9.7 inch ICS Android tablet for $120 (wholesale)

[Rambusted]

I bought an android tab from coby during a black Friday sale in 2010 for my 13 year old son. It was underpowered, cheaply made, terribly unresponsive, and a complete waste of 130 dollars. He used it for about a week it is now lost in the basement collecting dust. The only cheap tab that's worth its price is the fire.

 

[lothar]

That's not a tablet...That's a craptablet.

-Lothar

 

[T_Yamamoto]

I bought an android tab from coby during a black Friday sale in 2010 for my 13 year old son. It was underpowered, cheaply made, terribly unresponsive, and a complete waste of 130 dollars. He used it for about a week it is now lost in the basement collecting dust. The only cheap tab that's worth its price is the fire.

you got a COBY

lol pos brand

 

[podspi]

I didn't watch the entire video, so it may have been mentioned there, but looking at the specs, this looks pretty good for $120, provided it has multitouch (2-point would be fine) capacitive screen.

It won't be a speed demon, but it'll be servicable for web browsing (use Opera).

 

[Mopetar]

This might shock you but if you rotate a 16:9 or 16:10 display 90 degrees you get tons of vertical real estate which is excellent for reading. Basically widescreen is better for both media and text and 4:3 has no redeeming qualities.

Maybe it's just me, but I dislike using a tablet vertically for most use cases. Evan with a 4:3 aspect ratio, it still feels somewhat unnatural and uncomfortable to hold to me and 16:9 is even worse. Reading books is more comfortable to me in landscape, maybe because it looks and feels more like an actual book that way. The other reason I like 4:3 is that 16:9/10 would probably be too wide to comfortably type with my thumbs in landscape view, which isn't something I do terribly often, but occasionally enough that if the screen were any longer it would be a complete hassle. I honestly wish Apple would put the camera along the long end, like a few other tablet manufacturers have done, so that video chatting/conferencing could be done in landscape as well. The only thing I use the iPad for vertically is reading PDFs or Word documents, once again because that's what they physically look like.

Honestly I think 16:10 is the ideal resolution for working on a desktop environment. 16:9 is only good for watching 16:9 movies and shouldn't be used for anything else in my opinion. 4:3 feels pretty good for a tablet, and with the retina display, it's possible to play an HD movie at its native resolution on the screen, so outside of some letter-boxing, there's no real need to have a 16:9 display. Even most websites use a design that assumes a 4:3 display and 1024 pixels of width, and most don't gain additional benefit from wider 16:9/10 displays. I suppose if you hold it vertically, you can get more of the website lengthwise, but once again, I just hate holding a tablet vertically.

A lot of that probably comes down to personal preference, but I'd pick this tablet over many others simply because I feel as though the aspect ratio is better, at least for how I prefer to use tablets.

 

[SickBeast]

1024x768 isn't a high enough resolution to browse the web in portrait mode.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Maybe it's just me, but I dislike using a tablet vertically for most use cases. Evan with a 4:3 aspect ratio, it still feels somewhat unnatural and uncomfortable to hold to me and 16:9 is even worse. Reading books is more comfortable to me in landscape, maybe because it looks and feels more like an actual book that way. The other reason I like 4:3 is that 16:9/10 would probably be too wide to comfortably type with my thumbs in landscape view, which isn't something I do terribly often, but occasionally enough that if the screen were any longer it would be a complete hassle. I honestly wish Apple would put the camera along the long end, like a few other tablet manufacturers have done, so that video chatting/conferencing could be done in landscape as well. The only thing I use the iPad for vertically is reading PDFs or Word documents, once again because that's what they physically look like.

Honestly I think 16:10 is the ideal resolution for working on a desktop environment. 16:9 is only good for watching 16:9 movies and shouldn't be used for anything else in my opinion. 4:3 feels pretty good for a tablet, and with the retina display, it's possible to play an HD movie at its native resolution on the screen, so outside of some letter-boxing, there's no real need to have a 16:9 display. Even most websites use a design that assumes a 4:3 display and 1024 pixels of width, and most don't gain additional benefit from wider 16:9/10 displays. I suppose if you hold it vertically, you can get more of the website lengthwise, but once again, I just hate holding a tablet vertically.

A lot of that probably comes down to personal preference, but I'd pick this tablet over many others simply because I feel as though the aspect ratio is better, at least for how I prefer to use tablets.

