It goes without saying, you get what you pay for. Quality parts, which are required for a quality experience, cost money.
This isn't going to be in the same league as an iPad, or even a Kindle Fire no matter what tweaks or custom ROMs you load.
This isn't going to be in the same league as an iPad, or even a Kindle Fire no matter what tweaks or custom ROMs you load.
If actual battery life 5+ hours (when watching videos) and it is just fast enough for e-reading, light browsing and most small games, I don't see why people wouldn't buy them unless build quality is really low. Then again, dubious build quality doesn't stop people from buying crappy TVs or bluray players.
Nevermind that this manufacturer is small comparatively, and thus can't sell the number of units required for the discounts the likes of Apple, Samsung, and Motorola get.
That said, for only $100 I would be willing to give up a rich multimedia experience/gaming like the iPad for something that did an acceptable job browsing/email.
Or a quick and dirty POS system using Square (or whatever other payment processing people like these days).
Cheaper opens up more applications, ones that "also crappier" doesn't always preclude.
Not everyone in the world earns $120k/year at a Silicon Valley technology job. For much of the world, $500 is a lot of money to spend on a tablet, especially for those outside the United States. In Brazil, for example, after accounting for import taxes on electronics and difference in incomes, spending $500 on a tablet is similar to spending $5,000 on a new tablet in the US. And if you're comparing to a high-paying tech job, that might be more like spending $15,000 on a tablet.
If the iPad was $15,000, would you buy it?
Wherever there's a successful high-end product, there's an even larger space for a lower-priced, lower-end version of that product for the billions of people who can't reasonably afford it. Those who look outside the Silicon Valley bubble realize this, and know that there's a lot of money to be made, even if it's at low margins.
For example, here in New Zealand an IPad will set you back about NZD$800-$1300 depending on your model (16GB Wifi->64GB Wifi+3G). Our currency is currently trading at around 87 US cents, so someone is making a huge amount of money off gadgets in this country.
If tablets reached our shores at something like a reasonable price, people might buy them. Plus this tablet would make a nice testing/development tablet if it can deliver decent performance for the price.