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HP Delivers a Big-Name, 7-inch Android Tablet For $100: Comes With Compromises

Posted by timothy on from the good-thing-about-races-to-the-bottom. dept.

Ars Technica reports that HP is back in the $100 tablet market, and this time with a tablet that's intended to be priced there instead of just a fire sale. The new offering lacks Bluetooth and GPS, among other features you might wish for in a tablet, and the screen is surrounded by a hefty bezel, but manages a pretty good list of features. Ars summarizes: "For $100, you can't expect much of the spec sheet. The HP 7 Plus has a 7-inch 1024x600 IPS display, a 1GHz quad-core Cortex A7 processor (made by a company called "Allwinner"), 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, 802.11 b/g/n, a microSD slot, and a 2800 mAh battery. The biggest downside HP could have fixed at this price point is the software: it's only running Android 4.2.2. Android versions are free, HP." Having an avaialble microSD slot beats some more expensive options, too.

10 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. No bluetooth? by Slick_W1lly · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm wondering how much it costs to add bluetooth to a device. I mean... them bluetooth headsets have it in, hell even the dinky little $12 'bluetooth speakers' you can park next to your iThing have it in...

    What in the world possessed them to release a device that doesn't have bleutooth?

    1. Re:No bluetooth? by gl4ss · · Score: 5, Informative

      it's not clear if it has bluetooth or not, or gps. the article says that the article writer doesn't know if it has those or not.

      (they wouldn't add significantly to the cost and if it lacks gps that's a bummer)

      however whoever submitted the article doesn't seem to be up to speed about the fact that Allwinner provides the design for a shitload of soc's for all the cheapo devices(they are the biggest provider, but they don't fab them themselves. but since they're the biggest somehow referring to them as a company called "Allwinner" as if it were an unknown is not right).

      Asia is full of sub 100$ tablets. can pick one up for under fifty too(iirc I saw a quad core for 200 baht) - and almost all of them Allwinners.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  2. Never heard of Allwinner!?! by cb88 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Allwinner is the king of tablets ... http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1287293

    The Cubieboard is also a popular RPi alternative with faster CPU (and sweet sweet SATA :D ) and such for similar price.

    In my opinion Allwinner is more credible than HP these days since they actually seem to believe in their own market... whereas HP is practically at the point of execs jumping out of windows (Or the modern equivalent of selling the company out for peanuts).

  3. Stop crippling the technology; boycott needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The problem with these tablets and other computing devices is all of digital restrictions, proprietary drivers, and similar that they are being shipped with. You can't replace the wifi chip even if you wanted to and if HP uses a particular chipset that there is no driver for the latest version of android your shit out of luck. There is no source code. You can't fix the problem yourself or depend on a community to do so for you.

    I'm going to call out the companies we should all be boycotting for these types of practices:

    HP, Dell, Lenovo/IBM, Toshiba, Apple, and Sony.

    These companies are including digital restrictions on the wifi card slot (laptops), locking boot loaders (tablets), and/or using proprietary technology (such as non-standard wifi cards, etc), etc. These practices are preventing people from switching operating systems, upgrading to the latest release of an otherwise supported OS, and much more.

    See fsf.org/ryf for a list of products that aren't crippled. The list is small, but growing and you can find a lot more non-crippled devices from ThinkPenguin as well (not all RYF certified, but not crippled in any way either, and completely free software friendly/RYF'able).

    1. Re:Stop crippling the technology; boycott needed by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Really? Aren't you barking up the wrong tree? This isn't a hobbyist machine - its' a bottom barrel consumer device. The customer that HP (and Allwinner) is going for doesn't know a driver from quantum superposition. It's cheaper to just throw stuff together that works at time of shipping and not worry about what happens next week.

      Think one step up from disposable.

      Yes, in your Richard Stahlman utopia, we would be able to upgrade these pieces of crap until Unix integer overflow but that's not a realistic commercial solution. Not that these things are, but you're acting as crazy as an HP exec and that is NOT a complement.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:Stop crippling the technology; boycott needed by jonsmirl · · Score: 4, Informative

      Maybe do some fact checking first...
      http://linux-sunxi.org/Main_Pa...

