

Worst gadget ever? Ars reviews a $99 Android tablet - arnemart
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/reviews/2010/11/worst-gadget-ever-ars-reviews-a-99-android-tablet.ars

======
gregpilling
i bought one to play with. it wasn't quite as good as the reviewer said,
although i briefly got the wireless working. My run time was about 20 min
before dead batteries. It took 45 minutes for Walgreens to figure out how to
refund my money, and in the end could only refund it within $2 on my
creditcard with the rest in cash

------
nuclear_eclipse
I pity all the uninformed consumers who buy this, or even worse, people who
receive this as a gift from those uninformed consumers...

~~~
frb
Devices like these can be very harmful to Android's image in the public,
especially if their only feature/selling point is "powered by Android".

My brother bought a Samsung Galaxy cellphone
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy>). The half-baked combination of
hardware and software, with no updates available, made him soon regret the
purchase. He was angry at Samsung and Google/Android for "producing such
crap". Somehow he managed to return it and got an iPhone instead.

This experience made him to not buy an Android phone again. More of such bad
examples/devices could become a really big problem for Android.

~~~
hvs
Conversely, the Samsung Galaxy S class of phones (I have the Captivate from
AT&T) is a wonderful device. The only limitation is that it is still on 2.1,
but it is supposed to be upgrade "sometime". That's AT&T's fault, though.

~~~
tuxychandru
It is not entirely carriers' fault though. Samsung is yet to roll-out the
update even in out countries like India, where carriers don't interfere with
it at all.

To top it all off, they've disabled OTA and need a Windows only desktop
software (Kies) to update the OS. The latest version of this doesn't upgrade
even minor upgrades of the firmware.

A HN user suggested a workaround on another thread by downgrading the version
of Kies. When I tried it, it didn't even show that a minor firmware upgrade
was available.

While Galaxy is wonderful on the hardware side, it has miles to go with its
software.

~~~
hvs
I agree, but that's generally true of hardware companies. Intel's software
(other than their compiler) is terrible. I wish hardware companies would just
agree on a standard and let the software companies (Apple, Microsoft, etc.)
handle synchronization.

Yes, I know it is isn't as easy as that, but it would have to be better than
the ghetto that is hardware company-supplied software.

------
benhedrington
BBYOpen, Best Buy's API team, found some other interesting uses for the $99
Android tablet... :)

[http://bbyopen.com/2010/11/maylong-android-tablet-more-
versa...](http://bbyopen.com/2010/11/maylong-android-tablet-more-versatile-
than-you-think)

------
acabal
This reminds me of when one of my good friends came back from China with a
knockoff iPhone. I bought his extra one off him for $50 out of sheer
curiosity. Everything this article said about the knockoff tablet vs. the real
thing was true for the phone--it was billed as a touch phone and yet came with
a stylus, because using it with your fingers was impossible; in fact using it
with the stylus was almost impossible too. It had the look-and-feel of an
iPhone, but all the apps were clearly just cheap, badly translated knockoffs
that were just truly awfully made. The wifi would "connect" but never worked.
The screen was scratched after two days of use.

I ended up sending a few text messages with it (it took me 15 minutes to
compose each one because of the awful interface) and after messing around with
it for a while got so frustrated that I promptly "lost" it.

It was a great conversation starter though--"Hey, want to see my Chinese
iPhone?" It always got a laugh out of people when I showed them.

~~~
radu_floricica
Quality for Chinese products varies, though. A friend of mine uses as a main
phone a chinese one, mostly because it can take two sim cards (i.e., two phone
numbers). It's good enough for daily, intense use, and as a bonus and laugh
factor it also has an antenna and TV included.

That said, my experience with Chinese products and parts has been less then
satisfactory. I guess we don't really have any way to discern good products
from bad... no "brand recognition" to speak of. It's too bad, because I bet
there are a lot of good companies out there making good products.

------
kwantam
I bought one for my girlfriend's two-year-old to watch Sesame Street. It works
for that, and if she decides to throw it on the ground (which she's still
learning not to do), hey, at least it wasn't an expensive cell phone or
something.

Mostly I agree with the article's assessment on the touchscreen. I haven't had
any trouble with the wireless on mine, though.

------
powrtoch
"No applications can perform this action." just replaced "lp 0 on fire" as my
all time favorite error message.

It's like you asked it to solve the halting problem, or violate one of
Asimov's laws.

------
Splines
I learned about the Nook Color over the weekend. It has the potential to be a
really good Android tablet ($249, 800MHz A8, 8GB storage). Only thing is that
it's restricted to running apps approved by B&N, and it's running 2.1.

