Having been a technology rebel all this time, I finally entered an apple istore yesterday to checkout the new ipad2 which is a fantastic new piece of mobile technology released by the company which introduced the "pad" to the world. Being the hater of apple as I am and the fan of open source affordable technologies, why I decided to go see the ipad2 would seem a bit daft especially when there are at least two new android 3.1 honeycomb powered tablets hitting the market. The reason for this act of lunacy was that after reading countless reviews, watching numerous unboxings and paying keen attention to the comparisons on YouTube on the very same throw away piece of technology I'm writing this post on, I have come to realise that technology wise there is not much difference between the proprietary ios powered ipad2 and the open source android 3.1 powered Galaxy Tab 10.1 or the Lenovo IdeaPad K1. The unique selling propositions (USPs) of the android 10.1 powered tablets are (i) the ability to run flash animations and (ii) the ability to use widgets which are not featured in the ipad2 and most probably never will be. I was extremely happy to see these features of android which outshine the ipad until I realised that the pieces of technology which are running an open source operating system have taken a page out of the apple book and have started charging premium for what they offer. In comparison, the original premium brand has reduced the price of their ipad2 and is planning to launch much cheaper pieces of technology such as the cheaper iphone4 in the very near future. This came as quite a shock to me!
As an advocate of affordable technologies, I now had to advocate the use of the premium apple brand which always catered to a niche market. However, as it has become the more affordable piece of technology I had to ask myself some tough questions. The first question was "will I miss not having flash enriched browsing?" and the answer was no. The second question was "are there any apps on android which I will not find substitutes for in ios?" and surprisingly enough the answer was still no. Then I thought I might have to pay a lot of money for the smart cover which was designed as a part of the ipad2 itself and still the answer was no as a "not very smart" cover for one of the android powered devices would set me back much more. So considering all of these facts, there is not much keeping me away from an ipad2 and the ios which I have never used before and thought I would never will. However, as a savvy consumer I had to identify the best piece of technology for my hard earned money and at present I would have to say that it is the ipad2. This new revelation has made me see the technology landscape from a whole new perspective where premium brands like apple are looking at the throwaway aspect of technology. Gone those days when open source was the power of the techno hippies who wanted to change the world. The way things are going in the technology market today, a whole new price war will soon breakout when all the players fight for that niche where users look for affordable pieces of technology rather than premium pieces.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Android powered tablet for less than $100: Another victory for throwaway technology
You might remember my post on Buying a Tablet: What are my options? which discussed why you should seriously consider an Android based tablet which doesn't charge you a premium for an open source operating system. You might also remember my most recent post under the title The future of technology is throwaway technology which looked at how modern technological innovations are made obsolete as soon they hit the market and how savvy consumers should look at technologies which they can throw away in six months to upgrade themselves. Well it gives me great pleasure to write this new post which proves both the above using one single piece of technology.
My initial choice for a tablet was the OKPAD which would have cost me around RM550 (around $180). What I expected to do with this tablet was to check my e-mails, skype my family, facebook my friends and watch YouTube videos with my daughter. However, being the tenacious advocate I am of throwaway technology and the shameless cheapskate, I found $180 to be quite dear when considering an investment which I would have to write off in a few months. After searching some of the darkest corners of the web and after reading countless reviews on cheap and good tablets, I finally managed to find one which offered me all the features of an OKPAD at almost half the price (for those of you who don't know what the features of an OKPAD are, they are almost the same as a Galaxy Tab). Yes, I found a tablet for RM290 (which is less than $100) and I bought it online immediately at quarter passed midnight on a Wednesday.
