There are so many value-priced Android tablets out there that we tend to gloss over them unless there’s something notable to report. In the case of the Ematic eGlide XL Pro 2, there’s two: the price and the features. The former is just $219, just a little more than the “reader tablets” already available and considerably less than the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (which is a deal in itself). The latter is that it’s a 10-inch tablet running Android 4.0 out of the box, something we’re always glad to see.
The eGlide XL Pro 2 (they’ve got the convoluted Android naming patterns down alright) features a 1Ghz CPU and 400mhz GPU of unknown origin, and aside from the screen size that’s all we know for hardware. It appears that the company has entered into an agreement with Kobo for book delivery, but there’s no mention of Google services anywhere – this one will require some tinkering to get the Google Play Store on there. Ematic also has its proprietary EDAN voice assistant app pre-loaded.
The tablet is on sale now at a variety of retailers including Wal-Mart. I’m really hoping that the machine makes an impression. We know that Ice Cream Sandwich can run decently on low-end hardware, thanks to the HTC One V, and a low-cost tablet that doesn’t compromise on screen size could be a very popular alternative to existing $200 models.
