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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.
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
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.
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.
The problem with Facetime is you're locked in to Apple products. I really with Google would push Google Talk with video chat or Google+ Messenger via mobile a lot more. The tech is there and it works, across platforms, but hardly anyone knows about it it seems.
Otherwise I've found that for pretty much any mainstream app there's parity between the iOS and Android phone apps. Tablets may be a different story but I'm sure that'll get closer, too.
If an Android tablet actually comes out in the US for $100 or less, it won't matter whether the iPad is snappy or sluggish. What will matter is that for the cost of the cheapest iPad, one could buy five (5) of these. Heck, I'd buy one for each of my two teenaged boys (my wife already has an iPad2, a gift from her father) AND one for myself. Plus, two more to keep on the shelf as backup gifts for people.
Had I managed to get any HP Touchpads at $99 before they ran out I would have bought as many as I could get my hands on.
For me at least, at $100 these are practically disposable.
"No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up." -- Lily Tomlin
That's because to them its like comparing apples to oranges. The Transformer isn't really a tablet sure it has the rounded corners, a flat screen, and thin boarders but if Apple can't get the courts to ban its sale then it can't be a tablet.