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Digiland tablet review

Dave Farquhar Android , , , , , , , , , ,
Digiland tablet review

The Digiland DL718M tablet is an inexpensive (sub-$40) tablet sold at consumer electronics stores like Best Buy. Make no mistake, a Digiland tablet is a basic tablet for basic needs. But given reasonable expectations you can buy one of these and be happy with it.

This isn’t a new market by any stretch. But it seems like tablets in this price range are usually Black Friday specials, or only available on online marketplaces far abroad. The Digiland DL718M, or today’s equivalent, is one you can get today if you want.

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A $99 tablet that doesn’t stank

Dave Farquhar Android , ,

‘Tis the season for cheapie tablets. They’re everywhere, and they cost $89, $79, even $59. About the only place I haven’t seen one is at a convenience store. But you don’t want them. They’re always underpowered and cheaply built, so they’ll be frustratingly slow to use and the hardware is likely to start failing after a year or so.

But this weekend I saw a budget tablet that hits all of the minimums, for $99, at an unlikely place: Aldi. Yes, the discount grocery store. It’s called the Medion Lifetab. Read more

The Asus Memo Pad HD 7 review: It’s a nice inexpensive tablet

Dave Farquhar Android , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve been messing with an Asus Memopad, the 7-inch version. I think it’s a well-built, good-performing tablet for $149, and when you can get it on sale for less than that–and this is the time of year for that–I think it’s a great tablet for the money.

It’s not a high-end tablet. It has a 1280×800 screen, a quad-core 1.2 GHz Mediatek processor, a middling GPU, and 1 GB of RAM, and importantly, it includes a micro SD slot so you can add up to 32 GB of storage to it. The specs are all reasonable, but not mind-blowing. Most of the complaints I’ve seen about it are that it’s not a Nexus 7, but it’s 2/3 the price of a Nexus 7, too. When you compare it to other tablets in its price range, the worst you can say about it is that it holds its own. Read more

Up and coming low-end Android chips

Dave Farquhar Android , , , , , , , ,

I decided to dig into what the low-end Android chipmakers like Mediatek and Rockchip are up to, since they’re the ones who are likely to drive prices down.

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Asus gets into the sub-$200 tablet fray

Dave Farquhar Android, Hardware , , , , , , , ,

Now Asus is jumping into the sub-$150 tablet range too, but with a device that’s much more subdued than what Polaroid and Archos are offering.

It appears to me that Asus is trying to remain mid-tier, and hope that name recognition and reliability advantages (whether perceived or real) keep their tablet in the game.
Their $149 Memo Pad has a 7-inch 1024×600 display and a single-core VIA WM8950 CPU, running at 1 GHz. It will be running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and has the precious microSD card slot, which accepts up to a 32 GB card. Read more

Polaroid’s M7 and M10 tablets make me glad I didn’t buy a tablet last month

Dave Farquhar Android, Hardware , , , , , , , ,

I didn’t buy a tablet last month. I knew about Acer’s new low-end tablet, the Iconia B1, and that they were at least initially reluctant to release it in the United States, but I hoped that either Acer would change their mind or that someone else would decide that the U.S. market really needs something in between the $80 cheapie no-name 1-ish GHz, single-core, 800×480 tablets sold in every drugstore, closeout store, and vacant gas station lot in the country and the $200 tablets that the likes of Samsung and Acer sell.

I’d be lying if I said I saw the Polaroid M7 and M10 coming. Lying like the evil spawn of a politician and a used car salesman. Read more