The seven inch WonderMedia WM8650 is an Android 2.2 froyo powered (for those of you who have no clue what froyo is, you need to crawl out from underneath that rock you were hiding all these years) tablet which carries all the applications which make Android so great including Gmail, Skype, GTalk and facebook. It has a front facing camera (although not of very high resolution but perfect for video chat) which allows you to use skype like a pro from any coffee shop you prefer. However, this is not possible with the current version of skype as it does not support this hardware platform yet. A beta version of skype is available for this version and comes pre-installed but this only allows you to chat with your skype contacts. There are other applications such as fring which you can use for VOIP calling. It supports Flash 10.1 (which means that all your YouTube videos will work properly) and most of the audio-video file formats so that you can listen to your music through the inbuilt speakers (you can plug in stereo headphones or speakers without any problem). It also has legitimate access to the Android market (most of the cheaper tablets will not have access) where you can downlad hundreds of free applications for just about anything. The inbuilt wifi works well and allows you to surf the net seamlessly using the neat web browser which supports most of the scripts. It also allows you to upgrade your OS for free when a newer version is available. Try doing that with fruity brands. By now you must be thinking that I'm bluffing when I say I bought this for less than $100 as it seems to be a full blown tablet on par with the Ferraris of the tablet world. Although I advocate the use of cheap technology, I do understand that I get what I pay for.
The tablet supports up to 32GB of external storage in the form of a mini SD card. However the card is not included. So I nicked the SD card from my wife's phone and put it in. Hopefully she will not notice it missing. The SD card slot is located on the outside so that it is easy to insert the card. However the card doesn't always want to go inside and sometimes doesn't want to stay inside. So you need to exercise a bit of tough love to get it in. Once it's in it stays in. There are no inbuilt USB slots. Instead there is a multipurpose slot into which you can plugin an external USB hub (a two port hub is included in the box). The USB ports work fine once you plugin the hub but the standard hub is a two inch box which doesn't look that good. I guess you will not use the USB all the time and I suggest that you use it in the privacy of your room when you do as it will look quite ridiculous if you use it outside. There is no inbuilt 3G. So you will have to use wifi or will have to plugin a 3G modem into the USB hub. This looks really nasty as it resembles a lego project. Even if you live with the poor aesthetics, it only works with certain models of Huawei modems. So if you don't have the right model, you are out of luck. The modem I have is not compatible. So the solution for me was to buy a cheap 3G wifi router where I can plugin my 3G modem. This gives me a wifi access point in the house which I can use with my netbook, laptop and smartphone in addition to the tablet. So it wasn't a bad investment (at $25). The external USB hub comes with an RJ45 port which will allow you to plug the tablet into a home/office network or use a broadband connection. Although this is a cool feature, why buy a mobile device to be plugged into a wall? It makes no sense. Also I couldn't get it to register with the network. So that feature is not of much use. For those of you who have used expensive touchscreen phones or tablets, the touch screen navigation on this one will seem a bit sticky. But it works fine once you get used to it. If you haven't used a touchscreen before then this will work well for you. The battery is not that great either. It goes dead within one hour if you watch YouTube using wifi and the inbuilt speakers (come to think of it, that's not too bad at all). Last but not least the build quality; it is not the most stylish gadget available. It looks cheap and feels cheap. Fair enough considering what I paid for it. However it works well. Both a Ferrari and a Fiat will get you from A to B. Whether you want to get there in style is down to what you pay.
So what do I think about it? I absolutely love it and my daughter (even though only 20 months old) agrees. Was it worth RM290? You bet! I can do everything and more an iPad or a Galaxy Tab can do for a fraction of the cost. What am I going to do with it in six months? I'm going to THROW IT AWAY! if my daughter doesn't smash it to bits before that. Considering I only paid small change for it in comparison with a premium model, in six months, I will be the savvy buyer who can afford to upgrade my technology to a newer piece of throwaway technology.
My initial choice for a tablet was the OKPAD which would have cost me around RM550 (around $180). What I expected to do with this tablet was to check my e-mails, skype my family, facebook my friends and watch YouTube videos with my daughter. However, being the tenacious advocate I am of throwaway technology and the shameless cheapskate, I found $180 to be quite dear when considering an investment which I would have to write off in a few months. After searching some of the darkest corners of the web and after reading countless reviews on cheap and good tablets, I finally managed to find one which offered me all the features of an OKPAD at almost half the price (for those of you who don't know what the features of an OKPAD are, they are almost the same as a Galaxy Tab). Yes, I found a tablet for RM290 (which is less than $100) and I bought it online immediately at quarter passed midnight on a Wednesday.
