
Walgreen’s now selling $99 Android tablet - pauljonas
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2010/10/26/walgreens-now-selling-99-android-tablet/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NatesEbookNews+%28The+Digital+Reader+blog%29
======
lusis
Interesting. I would suggest anyone considering a tablet of any kind, buy one
of these.

I bought the K-Mart Augen tablet on a lark. I figured it was a good way to
gague how much I would actually use a tablet.

Mind you this thing is an utter peice of shit but what it showed me was that I
could justify buying a Galaxy Tab. With both the B&N and Amazon clients on
there and the native Android applications, a 7" tablet is really the perfect
size for me and has the exact functionality I want (youtube for the kids,
google web apps and reader clients for me.)

EDIT: You will be UTTERLY frustrated by the resistive touch screen on one of
these tablets. That's one of the major reasons I'm looking forward to my
Galaxy Tab.

~~~
tocomment
What's so bad about the resistive touch screens?

~~~
lukifer
No multitouch, and responds better to a small hard tap than a large soft
finger. Unlike iDevices, women with long fingernails would probably find it
works better for them; for everyone else, a stylus is practically a necessity.

Not the end of the world, but a subpar experience if you're used to a
capacitive touchscreen.

~~~
andreyf
I hate being the city snob, but are we really cheering on the incoming mass of
people that are OK with using resistive touch screen onto our apps/websites?
Try this test: take a resistive touchscreen and a capacitive touchscreen, and
scroll through a long list of names (like the address book). Drop your finger
to stop the scrolling when you see a name zoom by. Come back and tell me which
one was better. Apple is slowly incrementing the specifics of scrolling
gestures across their technologies... the same scrolling gestures that works
on my phone work on my macbook (except they're inverted, what's up with
that?).

~~~
regularfry
> I hate being the city snob, but are we really cheering on the incoming mass
> of people that are OK with using resistive touch screen onto our
> apps/websites?

Yes, because until capacitives drop in price enough to make resistives utterly
redundant, devices like this mean that they're going to represent 80% of the
market (well, for some markets. Markets which it would be foolish to ignore).
The people who have iPads now are lead users. Give it six months to a year,
and the mainstream will catch up; the vast majority won't be buying iPads
_because_ they're seen (and priced) as premium products.

Besides, modern resistives don't have to be _that_ bad. The one on my Nokia
N900 is more than usable, and I have no issues whipping the stylus out for
detail work.

Unless we explicitly opt out of being accessible to the mass market, it's
incumbent on _us_ to make our apps and websites work well for as many types of
interface as possible. If the flick-and-stop gesture for contact searching
doesn't work well on the majority of devices, then we need to find something
which does. Just because Apple have picked something they can uniformly
implement across _their_ range doesn't naturally make it the best option for
everyone; in fact, they're more likely to pick something that only they can
implement well as a differentiator.

~~~
andreyf
I think your points really get at the heart of the matter, thanks :)

I think the flick-and-stop gesture is truly brilliant HCI, and Apple went
through a lot of testing before figuring out exactly how fast things should
scroll for each piece of hardware they make. Once people are used to it, it
truly becomes second nature, and doubly so because it's consistent across
devices (with the exception that on the MB line, you "scroll the camera",
while on the iPhone you "scroll the page").

Again, I'm conscious of my solipsism, I wouldn't want to create apps for users
that don't know how to scroll on a trackpad or use the 'enter' key for the
same reason I imagine making bikes targeted at professional athletes is a lot
more fun than for recreational consumers.

------
andrewjshults
Has anyone seen this in stores yet? For $100 it'd be fun just to hack with
(both the software and the hardware, since I doubt that you could get all of
those components for cheaper).

Also, I love that the screenshot shows the browser with a IE-esque icon.
Really shows the target market.

~~~
gcheong
Walgreens website says they are not sold in stores.

[http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/maylong-7-inch-m-150-wifi-m...](http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/maylong-7-inch-m-150-wifi-
middie-tablet/ID=prod6047418-product)

~~~
mrduncan
Does anyone know if that picture is just an iPad with the screen photoshopped
to Android or is that what it actually looks like?

