be starting to change, with cheaper tablets like the Amazon Fire coming to market. And now, the sub-$100 Novo7 is on sale in China, sporting Android 4.0. It promises to arrive in the U.S. for a similar price point soon."
The official press release from MIPS has a bit more detail. Of interest is the use of a MIPS SoC designed by Ingenic.
That one is capacitive. I actually bought their earlier effort, the $150 Novo8, and was pleasantly surprised: 8", 1280x800 capacitive TN, HD video playback with HDMI, OK build quality. What spoiled that was the 3hr battery life, but I knew that before buying it.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
The iPad can definitely be sluggish - regularly I have to wait more than 10 seconds for iBooks to display the book pages on opening, or go to swipe twice to turn a page because I thought it hadn't registered the first swipe only to have it turn two pages when the first swipe is eventually carried out.
Also, the iPads Safari has a tendency to reload pages when you switch between "tabs" - which can be fucking annoying when you are swapping between pages to cut and paste information or filling out a form... Even though I haven't added any new applications recently, it does seem to have gotten worse. Safaris UI can also lag a lot, with attempts to click on the bookmarks or "tabs" icons taking several seconds to register some times.
And thats without any other apps lingering in the background...
I love my iPad, I use it every day and its my primary browsing tool for on the couch or out and about, but it does have its foibles.