I think some of that may just be due to the design of the iPad. I can see what you mean about the iPad 2 being more comfortable to hold in landscape but I have found some of the lighter Android tablets are the exact opposite. Specifically I have found the Galaxy Tab 8.9 much more pleasant to hold in portrait and the Xyboard 8.2 should be similar since it weighs even less.

I actually think the Xyboard 8.2 could be the perfect tablet design for a lot of people if it was slightly cheaper and available from more retailers.

 

[wirednuts]

thats a pretty terrible review in the op. he just holds it there stationary for 5min. it could be a fancy picture frame for all i can tell

 

[SickBeast]

The thing was all in Chinese, what do you expect?

 

[ponyo]

I prefer vertical for my phones and tablets. I use the iPad and Touchpad vertically. But my wife and my daughter both prefer the landscape mode. Only time I prefer landscape is when I'm using the iBook app, viewing picture, or watching video. But if I'm using Alkido app on Android to read, I prefer vertical. I know Google designed the tablets to be used in landscape mode but that feels unnatural to me.

 

[Mopetar]

1024x768 isn't a high enough resolution to browse the web in portrait mode.

Why do you say that? A lot of web pages are designed with the assumption of 1024 pixels wide, and there are a few that are designed around a width of 1280 pixels. Using the tablet vertically leaves you with 768, and most things get too scrunched to properly read. Viewing them with 1024 pixels of width is perfect, or at least closer to the web pages native resolution. You don't get as much vertical view, but you can actually see the entire page width-wise.

It would be interesting to do some usability tests on tablet browsing and reading. Knowing Apple, they've probably conducted several, but as far as I know they've never released any of their data. There's likely a reason that they chose to use 4:3, especially considering that it would probably have been cheaper to get 16:9 panels, given their rise to prominence at the time.

 

[Bateluer]

you are all wrong, just because widescreen works for TV and movies doesn't mean it'll work for tablets. some people just don't get it.

you sit down to watch a video or a movie, so widescreen is good for covering your entire field of view.

however, you hold a tablet, and they are supposed to mimic a natural medium, in this case, paper and books, which are very close to the 4:3 ratio.

did you ever think to yourself that "gee, I wish this book was in widescreen format", no? didn't think so.

Actually, I believe all book pages are 'wide screen.' 😛 Aside from children's books.

I made fun of the original iphone's 4:3 ratio during jobs' keynote launch back in 2007, how it was an awkward resolution and would be terrible for movies. But guess what, I was wrong, I used one and I was hooked, the screen was marvelous, it felt just right.

A good product has a purpose, it does a few things extremely well; it shouldn't try to do everything, because then, it'd just be a compromise.

May come as a shock, but people actually use tablets for things other than just reading. 😛 They are media consumption devices and they're used a lot of web browsing and videos, and wide screen is better for all these things as well.

This might shock you but if you rotate a 16:9 or 16:10 display 90 degrees you get tons of vertical real estate which is excellent for reading. Basically widescreen is better for both media and text and 4:3 has no redeeming qualities.

no

Apple is the only major tablet maker making a 4:3 tablet, everyone else is making 16x9/16x10. Because you get the best of both, as Puddle Jumper says.

 

[God Mode]

Why can't these cheap tablet makers charge a few bucks more and give 1-2gb of ram? Why the hell do they skimp on things like this and doom themselves into a perpetual existance of mediocre products?

 

[Mopetar]

I prefer vertical for my phones and tablets.

I can definitely understand why phones should be used vertically as it makes it possible to manipulate the entire screen (or most of it with the larger screen sizes) with a single hand, which isn't really possible when it's in landscape mode. It's also likely because they're also designed to be held in portrait mode when talking on them.

 

[Mopetar]

May come as a shock, but people actually use tablets for things other than just reading. 😛 They are media consumption devices and they're used a lot of web browsing and videos, and wide screen is better for all these things as well.

For videos yes, it's better, assuming that it's a 16:9 video, of course. But most web pages are designed for 1024 pixels of width. A lot of that goes back to the days when 4:3 CRT monitors were the majority of displays. Go ahead and resize most websites, and it's pretty evident that beyond 1024 pixels, there's isn't a whole lot of benefit. For most pages that only thing that happens is that the text spills into longer lines, but as print publishers have long known, this doesn't necessarily make it easier to read, and in many cases actually makes comprehension worse. That's why a lot of technical publications use a two column justified text layout, and newspapers generally use multiple small columns.

