“$100 ICS Tablet” Novo7 is available for pre-order… for $120

More than a few people got excited at the prospect of a $100 Ice Cream Sandwich tablet when a no-name manufacturer sprang out of China marketing the Novo7… and immediately became less excited at a $60 shipping fee that seemed more than a little fishy. Now the same low-powered tablet is sitting pretty with a pre-order status on import sites PandaWill and Merimobiles, both of which seem legitimate enough as far as Internet storefronts go. The latter is claiming an $80 discount off of the “retail” price of $200. Just for a quick refresher, the specs on the Ainol Novo/Novo7/Knight/Paladin (it seems to have something of an identity crisis) are as follows: a 7-inch screen with just 800 x 480 pixels, a 1Ghz processor and 512MB of RAM, and...

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Ubislate7 - Aakash's Commercial version on Sale

Aakash, the $35 Android tablet by DataWind has taken commercial shape in form of Ubislate7. Ubislate7 is priced at 2999 INR, roughly $60 and will be out by late January next year. DataWind has already started Pre-booking the tablet. Ubislate7 is touted as the next generation tablet which will be commercially available everywhere and to everyone. This next version of Aakash is loaded with better features and specifications.Ubislate7, as per spec, is a 7" tablet like Aakash and 3x faster than the former. The tablet runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Below are the detailed spec of the tablet.7" inch TFT capacitive multi-touch screenAndroid 2.3 Gingerbread Cortex A8 – 700 Mhz3200 mAhWifi & GPRS connectivityIt is interesting to note that the Aakash tablets have already been sold out and only...

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GameStop begins selling Android tablets with free games

Say what you will about GameStop, as many have and will, but you can accuse them of being anything less than shrewd business. To that end they’re expanding their mostly console and portable video game stock to include Android tablets from Samsung, Asus and Acer, starting in a few select stores today. The tablets will be pre-loaded with seven free games including Dead Space and Madden NFL 2012. The first tablets on sale are the Acer Iconia Tab 100, Asus Eee Pad Transformer and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. The tablets won’t cost any less than they do at other retail locations, and if GameStop’s regular pricing structure is anything to go on, they’ll probably be more expensive than at least a few. But gamers hungry for a new mobile experience...

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$35 Aakash tablet gets a hands-on, deemed surprisingly OK

The Indian government got some gadget good will when they began subsidizing the incredibly cheap Aakash Android tablet, bringing its student price down to a mere $35. The question on hardware junkies’ minds is, is the experience on such a low-grade device acceptable at all? VentureBeat smuggled one of the tablets out and put together a hands-on, and surprisingly, the Aakash came away with a pretty solid showing. Naturally the Aakash isn’t going to wow those of us jaded by high-res, high-price Honeycomb tablets. Its Android Froyo operating system and 366 MHz processor are outstripped by the cheapest subsidized smartphones, and a resistive 800 x 400 touchscreen doesn’t hold a candle to more modern devices. But for all that, the tablet...

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Android tablet users to get free articles from top mags

Zinio has announced that its new Zinio Explore offering is now available. The Explore service will allow Android tablet users to get access to free magazine articles from some of the top magazines in the world. The goal is naturally to get you to buy the magazines that the stories come from, but if all you want is some free reading material the app will do that too. Zinio Explore is offered alongside the “Shop” and “Eead” sections of the existing app. There is supposed to be a wide variety of stories that the users can read at no charge. The stories the Explore section offers are updated daily at the same time the new issues of magazines and publications hit newsstands. The new feature is offered in the latest update to the Zinio...

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Android scores 27% of worldwide tablet sales in Q3 2011

Things are looking up for Android’s tablet aspirations. Though the iPad is still the market leader, Android tablets are slowly carving out a space, to the tune of 4.5 million shipments in the last three months. That’s 26.9% of the worldwide market, edging up towards the iPad’s 66.6%. The growth is considerable, since not long ago the iPad made up a huge 80% chunk of sales. Unfortunately a large percentage of Android tablets are still running on Gingerbread or Froyo, essentially translating a smartphone interface into a 7-10″ screen. According to Google’s latest activation and OS percentage numbers, only 3.4 million Android devices are running Honeycomb, despite a worldwide total of 6 million. Smaller, cheaper tablets are still firmly...

