The good news about budget tablet makers like Skytex, Pandigital, and E-Fun moving on to better and more expnesive tablets is that it frees up the bottom rung for newcomers. Take Idolian, for example. They just unveiled the IdolPad, a $99 Android tablet running Gingerbread.
Given the specs it is decent tablet for the price.
It’s running on an unnamed 1GHz Cortex-A9 CPU, with Wifi, 4GB Flash, and a microSD card slot. Given the price, the resistive (2 finger) touchscreen and 800×480 screen resolution probably won’t surprise anyone; they’re the kind of trade offs you make to get a lower the price. The IdolPad lso boasts a 1.3MP camera, HDMI output, and a g-sensor. There’s no Bluetooth, GPS, or a second camera, but you get what you pay for.
Idolian posted a basic hands on video, and this does look like it’s a decent tablet. But I’m not sure if the video shows the correct tablet. I can see signs that it is running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, not Gingerbread (listed in the specs). The video also shows the Android Market, which is mentioned in the press release.
You might want to turn off the sound before you watch this.
Idolian is also selling a number of other Android tablets in 7″ and 10″, as well as keyboard cases for the 7″ tablets. All the others tablets are more expensive, and they also have better hardware.
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What makes you think it’s running Android 4.0? It sure looks like Gingerbread to me, based on the lock screen, home screen, settings menu, gallery app, etc…
Two reasons:
The app menu button in the upper right and the multiple home screens (and how you switched between them).
But you could be right; there’s no taskbar along the bottom of the screen.
Yeah, the app bar at the top is the sort you normally get with cheap tablets that don’t have physical home, back, or menu buttons. Velocity Micro’s tablets, for instance, tend to have that kind of toolbar, as did the Augen GenTouch 78.
The animation for switching between home screens does look ICS-like, but it’s probably just a third party app launcher.
Still, I agree. It’s not bad for $100. It’s not good overall… but a whole lot better than some of the $100 tablets of the past.
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