~~~
jcromartie
It is absolutely a picture of an iPad, since you can see that it (the iPad)
has been stretched out to accommodate the screenshot. The square on the home
button isn't a square anymore.

~~~
poppysan
its not. They just copied the look. (Check out the epad, and the apad and
other versions of this pad)

~~~
patgarner
Then why do all the hardware buttons (sleep, mute, volume, home) exactly match
the layout of the buttons on the iPad? It looks exactly like a stretched out
iPad with a mocked up screen shot.

~~~
regularfry
I wouldn't be surprised if the product design spec _was_ a stretched-out image
of an iPad :-)

------
senthil_rajasek
This runs Android v1.6 and at least according to Maylong's (the manufacturer)
support you can't upgrade to the latest Android due to hardware requirements.

~~~
angusgr
The WM8505 Android 1.6 release has some custom hacks in the UI library layer
to work with their video hardware.

Since VIA released Linux kernel source for this SoC a few months ago, some
other people have successfully worked out more about the graphics driver and
started developing an alternative kernel from scratch[1]. With this
understanding, the possibility of the community porting Froyo is higher than
it was before.

However, AFAIK noone has really put strong effort into it. One of the reasons
I lost interest is that 128Mb of RAM is apparently not enough to run 2.2
decently regardless, and that's all most of the tablets have. If this one has
256Mb then it might actually be up to it.

[1] <http://groups.google.com/group/vt8500-wm8505-linux-kernel>

------
ikujhygtfghyjuk
Outfits like dealextreme.com have had $85 Android tablets with V1.5/1.6 for
the last year.

Until they support something newer (with app store ability) they are basically
junk - so bad you might almost suspect Apple of building them just to poison
the none-iPad market.

------
jmathai
This thread contains a review from someone who actually received one.

<http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102746>

------
joezydeco
I feel bad for the thousands of kids (with well-meaning parents) that will get
this under the tree instead of an iPad this Christmas.

------
ajju
So from reading a couple of forum posts of people who actually bought this,
the device does not have Android Market installed and does not have a setting
which allows you to put it in "USB Debug" mode - which is a prerequisite for
installing apps you have developed.

In short, hold on to that $99 if you are looking for anything other than a
paperweight.

~~~
angusgr
As it's a WM8505 based system then I'm sure these two things will be fairly
quickly worked around. The modder community around this device's predecessors
($99 Eken M001 & others) is fairly strong and there are a lot of custom
firmwares, with both these features.

EDIT: The slatedroid.com forums are probably the best reference source if
you're interested in what people are doing with them.

------
chaosmachine
Disposable computing is here at last.

~~~
r0s
I tend to put laptops in this category.

Like any good nerd I spent countless hours trying to figure a way to remove
and use the screen on one of the broken laptops piled up in my closet. There's
no good reason for that level of waste.

~~~
weaksauce
any success on that project?

~~~
r0s
brk sums it up. It's one reason I don't like laptops in general. Tossing those
perfectly usable screens attached to a faulty motherboard is pretty
distasteful.

~~~
gommm
For me it's always been the screen that died first...

------
spiffworks
Its got a resistive touchscreen and probably no Market access, but it would be
a really good Ubuntu tablet, if you don't mind using a stylus. The price is so
low, I imagine a lot of hackers might start buying it. It shouldn't take long
in that case to get a functioning port.

~~~
r0s
Might make a decent car computer, with some add-ons.

It's kind of crazy you can't buy a discreet touch screen this size for less
than twice the price.

~~~
hugh3
If it had a GPS it'd make a great car computer.

Never mind, I'll wait a year and probably be able to pick up something exactly
as I described. Replace my car iPod and my GPS with one device. I suppose I
could do this right now with an iPad but I'd have to pay for the 3G to get
google maps -- I'd rather have internal maps.