Having less than 1024 pixels isn't always a problem depending on the website. For example, you could definitely get by with less on the AT forums as the sidebar generally isn't important. With newer tablets having higher resolutions, it'll be possible to see the whole width of the site with the tablet held vertically, but it will still be somewhat problematic if the website is designed with a width of 1280 pixels in mind. Of course there are caveats to that as well since most pages don't use the entire page for useful content. If a website has annoying ads along one side, I won't really care if they get cut off, and wouldn't mind zooming the content so that I don't even have to look at the ads.

 

[MrX8503]

Why do you say that? A lot of web pages are designed with the assumption of 1024 pixels wide, and there are a few that are designed around a width of 1280 pixels. Using the tablet vertically leaves you with 768, and most things get too scrunched to properly read. Viewing them with 1024 pixels of width is perfect, or at least closer to the web pages native resolution. You don't get as much vertical view, but you can actually see the entire page width-wise.

Websites are designed at 960px wide which accommodates 1280px or 1024 screens and allows some padding in landscape. A tablet in portrait mode is 768px or 800px, this is not enough pixels.

In other words its best to view webpages in landscape mode on ALL tablets, except for the iPad3, which now has enough pixels.

It would be interesting to do some usability tests on tablet browsing and reading. Knowing Apple, they've probably conducted several, but as far as I know they've never released any of their data. There's likely a reason that they chose to use 4:3, especially considering that it would probably have been cheaper to get 16:9 panels, given their rise to prominence at the time.

Supposedly Jobs and Ive had hundreds of mockups and they settled on 4:3 being the best aspect ratio for 10".

May come as a shock, but people actually use tablets for things other than just reading. 😛 They are media consumption devices and they're used a lot of web browsing and videos, and wide screen is better for all these things as well.

The only thing I see widescreen benefiting is movie watching, and that's probably the thing people do the least of on a tablet.

Apple is the only major tablet maker making a 4:3 tablet, everyone else is making 16x9/16x10. Because you get the best of both, as Puddle Jumper says.

Best of both worlds according to whom?

I think what people don't realize is that a 7"/10" screen at 16:9 ratio isn't the same as a 24" 16:9 computer monitor. People prefer 16:10 over 16:9, because the latter is way too narrow for browsing, even on a 24" monitor. A 16:10 is the best of both worlds.....on a 24" screen, but we can't assume the same is true when scaled down.

When we decrease the screen size to 7"/10" it becomes even narrower. A 4:3 screen like the iPad can achieve a lot of height space (in landscape) at a lower resolution. At 16:10, you'd need a 2560x1600 display to match the height resolution of an iPad3.

I could live with 16:10 or 4:3, but no way in hell would I use a 16:9, I can't even stand them on my desktop.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Websites are designed at 960px wide which accommodates 1280px or 1024 screens and allows some padding in landscape. A tablet in portrait mode is 768px or 800px, this is not enough pixels.

In other words its best to view webpages in landscape mode on ALL tablets, except for the iPad3, which now has enough pixels.



Supposedly Jobs and Ive had hundreds of mockups and they settled on 4:3 being the best aspect ratio for 10".



The only thing I see widescreen benefiting is movie watching, and that's probably the thing people do the least of on a tablet.




Best of both worlds according to whom?

I think what people don't realize is that a 7"/10" screen at 16:9 ratio isn't the same as a 24" 16:9 computer monitor. People prefer 16:10 over 16:9, because the latter is way too narrow for browsing, even on a 24" monitor. A 16:10 is the best of both worlds.....on a 24" screen, but we can't assume the same is true when scaled down.

When we decrease the screen size to 7"/10" it becomes even narrower. A 4:3 screen like the iPad can achieve a lot of height space (in landscape) at a lower resolution. At 16:10, you'd need a 2560x1600 display to match the height resolution of an iPad3.

I could live with 16:10 or 4:3, but no way in hell would I use a 16:9, I can't even stand them on my desktop.

What Steve Jobs thought is irrelevant. He also hated styluses yet I want one of those on a tablet too.

No kidding that the iPad has a lot of height in landscape, there is very little difference between portrait and landscape on a 4:3 tablet.

I have a Nook Color with a 1024x600 display and the only time I have ever used it in landscape mode is for watching a video. I can't image using it landscape for viewing websites, despite you claim i find portrait vastly superior even on a lower resolution tablet.

 

[MrX8503]

What Steve Jobs thought is irrelevant. He also hated styluses yet I want one of those on a tablet too.

No kidding that the iPad has a lot of height in landscape, there is very little difference between portrait and landscape on a 4:3 tablet.

