Tablets, they’ve just been released this year and they already got cheap, very cheap … well, some of them. How come? Even the components of the iPad cost around $280, all the rest goes to research and development (R&D) departments, both hardware and software.
In order to make a cheap tablet you need cheap components (better free, but that’s not possible), cheap manufacturing facilities and sometimes free software. What you get in the end is a tablet that can’t be compared with a better and more expensive tablet.
Today we present you an inexpensive Android tablet or MID made by Eken and named M001/TP701. Its country of origin is China (what else) for the insignificant price paid of $680 RMB, that’s just $99.53. At first sight the Eken seems pretty appealing, but let’s see what components a tablet can get for such a low price.
Eken has a 7-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 800×480 pixels. The tablet is powered by a VIA 8505 processor running at 600MHz, comes equipped with 128MB DDR2 or RAM, 2GB of flash storage that can be expanded with the help of a SD card up to 32GB in size.
The specifications include a G-sensor (accelerometer), 2xUSB2.0 ports, stereo audio out, 10/100Mbps Ethernet port, WLAN (802.11 b/g), optional 3G through USB, stereo speakers, microphone and all this running on Android 1.6 OS, but the user can opt for Windows CE. Its price will be actually between $80 and $140, depending on the amount of the flash storage Eken implements.
Some websites are saying that Eken M001/TP701 Android MID might be actually the same device as Haleron iLet mini HAL, because of technical similarities. Eken has the same VIA 8505 processor, but is running at 600MHz, while that of the Haleron iLet mini HAL runs at 533MHz as can be seen at Haleron’s website.