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Coby Kyros 10″ Android tablet clears the FCC

The popular manufacturer that has recently took interest in Android lately, Coby, has another tablet in the works and it has just cleared the FCC. Being called the Coby Kyros MID1125 this 10″ Android 2.3 Gingerbread tablet looks pretty sleek for the price we expect it to be, and apparently should be hitting stores soon. Coby currently has a few lower end tablets already on the market but with outdated software. While we don’t have Honeycomb on this latest offering it will be a great all around tablet and be priced around $200. Their other devices can be found at places like Amazon, or local stores such as K-Mart and Target. The new Kyros MID1125 seen above features a 10.1″ 1024 x 600 resolution display, 1.0 GHz single-core processor,...

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Sony Music Unlimited comes to Tablet S and other Android tablets

Sony has announced that its unlimited music streaming service is now available for Android tablets. The video streaming platform has been on tablets already. The service is Sony’s Music unlimited and it is first hitting the Sony Tablet S device. It will also be available as a download app for any Android tablet user to enjoy. The app allows access to the cloud-based Music Unlimited network. The new v1.2 app allows tablets to access the service, which has been available for Android smartphones for a while. The updated app also brings with it a tweaked user interface. The subscriber can now create playlists faster and discover related artists more easily. The navigation between album view and the catalog is faster as well. The Music...

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Kobo Vox tablet is ready to fight Fire at $199

Between Barnes & Noble and Amazon, you’d be forgiven for forgetting the Kobo line of e-readers, but the company has just presented a compelling reason not to. The Kobo Vox is Kobo’s take on a tablet/reader, a la the Nook Color or Kindle Fire, and like the latter it starts at just $199.99. Unlike the Fire, it’s shipping out this month. In a bit of convergent gadget evolution (Kobo must have been working on the Vox for months), the tablet features a lot of the same specifications as the Kindle Fire. It’s got a similar 7-inch, 1024 x 600 screen, and it also runs a heavily skinned version of Android 2.3 Gingerbread. An 800MHz processor and 512MB of RAM isn’t exactly screaming fast, but it’ll do for reading books from the Kobo bookstore...

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Sony Video Unlimited now available on Tablet S, coming to other devices

Are Netflix, HBO GO, movie rentals from the Android Market and a half-dozen other video solutions just not enough for you? Well take heart movie buff, Sony Video Unlimited is available now for the Tablet S, and it’ll be coming to other Android devices soon. What’s interesting here is that Sony isn’t limiting its distribution to its own tablets and phones – other manufacturers will be supported as well. That’s a surprising move from Sony, who’s historically been a big proponent of the Apple-style walled garden. (Anybody remember ATRAC? Ugh.) The company says that it will soon release the Sony Video Unlimited rental app (formerly Qriocity) for a wide range of devices, dependent upon the software’s hardware requirements. The complicated...

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Epesitec launches new Android tablets starting at $189

There are hoards of Android tablets on the market today and it seems that everyone wants to get in on the action. I think that what the market needs isn’t more Android tablets that have high-end features to sell in the same price range as the iPad. What we really need are some companies to step in and flesh out the cheap entry-level range of the Android tablet realm. Amazon recently did this with the unveiling of the Kindle Fire tablet. Another company is stepping into the low-end tablet realm with a pair of offerings that aren’t the most powerful, but they are solid for the price. Both of the tablets come from Epesitec and have 7-inch capacitive touch screens. They also run Android 2.3 and have 512MB of RAM onboard. Storage is to...

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Velocity Micro unveils new Cruz T408 and T410 tablets

Velocity Micro is extending its tablet offerings with a pair of new budget-priced Gingerbread models. The Cruz T408 and Cruz T410 are 8-inches and 10-inches respectively (natch), with built-in access to the Amazon App Store and WiFi Internet access. The tablets are available now starting at $239. Both tablets share identical internals: a 1GHz Cortex processor, 512Mb of RAM, a front-facing camera and an extremely welcome capacitive touchscreen. The screens themselves are oddly mismatched: the 8-inch T408 will have a 4:3 screen, whereas the T410 goes for a full widescreen 16:9 experience. Resolutions weren’t announced, but I’d guess 8oo x 600 and 1280 x 720, respectively. There’s a surprising amount of built-in apps, including QuickOffice,...

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Angry Birds themed tablet

So we know that the Angry Birds game is popular, so much so that there have been so many spin-offs based on the game, both in the official and unofficial capacity. For example you will be able to find Angry Bird apparel, soft toys, figurines, speakers, phone covers, and even an amusement park based on the game! Now it looks like there’s even an Angry Birds tablet available. The tablet is actually based off the Wopad V7 tablet, which houses a Cortex A8 CPU with the ability to playback 1080p HD videos. What makes this Wopad V7 an Angry Birds tablet is that the 4GB of memory it comes with has been installed with a variety of Angry Birds digital media. It ranges from applications like the different Seasons variations of the game, along...