~~~
elblanco
I wonder how long till it's rooted?

~~~
spiffworks
Not long at all, hopefully.

[http://fineoils.blogspot.com/2010/11/nook-colour-root-is-
nea...](http://fineoils.blogspot.com/2010/11/nook-colour-root-is-near.html)

They got it to boot from an sd card, which is a step in the right direction.
When it gets rooted, it will be one hell of a tablet for its price. Is this a
loss leader for B&N? It seems very cheap for its build quality.

------
ralphc
My favorite part - "anyone looking to buy one would get more bang for the buck
by setting it on fire for warmth. "

------
mike-cardwell
I'd be tempted to use one of these as a device which simply displays a custom
written webpage which fetches and displays information. Once you've got it
running it does nothing other than display a webpage. Put it on the desk,
plugged in constantly. It could show my calendar or weather/traffic data.

~~~
blhack
What's a small LCD panel cost instead?

~~~
lukeschlather
Generally more. And they don't come with integrated WiFi or enough CPU to
display anything on their own.

I'm trying to figure out if one of these would be useful as a wireless display
for data that updates once every 5 minutes or so.

I live at a retreat center in the Cascade mountains, and we've got all sorts
of diagnostic data about our hydroelectric generator and furnaces that would
be useful to show.

~~~
pyre
I'm interested in info on this retreat. Is there anything available online?
Does the retreat have a name?

~~~
lukeschlather
<http://www.holdenvillage.org/>

I'm presently the IT Coordinator, which is an odd mix of Windows Systems
Administration, Network Administration, and Website maintenance. (Sooner or
later maybe some web development.)

~~~
blasdel
Oooh, I was wondering what that was on the map! I spent a bunch of time last
summer adventuring up the Suiattle River, just 10 miles due west of you.

------
alanh
> _The lag is slow and inconsistent, forcing you to always wonder if you need
> to hit something again or whether the M-150 is just trying to figure out if
> you hit S, A, or D._

I almost missed this journalistic easter egg!

Also… did you see the thumbnail they are using to link to this story? They
photoshopped in some, er, _brown froyo._
[http://static.arstechnica.net/assets/2010/11/m-150-list-
thum...](http://static.arstechnica.net/assets/2010/11/m-150-list-
thumb-140x78-17884-f.jpg)

I still can’t get over the IE icon showing up on an Apple-imitating “dock.”

~~~
falcolas
Sometime in the last year, ArsTechnica picked up a really good artist for
their article art. There are times I'll read articles there just to see the
images this person creates. I get a laugh out of them pretty frequently.

~~~
quux
Agree. I like the one they made for this article:
[http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2010/10/tri-screen-
cpu-...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2010/10/tri-screen-cpu-monitor-
ars-reviews-the-12-core-2010-mac-pro.ars)

------
sedachv
I'm surprised no one has asked this yet:

How easy is this thing to hack? At $99 for a small ARM system with a 7" screen
and battery, this is a damn good deal compared to getting a similar setup with
a BeagleBoard.

~~~
angusgr
_How easy is this thing to hack?_

Easy-ish. It's a Wondermedia WM8505-based tablet, so there are a bunch of
other relatives (same Android port, AFAIK) like the Eken M001.

Here are some resources:

* Teardown/serial console: [http://projectgus.com/2010/06/eken-m001-teardown-serial-cons...](http://projectgus.com/2010/06/eken-m001-teardown-serial-consol/) (disclaimer: that's my blog.)

* Debian port (forum is offline atm, though): <http://www.slatedroid.com/eken-m001-debian/>

* Open source kernel from scratch (work in progress): <http://groups.google.com/group/vt8500-wm8505-linux-kernel> <http://gitorious.org/linux-on-via-vt8500>

* Kernel released by Wondermedia (dog's breakfast): <http://github.com/projectgus/kernel_wm8505> (That last one is a link to my github copy of their tarball release, with a couple of tweaks.)

 _similar setup with a BeagleBoard_

It's worth pointing out that similar ain't really similar. The CPU technology
is two generations older (ARM9), connectivity is more limited, open source
availability is more limited, and hardware quality is significantly worse.

It is a good bit cheaper, though. :D

