[theverge] Intel CEO talks sub $100 holiday tablets

[Vesku]

'Today at the 2013 Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, he told the audience that Intel tablets will be available "at price points below $100" this holiday season.'

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/10/4715248/intel-ceo-promises-sub-100-tablets-this-holiday-season

Wonder if he's talking walk away with it for below $100 or if it will be part of some service agreement offering (ala phone agreements) or complicated rebate program. Is there a single core Bay Trail on the roadmap? Perhaps an Intel fire sale on older pre-Bay Trail Atoms to OEMs?

 

[erunion]

good point vesku, probably would be clovertrail machines. Definitely android, probably sub 8 inches.

 

[Idontcare]

I pity anyone who buys a sub-$100 tablet and thinks they will do anything with it beyond sitting it on a shelf somewhere in the house and having a perpetual "to do" item that states "figure out how to use that new table, someday" because the only thing that price-point inspires in my mind is a product that will most surely make the original Atom suddenly shine in retrospect.

 

[EliteRetard]

Might make a nice digital photo frame...
Most of those are 50-70$ but the larger 8-10" units can break 100$ and usually have horrid screens/resolutions and rarely more than a few MB of space.

 

[NTMBK]

1024*600 screen, powered by an Intel Quark :awe:

 

[SPBHM]

I pity anyone who buys a sub-$100 tablet and thinks they will do anything with it beyond sitting it on a shelf somewhere in the house and having a perpetual "to do" item that states "figure out how to use that new table, someday" because the only thing that price-point inspires in my mind is a product that will most surely make the original Atom suddenly shine in retrospect.

if the screen is OK, a cheap tablet like this is a great device for reading ebooks, news...

I have multiple PCs, I don't need a tablet with a fast SoC and much memory anyway... just give me a low price, OK screen and battery (and high enough performance to make the UI work as it should)

 

[frozentundra123456]

if the screen is OK, a cheap tablet like this is a great device for reading ebooks, news...

I have multiple PCs, I don't need a tablet with a fast SoC and much memory anyway... just give me a low price, OK screen and battery (and high enough performance to make the UI work as it should)

I have an Acer A100 which is 8" and was around 200 a couple years ago, so a 100.00 tablet now could be comparable. It is basically a piece of crap. I could actually live with the slowness and lousy battery life, except the most frustrating part is the absolutely horrible wi-fi connectivity. I do use it for light browsing, but I wanted it to check e-mail on the go in several different buildings on the university campus where I work. It is basically unusable for that though, because the wi-fi is so weak, while a normal laptop works perfectly in the same locations.

So bottom line, I would be very reluctant to buy a tablet this cheap. In fact, I personally would not buy another tablet that was not Windows or IoS, but that is just my preference. I would probably pony up the extra 100 bucks or so to get the Nexus or Kindle tablets in the 200.00 range, as they have a proven track record.

 

[ultimatebob]

Ugh... For $99, I'm envisioning one of the following:

1) Some 7" crap Android tablet with a low resolution resistive touch screen, less than 8 GB of flash storage, and no official Play Store support. Companies like Polaroid are infamous for these.
2) Some leftover Windows 8 Atom tablets that didn't sell, and got reflashed with Android.

The latter option actually doesn't sound half bad.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Ugh... For $99, I'm envisioning one of the following:

1) Some 7" crap Android tablet with a low resolution resistive touch screen, less than 8 GB of flash storage, and no official Play Store support. Companies like Polaroid are infamous for these.
2) Some leftover Windows RT Atom tablets that didn't sell, and got reflashed with Android.

The latter option actually doesn't sound half bad.

Atom doesn't run Windows RT. Also, for $99, I could see Intel selling a single-core Medfield with a 1024x600 screen, 512MB of RAM, 8GB flash. Not the fastest in the world, but if it's as smooth as the Razr i, then it could be a hit.

