The race to the bottom might have been won. In the world of Android tablets, the price points continue to drop as hardware becomes increasingly cheaper. The pinnacle of that was the Ubislate, set to launch in India and aimed at school-aged kids. The company has produced a retail version of that tablet, and it’s on sale in the UK.
The Ubislate 7Ci (the ‘C’ is for ‘consumer’) is on sale for £29.99, severely undercutting the competition on price. In regard to specs, you can definitely do better. The 7Ci has a 800 x 400 7-inch screen, a 1GHz A8 processor, and 512MB RAM. The 4GB of memory can be expanded to 32GB via microSD, and it runs Android 4.0.3. The product image — which clearly shows a skin from Ubislate — looks like something from the Gingerbread era.
As stated, this maybe a low-cost tablet, but you get what you pay for. The specs are slim, but this one could be a good idea for the market is was originally intended for — kids. Younger children may not have the needs we do when it comes to mobile technology, and could possible do well with such a device. Those with intensive needs should obviously look elsewhere.
In the UK, the low-cost leader had been the Tesco Hudl tablet at £119. This offering sets a new low in terms of pricing, and even beats the expected $100 (£75-ish) of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite. While the race to the bottom has (hopefully) been won, the specs here leave little to be desired for many. A good introductory device, it’s hopefully a stepping stone to more.
