While Shanzai.com seem to be fairly upbeat about this 7 inch touchscreen (resistive it appears) tablet, I’m not so sure. I had the same reservations about the Camangi Webstation (which turned out to be less than exciting) and I have the same reservations about the Archos 7 tablet. I’ve experienced it with the SmartQ7 tablet too. The reason is that we’re looking at an Android device built on a processing architecture that pre-dates even the first Android phones.
Via’s WonderMedia platform might be cheap, but with its ARM9 architecture core it’s going to be less than exciting when it comes to web browsing and many other CPU-intensive applications.
Come on Asia. Get some ARMv7/Cortex cores in those tablets instead of aiming for the lowest possible price. $100 might be cheap but if it’s good for nothing, what’s the point?
Source: Shanzai.
“fast” ?!? Someone should hand him over an Archos 5 for comparision…
Oh, God of Gadgets, please beware us from the flood of Android tablets with the ultracheap and slow Rockchip CPUs.
We are at 2010 now. And at last there IS a decent hardware for small and power friendly decices. Use it, and skip this yesterday stuff. My 5 Years old Axim V51 has more CPU power than this…
Cortex A8 could not be that much expensive as Archos sells the Archos 5 for under 200 Euros…
with a 5″ resistive screen and 8GB internally. give it a larger screen and a bigger storage space and the price skyrockets impressively…
Looking at the 7″ screen from the archos7 HT, it seems that the screens size is not that much of importance.
And with sdcard readers includes 8GB flash are more than enough for a small tablet.
All i want to say is: After years of waiting ARM hardware is finally fast enough to power cool browsing devices. (I’m owning ARM devices since the golf old dsys of my Casio Cassiopeia)
Why should one want to go back, just to same some bucks?!
Videos may play smooth at the rockchip, but webbrowsing seems to be a pain in the ass.
People, knowing nothing about ARM, will buy this and think that tablets suck…
Sorry for the typos :(
Never post in a hurry…
I purchased mine at http://www.atozvarieties.com/ for under a hundred bucks and hey it’s not a iPad but it’s a deal for the price. The people I got it from also sent me a link to this page http://www.tablets.webs.com/ to download apps since I can’t figure out a way to access the Android Marketplace.
it seems these devices go for android on rockchip as some kind of oversized pmp with “extras”. Iirc, the cpu part of rockchip is not impressive. But it has a dedicated H264 decoder and similar so it can handle all kinds of content without breaking a sweat.
Hmmm…looks exactly like the Haleron Android device that they claimed they would have available by now but became vaporware…
found this website selling the device, but not at $100
http://www.shenit.com/eken-m001-7-google-android-1-6-ipad-tablet-slate-pc-umpc-mid-netbook.html
We played with the SmartQ V7 and videod it also… but the Eken’s performance is a bit better/snappier.
We’ve also had our hands on a few more low price tablets that are even better than the Eken! Which we hope to be videoing soon if we can get our hands on them again.
I’m not saying these devices will outperform the iPad/Tegra devices… but for the price its amazing what they can do.
I just bought one of these (unbranded) directly from China a few days ago. I really only want it as a backlit ebook reader so the browsing speed, etcv is not really an issue to me. What IS an issue is that every app I add open upside. I know someone else who just bought – same problem. I’m be curious to find out if all the devices currently manufactured have this problem.
Also, be aware that you can’t charge the device via the USB cable. The charging connector is very touchy and I have to constantly jiggle the plug to keep it charging and the USB connector keeps falling out – thus locking up the device. Any yes, you get about 2 hours use per charge.
If I can get a replacement, then it will be worth the cost for the reading I can do on it. If you want more than a bare bones device, save your pennies and wait for something else to come along.
@KMac,
I should be receiving my unit his week. I created a google group for this product.
http://groups.google.com/group/ekenm001
I’m very interested in hearing about your experiences…are there any android market apps that are working for you?
Please going the group and post your experiences there.
Thanks,
Matt
mmm cool here a vid about it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5OO_ASc1b0
Don’t listen to these people. I personally bought an Eken m-001 and for a 100 dollars… this thing KICKS BUTT.
If you want some a real increase in abilities, go to http://www.slatedroid.com.
There are people dedicated to making this thing run fast and they even had released some really cool firmware upgrades that speed the thing up.
Trust me on this people, for the price of this thing and the fact that it isn’t software locked like the IPAD is… we will be seeing some amazing advancements.
eken m001: http://china-made-wholesale.com/tablet-pc-mid-m001-google-android-7-0-inch-wi-fi-ipad-style.html
eken m002: http://china-made-wholesale.com/eken-m002-google-android-7-0-inch-wi-fi-ipad-style-mid-tablet-pc.html
eken m003: http://china-made-wholesale.com/tablet-pc-mid-eken-m003-google-android-8-0-inch-wi-fi-ipad-style-ebook-reader-netbook.html
Seems this one is a little better……
http://www.atozvarieties.com/Eken-Mini-8-Inch-Android-16-Ebook-Tablet-IPADWGWG.htm
I bought one but I think I knew what to do with it
Here is my view of this device
http://tildekarthik.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-new-chinese-tablet-a-pad-eken-m002.html