Straight off the bat – this is probably not a tablet designed for Gizmodo readers. To hit the $299 price point, Telstra needed to make some sacrifices, and the resistive touchsreen is probably too big a sacrifice for any discerning gadget lover.
Telstra knows this and are instead targeting teenagers and older people who might be interested in the idea of a tablet but don’t want to pay $650 for an iPad.
With the exception of the resistive touchscreen, the tab is pretty well specced. There’s a 1GHz processor, 2GB of storage in an included microSD card slot and built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G (naturally from Telstra). It can also make and receive calls and text messages.
Being a Telstra-branded device, it’s totally preloaded with Telstra services, naturally, and the Android UI has been customised to take advantage of this.
But it’s the $299 RRP that really makes the T-Touch stand out. Included in that price is 3GB of data, plus $10 worth of talk and text with a 30-day expiry. There will be a postpaid plan, but the device will cost significantly more, so prepaid is the way to go.
Telstra kept emphasising that this was a device for the low-end tablet market, kind of like a lot of the Telstra-branded phones they sell.
We’ve got a unit to play with, and we’ll let you know what we think once we’ve done some more thorough testing.
[Telstra]