A $45 Android tablet | Hacker News Reader

A $45 Android tablet

walmart.com

41 pointsyapcguy66 comments

I got one similar to this using points from my credit card, I checked online, many similar ones for around $50 these days. The one I got was a profound piece of crap, I fooled around with it a little, then disassembled it for fun. Honestly, destroying it was the most enjoyment I got from it.

To be fair, if you're an engineer, this could be true of many of your possessions :).

You don't even have to be an engineer for that to be true...

I wonder if devices like that are good for Android, or bad. One the one hand they can bring Android who otherwise wouldn't have had the money to afford a device, but on the other hand the default browsing experience is apparently quite slow and it doesn't support the Google Play Store[1].

[1] http://rodmc.com/?p=494

This one in particular seems to have some major shortcomings. Quoting a review from a buyer: "Advertised on Walmart.com as a "Google" Android product, but Google play store and Google apps will not run on it. Returned for refund."

I'm not sure whether or not devices like this are good for Android in and of themselves, but they're an inevitable consequence of something that is great fit Android: that people can take the Android source and run with it in a variety of ways, whether Google wants them to or not.

For example, the first Android tablets pre-date the iPad by months and the first Google Android tablets by about a year. Or you could look at the variety of activity in the Android STB space, which has been substantially more interesting and successful than Google's official efforts, so far

I understand why there are a bunch of these devices, but I don't understand why the manfs don't release more information about them.

I'm finding it hard to work out exactly what processor is used in this device.

Setting up a wiki with minimal information, and then seeding the hacker community with a few devices, would probably make one brand stand out over all the other minimal Android tablets there are.

A device that could be rooted, could have a Linux installed, or could have a different Android version installed, would be interesting for hackers. The manfs don't have to offer any support.

It's possible it is sourced with the cheapest components they can find. They don't list the processor as it can change.

People buying $49 tablets may not care as much what specific processor it is.

Nearly all, if not all, of these are based on the "china special" which is an Android tablet built on top of the Allwinner CPUs (the A13 is popular in the cheap ones) Ars reviewed a $99 tablet[1] which was pretty funny. If you go to Alibaba.com and search for 'android tablet' you will find a bunch of these. And if you can navigate the Chinese there is a reference design on the Allwinner site which is pretty much exactly what you get.

Put a capacitive touch screen on an Raspberry Pi and boot Android on it and you'll have a better tablet than this I suspect. If someone does a definitive teardown of the specific Walmart model that would let us know exactly which reference design they used.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/11/worst-gadget-ever-ars...

The A13 and A10 are substantially newer and faster than the Raspberry Pi. Video decode acceleration on them sucks though.

The $45 tablet is a non-Google Play device. So not that impressive.

This one is $59, and shows a screen shot with Google Play, GMail, etc. on it: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ematic-7-Tablet-with-4GB-Memory-an...

A real Google logo device for $59 would be pretty astounding.

The $45 tablet has a FAQ on the manf website apologising for having screen shots of the Google Play Store; and saying that these are an error that they're correcting.

The $59 device has a PDF for installing an alternative store so maybe they've made a similar error? (http://www.ematic.us/sites/default/files/Installing1MobileMa...) The quickstart guide shows some other app store. (http://www.ematic.us/sites/default/files/EGL26BL_QSG.pdf)

EDIT: the manf website for the cheaper device is horrible. Here it is (http://xeliotablet.com/) they have a faq about the play store on there somewhere.

It would be great to see that 3rd tier OEMs can access the Google Play store. I have long wondered why Google would shun inexpensive tablets. Android can accommodate lo-rez screens and slower CPUs pretty well, and existing automated tests can verify compatibility.

Seems useless. From one of the reviews: "Advertised on Walmart.com as a "Google" Android product, but Google play store and Google apps will not run on it."

For ~$100 on ebay, the (old) HP TouchPad seems a better option of a cheap tablet. You can install ICS with little effort, and run pretty much everything.

If it comes rooted / can be rooted, then an android device can install Google Play and everything by mimicking a Galaxy Nexus (or any common device) by editing build.prop. There are lots of tutorials online about this topic.

http://highonandroid.com/android-apps/how-to-install-google-...

It doesn't have Google apps because they probably didn't go through Google's testing and licensing program, not because of some technical incompatibility.

If you're going to go through the hassle of getting some EOL'd device to install an unofficial hacked-up port of Android, it would be much less painful to just side-load the Play Store app (or get Amazon's market app) on this $45 tablet.

I bought one such tablet couple of years back( Velocity Micro Cruz T301) for $69 on woot. The tablet was pretty much useless for daily use. Flashed AOSP and installed play store. Still useless, as most apps don't show up for that device. However, works okay as a cloud connected photoframe.