      All of the Allwinner CPUs will boot from an appropriately formatted SD card and ignore the OS in flash. Don't know what wifi is in there but 75% of Allwinner A31 based tables out of China have Broadcom Wifi in them and the drivers are in the mainline kernel. I believe Kitkat is already available for the A31 and given how standardized these tablets are I don't foresee major problems upgrading.

      Allwinner devices are far more hackable than Nvidia based ones. Most features of the Allwinner CPUs are documented except for the usual suspects -- graphics. A31 uses an Imagination PowerVR GPU. And it is not Allwinner that is keeping that GPU secret, it is Imagination.

      $85 (with Slickdeals coupon) with free ship is an excellent price for this set of features. Anyway it is already sold out until they can get more from their OEM.

      BTW - I do think there is a CPU security feature that can encrypt the boot, but I've never seen an Allwinner device that has turned it on.

  4. made by a company called "Allwinner" by Hadlock · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Allwinner is the Intel of ARM chip these days, they're a Chinese National ARM chip manufacturer, they produce in volumes that allow them to get the chip in under $7 for the dual core models. The quad core models are pretty competitive as well. They're in pretty much every Hobbyist robotics kit (check out the PC Duino) and are quite reliable, and have been for years... I won't disagree that it's a silly name, but they did win basically the entire (all) of the low end Android market. So it's pretty accurate. Nobody else can compete on price.

    --
    moox. for a new generation.
  5. Re:Hold on there .... by Hadlock · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's a long post by an AC, for sure.
     
    It is a UK company that licensed the Chinese to manufacture unlimited copies. This is how all ARM chips are manufactured, under license. ARM Holdings does not have any manufacturing capacity outside of basic R&D.
     
    The chips are so cheap because they're produced en masse, there's nothing shady going on here, besides the fact that the country put up the capital to kick start the project. Which isn't illegal anywhere. Mexico's petroleum industry was nationalized in the 1970's and it's worked out quite well.

    --
    moox. for a new generation.
  6. Too expensive by paugq · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why would I buy a weak HP tablet for $100 when I can have a better tablet for $90?

    http://www.pandawill.com/cube-...

    Cube (well-known Chinese manufacturer) tablet with same features as HP plus: built-in BlueTooth, GPS and 3G. Only $90, shipping included.

  7. Wow, finally. by John+Pfeiffer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    These sound remarkably like the cheap Chinese tablets you can find on DealExtreme. I was wondering when a big brand was going to start slapping their name on them.

    The $100 price-point is actually a bit of a deal, since that's basically what that 'tier' (The quad cores and 1024 displays) costs from DealExtreme, but I presume you're getting HP warranty and support with these. So not bad!

    I bought four different 7-inch tablets in their $65-$80 price range during a half-off sale last May. My favorite is the ICOO ICOU7W.

    Its specs:
    800x600 screen, the 4:3 aspect being one of my favorite features, because I use it primarily for reading.
    1.0GHz Allwinner A13 (Single core)
    512mb of RAM
    Mali-400 GPU @ 350MHz
    8gb of internal storage, plus a microSD slot. (They all have microSD slots)
    802.11b/g/n
    Front-facing camera
    Android 4.0.4 (I could probably update it, but haven't felt the need.)
    3000mAh battery, 2A DC fast-charge jack*

    On sale, I paid a whopping $36.45 for it. ;)

    Only bad things I can say about it are no OTG on the USB port, and no bluetooth...but mostly it's the missing OTG that's a letdown. There's also no GPS which is a little bit of a bummer. Only one of the tablets I bought had GPS; the Erani E70. For some absurd reason, the MK808 'Android TV' stick I bought for $25 also had GPS. (I mean, really?!)

    *It's funny, because under full load-- playing HD video, screen brightness up all the way, using the wifi, etc. --normal USB can't actually charge faster than you're discharging... So the 2-amp DC jack is handy for when you're using it in bed or something. I have no idea if the USB port is capable of fast-charging from fast-charge capable ports... I haven't tried it, but I just got a 10,400mAh portable USB battery from Jackery... If it can't, I'll have to make a USB to DC jack, so I can fast-charge through the DC jack using the 2-amp output USB port on the Jackery battery.

    --

    Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*