The seven inch WonderMedia WM8650 is an Android 2.2 froyo powered (for those of you who have no clue what froyo is, you need to crawl out from underneath that rock you were hiding all these years) tablet which carries all the applications which make Android so great including Gmail, Skype, GTalk and facebook. It has a front facing camera (although not of very high resolution but perfect for video chat) which allows you to use skype like a pro from any coffee shop you prefer. However, this is not possible with the current version of skype as it does not support this hardware platform yet. A beta version of skype is available for this version and comes pre-installed but this only allows you to chat with your skype contacts. There are other applications such as fring which you can use for VOIP calling. It supports Flash 10.1 (which means that all your YouTube videos will work properly) and most of the audio-video file formats so that you can listen to your music through the inbuilt speakers (you can plug in stereo headphones or speakers without any problem). It also has legitimate access to the Android market (most of the cheaper tablets will not have access) where you can downlad hundreds of free applications for just about anything. The inbuilt wifi works well and allows you to surf the net seamlessly using the neat web browser which supports most of the scripts. It also allows you to upgrade your OS for free when a newer version is available. Try doing that with fruity brands. By now you must be thinking that I'm bluffing when I say I bought this for less than $100 as it seems to be a full blown tablet on par with the Ferraris of the tablet world. Although I advocate the use of cheap technology, I do understand that I get what I pay for.
The tablet supports up to 32GB of external storage in the form of a mini SD card. However the card is not included. So I nicked the SD card from my wife's phone and put it in. Hopefully she will not notice it missing. The SD card slot is located on the outside so that it is easy to insert the card. However the card doesn't always want to go inside and sometimes doesn't want to stay inside. So you need to exercise a bit of tough love to get it in. Once it's in it stays in. There are no inbuilt USB slots. Instead there is a multipurpose slot into which you can plugin an external USB hub (a two port hub is included in the box). The USB ports work fine once you plugin the hub but the standard hub is a two inch box which doesn't look that good. I guess you will not use the USB all the time and I suggest that you use it in the privacy of your room when you do as it will look quite ridiculous if you use it outside. There is no inbuilt 3G. So you will have to use wifi or will have to plugin a 3G modem into the USB hub. This looks really nasty as it resembles a lego project. Even if you live with the poor aesthetics, it only works with certain models of Huawei modems. So if you don't have the right model, you are out of luck. The modem I have is not compatible. So the solution for me was to buy a cheap 3G wifi router where I can plugin my 3G modem. This gives me a wifi access point in the house which I can use with my netbook, laptop and smartphone in addition to the tablet. So it wasn't a bad investment (at $25). The external USB hub comes with an RJ45 port which will allow you to plug the tablet into a home/office network or use a broadband connection. Although this is a cool feature, why buy a mobile device to be plugged into a wall? It makes no sense. Also I couldn't get it to register with the network. So that feature is not of much use. For those of you who have used expensive touchscreen phones or tablets, the touch screen navigation on this one will seem a bit sticky. But it works fine once you get used to it. If you haven't used a touchscreen before then this will work well for you. The battery is not that great either. It goes dead within one hour if you watch YouTube using wifi and the inbuilt speakers (come to think of it, that's not too bad at all). Last but not least the build quality; it is not the most stylish gadget available. It looks cheap and feels cheap. Fair enough considering what I paid for it. However it works well. Both a Ferrari and a Fiat will get you from A to B. Whether you want to get there in style is down to what you pay.
So what do I think about it? I absolutely love it and my daughter (even though only 20 months old) agrees. Was it worth RM290? You bet! I can do everything and more an iPad or a Galaxy Tab can do for a fraction of the cost. What am I going to do with it in six months? I'm going to THROW IT AWAY! if my daughter doesn't smash it to bits before that. Considering I only paid small change for it in comparison with a premium model, in six months, I will be the savvy buyer who can afford to upgrade my technology to a newer piece of throwaway technology.
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