~~~
sedachv
Thanks for the links! Reading threads like this
([http://groups.google.com/group/vt8500-wm8505-linux-
kernel/br...](http://groups.google.com/group/vt8500-wm8505-linux-
kernel/browse_thread/thread/aa349f150baba222)) definitely makes the
BeagleBoard look like a good value in comparison.

~~~
angusgr
Yeah, if you get a kick out of reverse engineering then it's a plus.

If you don't, then you're better off with something like the BeagleBoard where
the TI OMAP3 technical docs, BSP + libraries are all published and have well-
supported open source around them.

EDIT: It's worth pointing out that the linked thread is about reverse-
engineering the RGB565 graphics mode (for Android) and some of the other
esoteric graphics chipset features. Graphics in X11 work fine at the moment,
both with Wondermedia's kernel release and with Alexey's open source one.
Support for most "normal" WM8505 functions is present in one way or another.

------
robinhouston
There seem to be a few sub-standard Android tablets around at the moment. A
high-street clothing retailer in the UK recently released one for £180, which
was also entertainingly panned by the press:

“All in all, a disastrous piece of gadgetry.”
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/10/a_cutprice_tablet_computer_whatev.html)

“If this were a car it would be roughly in the category of a Robin Reliant
from a couple of decades ago.”
[http://www.pda-247.com/wordpress/2010/10/next-10”-tablet-
rev...](http://www.pda-247.com/wordpress/2010/10/next-10”-tablet-review/)

A common concern is that these products will damage the reputation of Android
as a platform, and I suspect that’s true.

------
aberkowitz
If Google were smart, they'd come out with their own Android tablet. That way
people would stop being enticed by this absolute crap.

~~~
fogus
Will Google also sell it at Walgreens? Because if not, the people who are
enticed by low-end gadgets sold at Walgreens will not know about it.

~~~
aberkowitz
People will buy it because it says "Google", in the same way products are
bought because they say "Apple".

------
mikeryan
When people talk about the problems of Android fragmentation, its this low end
where things get really scary.

~~~
spiffworks
It is also at the low end that things get interesting. Most people get caught
up in this fight over Android and iOS, so they never see that they are
completely divergent platforms. Android will achieve ubiquity over the next
few years. Toasters to phones to tablets to GPS units to military handhelds
will all run it. The only thing that has been holding back such ubiquity so
far has been Google's refusal to license the Market to devices which do not
contain a "phone". If and when that changes, things will start to heat up. We
already have decent $130 handsets running 2.2. How long do you think before
Android is the new Symbian, with people buying "dumbphones" with Android
without realising they've got it? Fragmentation be damned, it is a by-product
of ubiquity.

------
angusgr
These devices really are cheap and nasty. I have an Eken M001 and an M003,
which are the same WM8505 chipset and (AFAIK) the exact same Android port.

However, if you're stuck with one then it's worth loading one of the
alternative firmwares from <http://www.slatedroid.com/> on it. People have
done quite a lot with the closed source Android port to make it more usable.

They also make for good tinkering/reverse-engineering on a budget. I'm
actually just winding up a (very hacky) early stage Android 2.2 port to this
chipset. although it isn't showing signs of being very good to use, it's been
fun to hack together.

~~~
pronoiac
So alternate firmware really doesn't help that much? The hardware is too rough
to salvage?

~~~
angusgr
It's really hard to make convincing generalisations about this.

A lot of people seem to be happy with their cheapie tablets as a e-readers,
tinker boxes, light web browsers, portable video players, etc.

Noone who really wants an iPad equivalent is going to be happy with one,
though. Different leagues.

Like all technology, it comes down to what you want to do with it. I'm not a
very good measure of that, because I originally bought an M001 to hack on (I
originally wanted to use mine as a cheap robotics controller, however it
developed a hardware fault that makes it difficult to power on so it's not
really a good candidate any more.)

------
epoxy
I played with one last week. It ranks slightly below the CueCat in usefulness.

------
sh1mmer
This is exactly why Apple don't lease their software to device makers. If you
want to be known for quality you _have_ to curate the whole experience.

Android is certainly achieving an amount of ubiquity but that also means they
will be associated with these horror stories. Obviously, not true of Apple.

------
CWIZO
So does anybody know of a decent cheap android tablet? I'd really like to have
one so I can browse the internet in my bed before I got to sleep and I don't
want to pay ~600€ (iPad,tab) for that (and I don't live in USA where this is
"pocket change") ...

~~~
trotsky
I haven't tried one, but the archos 70 is capacitive, 7" android 2.2 (I
believe, even though the web page says 2.1), 1ghz, 8gb, hdmi. For $275USD and
it's shipping now (though in limited supply). It seems to be getting decent
reviews by android folks.

<https://store.archos.com/archos-internet-tablet-p-5004.html>

There is also a 10" version (the 101) that seems to be newly available in some
markets for ~$400USD.

------
ssharp
I wonder how other companies making quality Android products feel about this.
I'm not sure how ubiquitous the term "Android" is in the cell phone market
(obviously the more informed consumers know, but what about more casual
users?) but it seems like a lot of the commercials for the phones in the
higher end mention that the phone runs Android.

Can the casual consumer differentiate between a terrible device that runs
Android and a great device that runs Android? Would one bad experience with
Android on a horrible device preclude that person from buying another Android
product, even if the other product provides a quality UX?

------
jhamburger
The price still amazes me even after hearing how bad it is.

------
dpcan
I'm having the exact same experience with the $150 Android Tablet from KMart -
the Augen. Wireless works, but the touch screen is really hard to use, and the
battery dies fast, even when off, so every time I turn it on I have to plug it
in.

------
ilitirit
I saw these things being sold all over Shenzhen about a month and a half ago.
The were really cheap (after haggling, of course), but the quality was
terrible. Oh and in Shenzhen they were actually being sold as "iPads".

------
elblanco
I'd almost be interested in getting one to be an internet radio gadget. But
that's about it.