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Panasonic unveils new BizPad Android tablets

In Japan, Panasonic has officially announced the launch of two new BizPad Android tablets. Designed for heavy duty work, these Android tablets are said to be shock resistant, dust resistant and water resistant, with an easily replaced battery pack – for those times when you just need a fully charged battery to use out of the office. Other features include: a card reader/writer, NFC, security features, and optional 3G. The tablet will be available in two sizes: the 7″ JT-580VT Series and the 10.1″ JT-581VT Series. Both tablets will run on Android 3.2 Honeycomb. No word on pricing, but the JT-580VT will be available in late December, and the JT-581VT in mid-January next year. [Press Releas...

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Pandigital SuperNova confirmed, 8-inch Gingerbread tablet for $229

It’s positively raining cheap wifi tablets lately. The big brother to the original Pandigital Nova is the SuperNova, and after munching down a Super Mushroom it’s upgraded to an 8-inch capacitive display. Unfortunately, the resolution is still a rather disappointing 800 x 600 in a 4:3 aspect ratio. The budget tablet should hit retailers soon at a price of $229. Other hardware details include a 1Ghz single-core processor, an onboard micro-HDMI port and Bluetooth 2.1. Internal storage is 4GB with a free MicroSD slot for expansion. Pandigital doesn’t have Google’s blessing for any of their tablet offerings, so users will have to make do with the GetJar alternative app store. A few built-in apps like Barnes & Noble’s ebook ...

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$35 DataWind Aakash tablet on sale in India

India has long been the home of dirt-cheap tech for the masses, and now you can add an Android tablet to the mix. The Aakash (Hindi for “sky”) tablet is being sold for the equivalent of $45 to the general public, with subsidized $35 versions selling to students and teachers. In local currency it’s about 1,700 Rupees. The basic tablet is being made by budget manufacturer DataWind. There’s not a lot of info available on the tablet hardware, but we do know that the 7-inch device is running on 2.2 Froyo, like most Android smartphones at the moment. Since video conferencing is mentioned by the Human Resource Development Minister, we can conclude that there’s at least some kind of webcam included. The low-cost devices are intended to “lift...

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Get the low-down on India’s $45 tablet

India is set to launch a $45 ultra-low cost tablet computer aimed at providing connectivity to the country’s masses. The tablet, called Akash (meaning Sky), is a government project that was long heralded as innovative, however years of delay and uncertainty have frustrated many advocates of the program. The limited spec, which is expected given the $45 price-point, is detailed below: Running an Android 2.2 operating system7 inch touchscreen32GB expandable memory256-megabyte RAMTwo USB portsWi-Fi Internet accessVideo conferencing capabilityInternal media playerEstimated battery life of 180 minutes2GB SD memory card included AFP confirms that an initial 500 devices will be given to students, with the Indian government hopeful that device...

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ASUS Transformer 2′s price to remain the same

One of the reasons why the HP TouchPad did so well after HP had announced their plans to discontinue webOS, was due to its massive price cut, which saw the webOS tablet drop to a mere $99 for the base model, which was a price even cheaper than certain digital photo frames! Amazon too decided to follow suit and announced that their Kindle Fire would only cost $199, even going as far as losing $10 per tablet sold. Now if you were expecting this particular strategy to start being adopted by other tablet manufacturers, you may be in for a disappointment. While market watchers had expected ASUS to follow suit with their upcoming Eee Pad Transformers 2 tablet, the company’s CEO Jerry Shen stated that they had no plans on reducing the tablet’s...

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Panasonic Toughbook Android Tablet Revealed

Panasonic has revealed its rugged Android tablet. It is a sturdy-looking 10.1″ tablet that looks like it can take punishing shocks on every corner, without being knocked out. Panasonic pitches it as a “business tablet”, so it comes with 3G/4G and IT management features, including hardware-level features that could mean “encryption”. It also has handwriting recognition and does not need a stylus, which has been a hallmark of business tablet for so long....

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Sharp kills Galapagos 5.5 and 10.8 tablets, 7-inch version inbound

Sharp has announced that it has ended the production of the first two Galapagos tablets, the 5.5-inch and 10.8-inch versions. Sharp isn’t killing the line though, it still has plans to launch a 7-inch tablet. The two killed Galapagos tablets are no longer available to order. I would assume that means that there is no more stock on them since presumably Sharp would want to move all that inventory rather than just stop taking orders on them. Sharp does note that it will continue to offer eBook downloads on its store. That means if you own a Galapagos tablet you will still be able to use it as an e-reader. That 7-inch tablet that is still in the works is the A01SH that we first talked about back in August. We know the tablet will have...

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