I think it's more interesting to look at the range of prices from a company you've actually heard of. Take ASUS for example.

ASUS makes the current nexus 7 ($199) : http://www.google.com/nexus/7/ But they will also sell you another 16GB, 7" tablet for $99 ASUS MeMo Pad : http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-MeMO-ME172V-A1-GR-7-0-Inch-Tablet...

Perhaps the lesson here is, by going back a generation, you can halve the price of a tablet. As we've hit the $199 mark for 7" tablets for some time now, $99 tablets from brands you actually know should be no surprise. As the price of these tablets fall to 150 and lower, one generation older tablets for 75, 60 or even 50 will become the norm.

If you don't have a smartphone and want a cheap "tablet," then look into buying a used smartphone. Doing so is super cheap because you don't have to buy a data plan. Besides, phones tend to be more portable. I got a Droid2 for $30 on Amazon.

sounds more like an "iPod touch" than a tablet per se but I approve of the clever strategy :)

Give it a few years and all those 5.5" "phablets" will be cheap on the used market. :)

The value sweet spot is almost certainly at a higher price than these products, but even a 7" tablet with a crummy screen has a better UX for browsing and Google Drive apps than a handset. The pricing of these devices could be the reason lots more poor kids get a real Internet experience, and that could be revolutionary.

> The pricing of these devices could be the reason lots more poor kids get a real Internet experience, and that could be revolutionary.

I really hope they remember the lousy experience and remember to code for low-spec devices in future. I love the nice whizz-bang websites, but it's frustrating when they use weird features for no real purpose and thus slow the page load down.

I refuse to do business with walmart... their buisness ethics are just horrible.

Where do you go instead?

Farmers markets

I have trouble going to farmers markets. Wife works in a bay area hospital and takes care of many Hispanic patients, a large majority do farm labor. I think working for Walmart would be a major upgrade vs what they get in return for working on the farm. However I do not know that all the farms that come to farmers markets use the same kind of employment or that is only for the mega corp farms selling to the rest of the country...

I know organic food is already "expensive" but it seems like they should do something to increase these peoples quality of life

Farm laborers get paid by how productive they are rather than by the hour. It's shit work but pays 2-3x more "per hour" than Wal Mart. Plus it's easy to pack in a lot of work, whereas Wal-Mart generally only lets employees work about 30 hours a week.

Not according to this.

"Farm workers had low individual earnings from farm work; the median income from farm work was between $2,500 and $5,000. Three-fourths earned less than $10,000 annually."

http://www.doleta.gov/agworker/report/ch3.cfm

Right, but they make all their money over a few months, so the per-hour take home is more than Wal Mart. I'm not suggesting that it's a good job, only offering an explanation as to why someone would choose to do it vs. a minimum wage job.

Farmers Markets, Meijer, Amazon

> Amazon

That's not much of an improvement.

I don't know how much better Target is but that's one alternative. What do you usually purchase at Walmart that can't be purchased else where? I live in the Bay Area and getting to the closest Walmart is very difficult so I haven't been there in years.

You shouldn't get your news from unions. Unions don't like walmart because it's not a union shop, and it's large so make a nice target.

Walmart itself is no different from any other large retailer.

Except for Costco, which manages to pay it's employees a decent wage and still keep prices low.

Costco is not in the same business as WalMart. They have an order of magnitude fewer SKU's. They deal with a completely different clientèle, and the profit for each item is much higher, so their labor costs are lower.

You can not compare WalMart and Costco.

Except that, if you have both a WalMart and a CostCo in your town, you'll still make a cost-comparison, between:

    cost of set of things found at WalMart A
    + cost of a few extra things not found at WalMart B
    + travel time T

and

    cost of set of things found at CostCo A'
    + cost of a few extra things not found at CostCo B'
    + travel time T'

In other words, you might not be able to find all the same things at WalMart and CostCo, or for the same prices, but if you're in the price-range of both stores and trying to optimize your purchasing, you'll still be deciding which one to shop at.

First that's a comparison for the shopper, not the retailer (and we are discussing the retailer here).

And second, you can only buy at Costco if you need the quantities they sell. Everything you can get at Costco you can also get at WalMart, but the reverse is not the case - it's not "a few extra thing" - Costco doesn't carry a huge amount of stuff you can get at WalMart.

So for the consumer buying at Costco is exclusively about what quantity they need. (Or if they have a lot of storage space + budget to store extra.) And then they also have to go to WalMart to fill in the rest.

Or in other words they complement each other - they are only partially competitors.

Costco's median customer lives in a $75K household. Poor people certainly don't have the same purchasing power to buy high-end products in bulk.

