With Mobile World Congress having been the platform for the announcement of a slew of new Android-based mobile phones, it’s about time to take the plunge… but not on a new handset just yet.
This weekend, I should be able to try out an Android tablet in the form of the Elonex eTouch 1000ET – a 10″ tablet running Android 2.1. Yeah, the specs are pretty basic (Android 2.1, no Flash apparently, but the Elonex does have access to the full Android Market) – and not a bad bit of kit for £125 on the face of it. Having ordered it from Asda, who also have a £97 7″ tablet (which is Android 1.6 only… best avoid), it’s literally just a tablet: no GPS, no camera, no gyroscope, it’s very bare bones.
Hopefully I’ll be able to give some sort of blow-by-blow review of it from the points of view of someone who a) has barely used Android before (aside from playing with a Nexus S in Carphone Warehouse once) and b) someone who hasn’t experienced any form of tablet computer, let alone the high end devices such as the Galaxy Tab or the iPad. On the surface, £127 for a tablet computer running a not-too-outdated OS isn’t too bad (and yes, from what I read, it can be rooted to run Android 2.2, albeit not very well).
Check back here in the coming weeks for some kind of informal review/hands-on with the Elonex!