cheap epads & apads from China etc

tvout · 04-11-2011, 09:37

Anyone had any experience with these? They seem to go as cheap as under £30

They look appealing and have 800MHz or 1GHz CPUs and generally good spec...

**Rob** · 04-11-2011, 11:28

If it is cheap there is usually a reason for it.

Peter_ · 04-11-2011, 15:56

We acquired a chinese notebook running Windows CE5.0, I have had more fun licking the terminals of a 12 volt battery, cheap and nasty and the best place for it is in the recycle bin.

**Hugh** · 04-11-2011, 16:41

It depends - some of the HTC and Huawei stuff is OK, but you will pay a reasonable price for those.

As has been said, you buy cheap, you get cheap.

tvout · 04-11-2011, 17:12

What I wonder about is whether any of the stuff is the same as you get sold in the UK but straight from the factory in a sense. I.e. cut out the middle man (retailer in the UK) and pay for the same item without the branding/UK support etc. I bought a few things from China like security cameras and then seen the same one for sale in the UK, often in places like Maplin's in the same box but with a change to the branding and instructions etc, customized to suit the retailer sending the item. I've bought a couple of gadgets from China/Hong Kong which were only about £20 but for sale at around 3 times the price in the UK.
Here's a good example:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/pan-tilt-wir...-camera-508703

I bought the identical item off ebay for around £30 (about £70 less):
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VstarCam-I...item3a6ab69f14

The one off ebay works great although I know if it went wrong I face the hassle of returning to China if there is any kind of warranty in place for it.

One thing I do really think twice about is buying memory from abroad as I've heard about all the fake memory out there. I have a 1TB USB stick I bought really cheap as a fake and it's good fun for winding people up. Showed it to someone in my office and his response was quite loud and lots of heads turned!

I thought it might be worth taking a chance but then again it could be truly cheap and nasty...

Matth · 04-11-2011, 17:57

On cheap Android pads, watch the version - 1.6 is woefully outdated

tvout · 04-11-2011, 22:23

The ones I was looking at were 2.2 or 2.3. Thing is they would be out of date in no time, I wonder if there is a way to update them?

Jameseh · 04-11-2011, 22:51

I think Honeycomb requires 1GHz to run smoothly so you could always try a CyanogenMod port.

tvout · 04-11-2011, 23:31

Thanks Jameseh, I've read elsewhere as well about these tablet PCs not having the actual Android OS, it's like a fake knock off OS similar to it or something like that and as a result it's not the true Android Market either with much fewer apps...?

**Hugh** · 04-11-2011, 23:53

Since Android OS is free, why would they knock it off?

Jameseh · 05-11-2011, 00:16

Some of the dirt cheap tablets don't have Google Certification? (something along those lines) so they don't include the Android Market, Gmail or the other apps you get on other Android devices when you buy it.

It still runs a legitimate version of Android and you can always buy your apps from the Amazon Appstore which has most of the popular apps on.

tvout · 05-11-2011, 09:26

Doesn't sound too bad, can you copy across apk files and install them. I've seen angry birds on them, that plays quite jerky on my wildfire...

ZrByte · 05-11-2011, 12:55

You can mod them all quite easily to add full android market, checkout slatedroid.com. Ive done it myself with my Hannspree Hannspad. The tablet shipped with 2.2 and no market, I updated it to 3.0 with full market but have since settled on 2.3 with full market due to massively increased speed and due to a small bug on 3.0 which spoilt one of my main uses.
The real trick is identifying some of the cheaper ones as you need to know the chipset and board model to do any modding. Another thing to consider is that a lot of the cheaper ones only have a resistive screen which means no multi-touch lower sensitivity and a lot less accurate. You also lose some features in android without multitouch such as page zooming.

tvout · 05-11-2011, 13:59

Thanks ZrByte, it sounds like there is hope on the software side but the hardware might be a bit of a let down. I don't know how much of a nuisance the resistive screen might be to use. I actually decided to buy two as they were only around $45 (around £28) and even if rubbish they fetch about that price or more on ebay so could hopefully flog them again if really bad. I bought a 4GB/512MB 'apad' with 800MHz Via 8650 on 2.2 and also a Hannspree with 1GHz ARM. I know realistically the cost of something like an iPad will be out of my reach so thought I'd take the chance with a cheaper alternative...