UFCW still enforces minimum wage, no benefits, and still feels like it is okay to take your money and tell you to go on strike and take a financial hit.

I worked in a UFCW store. Absolute worst mistake you can ever make. The hours are chopped so they can sidestep giving benefits, etc. There is no protection. These unions are an utter scam, selling an ideal and a myth.

I wouldn't be surprised if Walmart effectively pays better than their union competitors.

I hate unions too...

What "business ethics" are you referring to?

Have you been inside a Wal Mart? It's different than many other large retailers. I'm not the OP, but I also take my business elsewhere.

I've been in a Wal Mart, K-mart, Target, Sears and other stores.

Only superficial differences between them.

In my area there is a Target and a Wal-Mart directly across the street from each other which makes for a good comparison.

The Wal-Mart has a very large surface lot that currently has a LED sign like used by interstate construction crews to display a rotating message that shop lifters will be prosecuted, has RVs and sketchy vans parked overnight and the 24/7 security roaming around feels necessary. The customers are obviously poor and unusually overweight (which is saying something for the US!). In short, it's depressing.

The Target has a parking deck because there are stores below it (a Whole Foods and some others). There aren't rent a cops rolling around, but it feels safe. Partly because parking lot is much smaller (and covered) because there are multiple floors. The customers don't all seem to be on public assistance and since it's not 24 hours there aren't suspicious characters hanging out overnight.

The difference is very stark. Wal-Mart is more like Dollar General than Target.

You shouldn't get your news from corporate media. Corporate media don't like unions because they fight for living wages which cut profits from the few who benefit from them.

Economists don't like protectionist unions. Who determines a "living wage"? Should someone working as a cashier in Walmart be able to afford an apartment in Manhattan?

"Living wage" is a pretty common economic concept. Feel free to google it.

I'm actually an economist and the term is only used by non-economists.

I'm actually an economist and I use it all the time.

> Economists don't like protectionist unions.

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

What peer-reviewed research paper are you citing for your claim?

Someone working as a cashier in Walmart should be able to afford shelter, food, and necessary non-emergency medical expenses. A 'living wage' is just that -- I work for you, you pay me at least enough to survive employment. What that amounts to, obviously, depends on the standard of living in any particular area.

So minimum wage in Manhattan should be set at $50/hour?

If it's impossible to survive in (or on, whatever) Manhattan for less than that, then yes. But I suspect there's a more flexible reality to the market than your question implies, given that people there already work for less than that and aren't dying in the streets as a result.

A minimum wage just means you can't decide one day that sales are down and now everyone makes 2 cents an hour to cover costs [1]. It means there should be an implicit minimum cost to maintaining a human workforce, because people need to eat.

[1]obviously not an economist

No,because rent in Harlem (a few train stops away) requires less to live on.

If there is 1 adult with 3 children it is close: $41.91

http://livingwage.mit.edu/places/3606151000

If Wal-Mart had to pay a "living wage" (and who defines what that is? Certainly not the worker.) they would not exist. You may think that's good, or bad, but most of the Wal-Mart jobs would not exist at all if they were forced to pay an artificially high wage to their employees.

There's no such thing as an "artificially high" wage. If a union can demand higher wages then those are the natural wages.

> and who defines what that is?

In Australia in the past there was a national industrial court that did this. In Germany regular courts did something similar. Courts are expensive, so why not use a computer program from MIT:

http://livingwage.mit.edu

> most of the Wal-Mart jobs would not exist at all if they were forced to pay an artificially high wage to their employees

People would still buy things. Something like this happens:

> With minimum wage laws, the increased costs are passed to employers who in turn charge consumers higher prices if possible. Faced with higher prices, consumers purchase fewer goods thus leading to a redistribution ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage#Impact

> forced to pay an artificially high wage

And who says the wage is artificially high? Maybe it would be the market rate if market power was more equal.

Isn't it by definition artificially high if you have to enact a law to enforce it? I mean, if it wasn't artificial, that would already be the wage...

By artificial I mean "different from a market outcome".

There is quite clearly an asymmetry in information and market power between Wal-Mart and individual employees.

This will inevitably lead to artificially low wages.

So raising them with a law will return them to a free market level, where free market implies complete information, interchangeable goods and services, and lack of market power

Honey Boo Boo wanted an iPad, I said no, it's too 'spensive. But I saw these down at the Wal-Mart, and they's just as good and only fo'ty-five bucks!

Honey Boo Boo! Don't tell me you broke that thang already! I tole you not to drop sketti on it!

Very poignant and witty. Better contender for Mark Twain than Sam can ever do.

Eventually, tablets will be free and will make money from services & advertising.

The Race to the Bottom!

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