~~~
jrwoodruff
No you wouldn't. You'd have to buy the 3G version to get the GPS censor, but
there are plenty of apps available that store your maps on the iPad. I'm
pretty sure the GPS censor works fine without a 3G plan...

~~~
thehigherlife
it does.

------
3pt14159
Are there any good Android tablets that are iPad size? I don't care about
spending near iPad prices, but so far all I've been able to find is 7" crap
Android tablets.

~~~
greyman
No, there aren't. Nor the iPad size, nor any other size (not counting
smartphones ;-)). The first good one is Galaxy Tab.

~~~
PanMan
Why is it good? I have played around with the tab, and while It wasn't bad, I
expected it to be way cheaper. Since they are about the Same price, choosing
an iPad would be a total no-brainer for me

~~~
greyman
You are right, but the question was if such an Android tablet exist. Maybe
someone would choose tab due its more portable size.

------
WiseWeasel
This reminds me of a Palm Zire I got free with a set of tires, way back when
people actually carried PDAs around with them. I quickly discovered how much
of an impractical piece of junk it was to use, and it's been collecting dust
in a drawer or box somewhere ever since. I predict a similar fate for many of
these underpowered resistive screen tablets.

------
rufugee
You know, with all these commodity tablets popping up, I wonder how you can
actually _trust_ the manufacturer. Each tablet appears to run a customized
version of Android...how do you know that the manufacturer didn't modify it to
send along all of your private data as you use it?

~~~
angusgr
It's funny you say that because the version of Android developed for the
WM8505 (the SoC in the Walgreens) silently phones home to a company in China
for "license verification". Or, at least it did a few months ago.

<http://projectgus.com/2010/07/eken-m001-phone-home/>

(As I said in my blog post, nothing in the device indicated it was phoning
home and the code was obfuscated to disguise these details. There's nothing
particularly stopping any of these small companies from choosing to send other
details if they wanted to.)

------
angusgr
I wonder if Walgreens is complying with GPL by including a notice for source
with the device, and some way for customers to access it. Certainly Maylon
Group doesn't seem to have anything on their site.

(Sorry to sound like a broken record.)

~~~
mdaniel
I mean this in a genuinely inquisitive spirit: is it Walgreen's responsibility
to provide such a thing, considering they are just the retail outlet for the
device?

I would expect that Maylon Group (or whoever is the actual system integrator)
is on the hook for publishing customizations.

~~~
angusgr
If Walgreens are distributing (ie selling) a product containing GPL licensed
software, my understanding is that they are legally responsible for GPL
compliance.

Of course, in practice, it's really the Maylon Group or whoever that will have
to provide the source.

However, to the best of my knowledge, the customer's only legal contract is
with Walgreens, and its up to Walgreens to deal with Maylon Group (or whoever
their supplier is) and ensure compliance - the end customer can't make any
claim on Maylon directly.

------
qeorge
FWIW, there's a bunch of similar Android tablets at DealExtreme. I can't speak
to the quality, and I assume its not good, but you can get a 7" tablet with
Android 2.1 for $160.

[http://www.dealextreme.com/search.dx/search.android%20tablet...](http://www.dealextreme.com/search.dx/search.android%20tablets)

------
geuis
Just put in an order for one. I'll do a review here on HN when I receive it.

------
nitrogen
I'd like to compare the performance of this tablet to that of a 7" USB
touchscreen connected to a SheevaPlug or BeagleBoard.

I bought a Nokia N770 tablet back in the day for the same price, but was never
able to get the development environment working right (everyone had moved on
to the N800). I hope the Android OS on this tablet is as hackable as Maemo.

~~~
angusgr
So, to eyeball it:

This is an ARM9, probably @ 350Mhz[1], hand-wavey-performance around
1.1DMIPS/Mhz, minimal video acceleration.

BeagleBoard is a Cortex A8, 720Mhz, 2.0DMIPS/Mhz, with video acceleration
(probably not via a USB video output, but via one of the Beagle adapters.)

SheevaPlug is 1.2Ghz, no idea what ARM series the Kirkwood is equivalent to.
Obviously no possibility of accelerated video there.

