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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.
The problem with the other cheap android tablets has been the resistive screens. If the article is correct and this has a capacitive screen it could revolutionize the tablet market.
The reason the iPad is successful is because it isn't sluggish. If the Kindle Fire is sluggish at $200, I doubt this will be an iPad-killer at sub-$100.
My co-worker's iPads are sluggish. The real reason why it is successful is because people are stupid enough to think all Apple products are top shelf. Not always the case... Even if the lower priced tablets are just below par, it still perks the attention of people not wanting to fork over their wallets for an iPad.
Price was not the only reason Apple lost out to the PC, not by a long shot. Gates seemed to be the only smart enough to figure out the whole familiarity factor to computing, people who use X computer at work will be much more likely to buy X computer for use at home as well. Knowing "how to use" such a computer puts the buyer at ease, and of course they can always take stuff from work home. Furthermore, there was a lot of stagnation in Mac OS after Jobs' ouster, pre-Mac OS sucked even worse than Windows, as hard as that is to believe.
If price was the only thing consumers considered, we would be seeing Linux everywhere and Apple wouldn't be gaining market share every year....
Monstar L
I purchased the Fire on the idea it might make a good present for parents to use while camping (free WIFI is almost always found in the campgrounds they visit) for simple email and browsing. It also want to see how it performed versus the iPad for the same.
The experience is certainly not up to the standard set by Apple but I find it very acceptable when one factors in the price point. The price point is important because for me a loss of a $200 device is far easier to take than losing the $500+ iPad. The Fire has already done the bounce test on the carpet, something I hope the iPad never tries.
Web browsing, hands down better on the iPad. The Fire just doesn't have the oomph. So will knock offs have the same problem? It might be related to Amazon's browser but I am not wholly sure on that. Mail reading is fine, it could be better, but it works and I tend to leave the Fire on the counter and one hand hold it while eating so I can check up on mail. Something that the iPad form factor is not good at.
I hope the seven inch size takes off, it really is much more portable without losing too much screen to make it just worth sticking with a phone. There are rumors Apple may head this way too which should push prices down.
I find I can treat a seven inch tablet more like a tablet than the 11 inch iPad, with the iPad I just felt I needed an external keyboard, possibly because after use it certainly loses the feel of portability. You don't one hand an iPad.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You made a $70 dollar downpayment and will be paying off the phone over the next two years.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Finally, there is device security. There has yet to be a single piece of malware on an iPad in the wild.
Apart from carrier IQ obviously....
Comparing an iPad or Galaxy 10.1 tablet to these cheap 7" Tablets is like comparing an i7 Laptop and a cheap netbook. Some people at first will buy cheap but when they realize it's limitations they'll opt for the better tablet. I purchased a cheap 10" Epad awhile back for $150 and was sorely disappointed with its performance, and lack of features. Most of these cheap tablets are slow and don't respond well to your touch, leading to misspelled words when you type and frustrating web browsing experiences.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
IBM, IBM, and IBM.
It's hard to remember these days, but before 1985 or so, those three letters were all a platform needed to be successful. Anything IBM was automatically better than anything else. (Ironically, that's sort of the reputation that Apple has today.) There was nothing Apple could have done to compete with that kind of mindshare. It wasn't a fair fight; it wasn't even a fight. It was over before the first Lisa was demoed.
Microsoft took the insidious approach, which was to hitch itself to IBM early on, and worm its way into Big Blue's customer base so thoroughly that, within fifteen years, they were Microsoft's customer base. That's how the PC war was won. What you describe happened much later, after Microsoft had already taken over.