The smart-phone market exploded after the iPhone came out and spawned a virtual flood of copy cats, some good, some not so good.
Likewise, after the iPad, now comes another virtual flood of copy cat tablets. However, so far, none of the ones that I have seen have really been that great. This goes especially for Android based tablets, which Google actuallys says isn't even ready for the tablet form factor, at least not quite yet anyway.
However, some of the cheaper knock-offs, as seen in the $100 Maylong M-150 above, are down right horrible. As you can see in the opening photo, via Engadget, this 7 inch tablet borrows heavily from the iPad's basic design and interface, and even includes an OS X like dock! However, this particular tablet seems, based on its icon, to be running Internet Explorer. The Maylong M 150 includes a pokey 400MHz VIA VM8505+ processor, built-in WiFi, an undetermined amount of built-in memory, and for expansion a microSD card, and the whole shebang sells for a paltry $100 at your local Walgreen's!
Mind you, what the Maylong M-150 doesn't seem to have, however, is any sense of quality, durability or speed. As you can see from the video featured on Engadget, and as well here, this thing seems to take forever to start up! Compare that to the iPad's 'instant on' feature and it becomes quite clear that you really do get what you pay for!
So, in conclusion, even though we are now beginning to see high quality tablets such as HP's new Slate 500, they either run on Windows 7 or Android. Microsoft's latest OS makes for a great desktop and laptop OS, and Android a great phone OS, but, however, at the moment, neither are exactly what you would call ideal for use in tablets either. Eventually, Windows and Android tablets may give the iPad a serious run for its money, but, in the meantime, tablets such as the Maylong M-150 not only serves to make the iPad look all the better, but, at the same time, makes other tablets, especially Android based ones look all the worse.
And that's my 2 cents 4 this Thursday, October 28, 2010
0 comments:
Post a Comment