N770 was a 250Mhz ARM9 with some video acceleration features.

Speaking from my own experience, I have a tablet with the same WM8505 SoC
(Eken M001) and it runs Android 1.6 fine. I find for normal browsing and such
that its biggest limitation is the poor quality touchscreen, far before
anything else.

>I hope the Android OS on this tablet is as hackable as Maemo.

Nope. I've already posted a comment about it, but there are a bunch of
proprietary library-level video customisations that noone has yet fully
reverse engineered.

If you want a tablet with BeagleBoard-like performance and good hackability
then there are some OMAP3 Cortex-A8 tablets for around the $200 mark (Wits
A81e is one). Better performance, better open source support.

[1] Despite what Walgeens say, all of the previous WM8505 devices top out at
350Mhz.

~~~
nitrogen
I think it would be relatively straightforward to do accelerated video on USB
touchscreens (like the MIMO) using a BeagleBoard. The GPU would be set up to
render to an off-screen buffer, the udlfb frame buffer pointed at the off-
screen buffer, and the udlfb damage ioctl called for the entire frame every
time glSwap() is called (or using normal damage events for non-immediate-mode
applications). It would probably be good for about 30fps.

------
tocomment
Can this access the app store? Are there only certain apps it can run?

How would this be for reading?

------
aditya
I wonder if this will force apple to drop the price of the base iPad now.
Probably not seeing as they didn't do it for the iPod which had a lot more
competition, but the spread between $99 and $499 is a bit too much...

~~~
tibbon
Apple isn't one to compete on price.

Also for people that want an iPad, this isn't competition, in the same way
that people who want a BMW a Kia isn't competition.

~~~
nihilocrat
This is probably the most succinct analogy on computer pricing discussion I've
seen that a lot of people just don't seem to realize. Perhaps we haven't had
the concept of a "luxury computer" long enough in our heads to make it seem
natural in the same way we think of luxury / economy cars.

------
davidj
they have been selling this since july

------
dholowiski
Does anyone know if these cheap android devices can be hacked to run real
Linux? One of these plus a Bluetooth keyboard might be kind of fun

------
curtisspope
I just ordered mine

------
geuis
Here is the FAQ <http://www.maylonggroup.com/support_tablet.htm>

------
phlux
Here are the specs, since the walgreens page was made by an idiot:

<http://www.maylonggroup.com/M-150_MID.htm>

\---

CPU ARM9(VM8505+)

Memory RAM 256MB DDR

Flash Built-in Flash

Display Touch Panel 7" TFT LCD

Resolution 800 X 480 Pixels

WIFI 802.11b/g

Input/Output

Touch Panel Resistive type touch panel

Speaker Built-in loud speakers

SD/MMC T-Flash card slot

Network/USB Dongle for RJ-45 network and USB connection

Buttons/Switches Power On/Off, Volume adjustment

Battery Built-in Li-Polymer battery

Charger Input AC 100-240V, 0.5A

Output 9V, 1500MA

Physical Characteristics Dimension 7.5" X 4.6" X 0.3"

Weight 12 OZ

~~~
samps
What the hell is an Internet Explorer icon doing in the "Dock" on that
screenshot?

~~~
philipkimmey
In my experience, you really only see Integer Explorer in China.

That being said, locally modified versions of Internet Explorer are extremely
common. I can't remember their names off the top of my head, but even
relatively unsophisticated users frequently download alternative versions of
IE, which are generally based off of older IEs. (At least last time I was
living there, which was about 16 months ago, so take this with a grain of
salt)

Web designers / developers aren't focused on standards in the same way they
are in the US/Europe, so other browsers may not display pages as expected. The
Chinese Internet is quickly catching up with the rest of the world's in terms
of quality, but it still lags behind.

Also, a significant chunk of the population primarily uses computers in Web
Cafes rather than at home, so they don't even have the option of installing
other browsers.

~~~
toolate
Perhaps you were thinking of Maxthon (<http://www.maxthon.com/>)?