I have a Nook Color with a 1024x600 display and the only time I have ever used it in landscape mode is for watching a video. I can't image using it landscape for viewing websites, despite you claim i find portrait vastly superior even on a lower resolution tablet.

People wondered why Apple chose 4:3, I was presenting a possible explanation. There isn't a tablet out there that can display websites in portrait mode natively. If your nook is 600p, I can see why you wouldn't use it in landscape mode, thats a very short tablet.

I believe they chose the 4:3 because its an excellent browser in landscape mode and they chose to ignore movies because most people don't do that as much as reading/browsing. Also 4:3 is closer to the aspect ratio of a legal US document.

EDIT: If you want a stylus, you can still get one. I think the reason Jobs did away with the stylus was because it allowed developers to create super small UIs. It got to the point where navigating without a stylus was impossible. A stylus leads down a dark path.

 

[MaxFusion16]

What Steve Jobs thought is irrelevant. He also hated styluses yet I want one of those on a tablet too.

No kidding that the iPad has a lot of height in landscape, there is very little difference between portrait and landscape on a 4:3 tablet.

I have a Nook Color with a 1024x600 display and the only time I have ever used it in landscape mode is for watching a video. I can't image using it landscape for viewing websites, despite you claim i find portrait vastly superior even on a lower resolution tablet.

I'd argue that what you think is irrelevant, frankly I'd put more stock in Jobs' opinion than yours. He turned apple around into the company it is today, I think he knows what he's doing, and consumers seem to agree with his views.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I have a Nook Color with a 1024x600 display and the only time I have ever used it in landscape mode is for watching a video. I can't image using it landscape for viewing websites, despite you claim i find portrait vastly superior even on a lower resolution tablet.

I have had a Nook Color for over a year and the whole time I browsed websites in landscape mode. It only goes in Portrait mode when a game forces that orientation.

Now that I think of it, I use my Transformer the same way. Yall make me feel like I am doing it wrong.....

 

[Red Storm]

I have had a Nook Color for over a year and the whole time I browsed websites in landscape mode. It only goes in Portrait mode when a game forces that orientation.

Now that I think of it, I use my Transformer the same way. Yall make me feel like I am doing it wrong.....

I do the same. I've never seen anybody web browse in portrait (that's not 4:3).

 

[MrX8503]

I have had a Nook Color for over a year and the whole time I browsed websites in landscape mode. It only goes in Portrait mode when a game forces that orientation.

Now that I think of it, I use my Transformer the same way. Yall make me feel like I am doing it wrong.....

Technically...you're not doing it wrong. In portrait a nook is only 600px wide, way under the minimum for what's needed for a website. To view the whole site, you'd have to zoom out, while in landscape you don't have to, but a nook is very short height wise in landscape. Then again the nook isn't exactly the best web surfer to begin with.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

I'd argue that what you think is irrelevant, frankly I'd put more stock in Jobs' opinion than yours. He turned apple around into the company it is today, I think he knows what he's doing, and consumers seem to agree with his views.

There are plenty of Apple fans who were more than happy to let Jobs think for them but I'm not one of them. Why would you possibly care what someone else thinks is better when it comes to something you can easily test for yourself like tablet display aspect ratios?

Jobs also thought no one wanted large phones yet Samsung sold 20 million Galaxy S2s that were 4.3" or larger.

 

[MaxFusion16]

There are plenty of Apple fans who were more than happy to let Jobs think for them but I'm not one of them. Why would you possibly care what someone else thinks is better when it comes to something you can easily test for yourself like tablet display aspect ratios?

Jobs also thought no one wanted large phones yet Samsung sold 20 million Galaxy S2s that were 4.3" or larger.

ugh....I did test it for myself, I have owned both ipads and android tablets, 4:3 ratio is by far much more enjoyable to use. 16:9 is too narrow in portrait and too wide in landscape.

I'll concede the large screens point, but when jobs introduced the iphone, other smartphones only had 2 inch screens, the iphone's 3.5 inch was huge in comparison.

 

[MrX8503]

ugh....I did test it for myself, I have owned both ipads and android tablets, 4:3 ratio is by far much more enjoyable to use. 16:9 is too narrow in portrait and too wide in landscape.

I agree with that sentiment. Its either too wide or too narrow. Other than my HDTV, everything I own is 16:10 and I'm boycotting 16:9 for as long as I can. 16:9 on a tablet would be awful, for me anyway.

On a phone, I would love a 4"-4.3" iPhone. 🙂