~~~
metageek
Except for the bit where the only app that can get online is the browser.

------
Steve0
Well, at least it has a webcam.

------
gcb
There are crap copy-cats from china all over the place. go to dealextreme and
you will find 200 models of windows mobile tablets!

i have one to run GPS in my car. cost me $50 and has a 7in screen! works
perfectly... for the price.

but the first ones where just crappy. unusable. slow. battery was as good as
that one. look for some old reviews.

With that one it will be the same.

As soon as there is real competition in the android tablet/netbook market the
chinese copy-cats will start to show up some really good products.

mark this: android will only be a HUGE hit when those devices that does not
goes out of their way to prevent hacking start to hit the market. and it is
starting

The little android momentum had so far was a mistake on the part of
manufacturers. they by accident let android be hackable. and are fixing it,
for android loss.

------
J3L2404
I don't litter because I don't want to make that Indian cry, but this will
make him put a shotgun in his mouth.

Manufacturers should be forced to properly recycle such garbage.

------
marknutter
Competing with Apple on price alone in a market they essentially created.
Great strategy..

~~~
dfghjkhgbfd
Seems to have worked for some chaps in Redmond, at least since 1995

~~~
marknutter
You're comparing Microsoft to the guys who made this tablet? Yikes..

~~~
arethuza
There was a veritable Cambrian explosion of different personal computer
designs in the late 70s early 80s before the PC came along that existed
contemporaneously with the Apple II.

Pretty much all of these were evolutionary dead ends.

~~~
dfghjkhgbfd
Yes and in 1995 one of them made an OS with pretty pictures and clicky mousey
thing that looked very much like someones elses pretty pictures and clickey
mousey thing.

Except theirs cost $99 or free with your costco computer - while the other
guys meant you had to spend $1500+

------
bsk
I'd guess there were similar reviews of Altair 8800 in 1975/76 ;-)

~~~
ctkrohn
Well, the Altair was the first of its kind. Despite its flaws, it was a
revolutionary product that sparked an entire market. This tablet, on the other
hand, comes after the iPad and other less shoddy Android competitors. If
there's innovation in the tablet space, it's not going to be kickstarted by
cheap knockoffs.

~~~
bsk
It was the first cheap computer. Cheap enough for the unwashed masses in US.
And tablets like this one are the first computers cheap enough for billions of
ppl in Asia, Africa and Latin America. And for many, many, many other
purposes.

90% of the time innovation in IT is kick-started by cheap knockoffs ;-)

~~~
billswift
90% of innovation in most fields comes from low end products working their way
up - hasn't anyone here read Christensen's _The Innovator's Dilemma_? In
fields from steel, backhoes, and IT most innovation starts with something that
isn't quite good enough and works its way up quality. The tablet discussed in
the original post may be just a cheap knock-off that isn't going to have any
effect. But then how did they get the cost that low? Maybe there is something
there to build on too? Only time and a bit more work will tell for sure.

------
trotsky
Wow, unabashed apple fluffer arstechnica finds and reviews cheapest example of
shenzhen style knockoff tech with expectations of terribleness, and confirms
they don't like it a bit, no sir, not at all.

In other news, there is a lot of water in the pacific ocean.

~~~
watty
I disagree, Ars Technica is one of the least biased tech blogs I've found. If
anything they're biased against Apple.

Like it or not the products sucks and runs Android.

~~~
trotsky
ars? biased against apple? surely you troll.

~~~
wtallis
Ars Technica's most notable Apple reporter, John Siracusa, still holds a
grudge against Apple for nearly every way in which Mac OS X went with a NeXT-
style user interface over a Classic Mac OS UI paradigm.

They do a good job of producing informative articles, but you have to watch
out for anything subjective, because a lot of it is quite unreasonable, and
it's quite common for their conclusions about an Apple product to be invalid
and useless for anyone living in the real world. The apparent bias in any
given article can be all over the map, but on average, they seem to slightly
prefer being unfair to Apple.

