for Xmas from a relative who doesn’t know much about technology. It’s called a Ubislate 7ci. As it came from the box it was unusable. It uses an older edition of Android and parts that are a generation or so outdated, but the real trouble is the shitware that was all pre-loaded and couldn’t be deleted. Ads everywhere on every fucking thing you opened…more ads loading than the thing could process. So, I spent much of yesterday rooting it and deleting all that crap. I rooted a Toshiba Thrive tablet a year or so ago and it was pretty straightforward. This thing was stubborn. In any case, I did finally get it rooted and cleared of shitware. As it came from the factory, it did not have any of the google stuff installed, including the app store, and adding a google account can’t be done…at least not by me. So, daughter is limited to what she can get from Amazon. Not too much of a handicap IMO. It runs reasonably well now. It actually runs Netflix and Crunchy Roll flawlessly and with decent picture quality. She was running the Facebook and Tumblr apps on it with no issues today. Her Ipod is still, deservedly, the item she prefers for most things, but the Ubislate seems destined for a lot of use as a tiny TV. She was watching Futurama on it when I went to get her up this morning.
I can’t recommend the item, overall. You have to do to much to it to make it work. For a few bucks more WallyWorld has other inexpensive tablets that will be much more satisfactory. If the one I pissed with had come with the google apps installed, I might give it half a star more.
What is a good sub $100 tablet? Ipads are way too much for me to justify the price, but a tablet might be nice.
I have an RCA I bought at Walmart last summer as a quick replacement for my Toshiba which I dropped and broke. I paid around $80 for the RCA which came with a case/external keyboard and a charger. It isn’t as sophisticated as the thrive was in some ways, but it runs well and it was cheap. It works well enough that I never did get the Thrive repaired (replacing the screen will cost about as much as new toshiba tablet). I rooted the RCA yesterday as well, since I was in that frame of mind.
I have an HP Stream 7, which cost $99.
It’s not a fantastic tablet, but I liked it enough that I bought a bunch for my family members. So far, they’re happy with it as well. I was surprised that my dad seems to like it the most, and he’s a mild technophobe.
I think it’s just fine as a “starter tablet” that you use primarily for web, email, Facebook, e-reading, and other basic stuff. It’s not so hot for more advanced stuff, but that’s primarily a function of the poor state of the Microsoft app store.
Interestingly, it runs a full version of Windows. So you can actually run normal x86 desktop apps. I don’t recommend it for the most part since most desktop apps don’t work well on a touch interface, but it works in a pinch. You can hook up a mouse and keyboard if you want (with a cheap USB-to-go cable).
Upsides:
- Pretty usable 7" tablet
- Low price
- Decent storage (32 GB), upgradable with microSD
- Decent CPU speed (4-core Atom)
- Full Windows 8.1
Downsides:
- Screen is only 1280x800 pixels; usable but no comparison to more expensive tablets
- Battery life isn’t great. 8 hours at most, and worse, drains the battery in about 2 days in standby.
- Cameras are absolute garbage. Just barely usable for Skype, and not much more.
- A little on the heavy side, and not great build quality (seemingly durable but cheap feeling).
At any rate, for $99 I’m happy with it. It exceeds my first-gen Kindle Fire in every way. And for me the real x86 processor is a boon, though that’s probably irrelevant for most. It’s cheap enough that I can “play rough” with it and not worry too much about breaking it.
If you keep you eye out for sales you can get refurbished Nexus 7 2nd generation 16 Gb units for around $ 100 these days. That’s about the most bang for the buck I can think of.
I got the grandkids an $80 RCA tablet 2 years ago. The main problem is very limited storage - games need to be deleted monthly (they’ve never seen one they didn’t want). It’s been fine for low-end gaming, which is all they use it for.
Oh… I read that as ‘tables’ in the title
I didn’t understand a fucking word of the OP.
What exactly are you having trouble with? Seemed understandable to me.
I got a Flipedge Pi Ultra for 98 cents and ten Bazooka Joe wrappers. I rooted the DRAM and static ported the baud modem. Then the Tor bluescreened the BBS, so my kiloflops were overclocked until I modded Mountain Dew and pizza shooters. So my Killer App AMC Gremlin tap and die Fresnel lens electron The Cloud iBlackberry, so a bunch of pron started popping up, at which point I knew my job was done.
:golf clap:
I got a Trio 7.85" tablet from Best Buy for about $80.
You do have to recognize its limits, like only 512 MB of RAM… still, it does what I need it to (play movies and read books) very well. There’s only 8 GB of built-in memory, but I got an SD card to add another 32 MB for document storage.
Now, THAT I understand!