 

[podspi]

You can get the OG Kindle Fire for under $100 nowadays. Granted, the software isn't great, but if you reflash it with stock Android it's fantastic. I use mine daily.

I wouldn't be surprised if these $100 tablets were Clovertrail-based machines. A dual-core clovertrail tablet with 2gb of RAM would fly with Android.

 

[Roland00Address]

I believe this statement for the intel ceo did a big caveat

He didn't state that these tablets will be MSRP for $100 but instead stated that these tablets may reach prices for under $100 while on sale.

The current cheapest intel windows tablet is probably the acer 8 32gb (W3-810-1600) its MSRP is $379 but it is currently $276.22 on amazon and has been as cheap as 249 on amazon. The same story for the 64 gb model (W3-810-1416) which msrp is $429 but is currently only $299.99 on amazon right now.

And this is using
windows 8 (instead of the cheaper android)
clovertrail+ (currently the best intel atom on the market, dual core 1.5 ghz with 1.8 turbo instead of single core at 1.2 or 1.6 ghz)
acer (a quality name brand with a real warranty instead of some knock off chinese tablet with questionable warranty)

In 3 months we will be dealing with more android tablets using clovertrail as well as some tablets using the 2 or 4 core version of bayfield.

Currently ASUS sells a 7" quad core a7 with ips for $129 to $149 (depending on storage), Lenovo sells a 7" dual core a9 with tn screen for $129, Acer sells a 7" dual core a7 with tn for $129. All three of those tables are MSRP.

It wouldn't be hard for intel to convinces those brands to switch for an intel processor for their 7" if the price is right. Those current socs I listed were about $8 to $10 dollars. Clovertrail+ tray price is $41 dollars but this is before bundle discounts which can bring the price down to the $20 range. Said cpus (or a dual core baytrail) may get even cheaper this christmas. Brands may pay a couple of dollars more for the intel cpu for it is faster and it is a way to differentiate themselves from other 7" in the crowded 7" space.

 

[2is]

if the screen is OK, a cheap tablet like this is a great device for reading ebooks, news...

I have multiple PCs, I don't need a tablet with a fast SoC and much memory anyway... just give me a low price, OK screen and battery (and high enough performance to make the UI work as it should)

There's no way the UI won't be a jittery mess on a $100 tablet.

 

[Phynaz]

Craplets

 

[ultimatebob]

Atom doesn't run Windows RT. Also, for $99, I could see Intel selling a single-core Medfield with a 1024x600 screen, 512MB of RAM, 8GB flash. Not the fastest in the world, but if it's as smooth as the Razr i, then it could be a hit.

Good point. Scratch Windows RT, put in Windows 8.

 

[Zap]

Currently ASUS sells a 7" quad core a7 with ips for $129 to $149 (depending on storage), Lenovo sells a 7" dual core a9 with tn screen for $129, Acer sells a 7" dual core a7 with tn for $129. All three of those tables are MSRP.

I got a HiSense 7 Pro for $130 at Walmart, regular priced. It is essentially "the same" as a 2012 Nexus 7, with same resolution, Tegra 3, etc.

They also have a cheaper "Lite" version for $80 that has lower 1024x600 resolution, uses a Rockchip RK3066 CPU with 1GB RAM and supports Google Play store. Except for battery life, this unit should perform similar to other Android tablets with dual core CPUs (RK3066 is 40nm and highly clocked so not efficient).

So, "useable" under $100 tablets? They already exist, unless you can't stand anything less than Android on a quad core.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

$100 dollar tablet that you have to supply your own OS on I'm guessing?

 

[Pheesh]

It's not like android costs any money to put on a tablet...

 

[MisterMac]

It's not like android costs any money to put on a tablet...

...you tell that to microsoft

 

[Arachnotronic]

...you tell that to microsoft

To expand upon your (correct) point, MSFT collects royalties from most of the Android device vendors.

 

[Headfoot]

Under $100*


* With qualifying 2-year data plan