It seems the battle for tablet mindshare isn’t going to be played out between Apple and the Galaxy Tab – it’s going to be between the low-end, lowly specced options from the telcos. Responding to Telstra’s T-Touch Tab yesterday, Optus announced the Optus MyTab, a $279 Android tablet with resistive touchscreen from manufacturer ZTE.
The MyTab is a 7-inch tablet and weighs just over 400 grams, runs Android 2.1 and will include 3GB of prepaid data in the $279 RRP. Like the T-Touch Tab, the resistive touchscreen is going to mean it’s too lowly specced for most of you, but as a device for kids or grandparents, it has potential. Or it will when it launches in mid-December.
Simon Reidy
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 12:14 PMWhat a joke. Haven’t Telstra and Optus learnt anything from the overwhelming success of the iPad?
One of the reasons the iPad sells so well is because it has such a slick high resolution screen, that is highly accurate and responsive to touch thanks to capacitive technology, and has superb viewing angles and contrast thanks to IPS technology.
These crappy 7″ resistive tablets have the same resolution as 3.7″ Android phones, so all you get are blown up Android apps, many of which won’t work properly due to device incompatibility or lack of multi-touch.
I feel very sorry for anyone that is unlucky enough to get sucked into buying one of these. I can guarantee that after half an hour with it you’ll want to throw it against a wall.
Peter
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 12:44 PM$630 for an iPad (with no 3G) vs $300 for a 7″ Telsta Tablet for $300.
I actually own a iPhone, Nexus One and a Telstra T-Touch Tab. And I’ve got to say, it’s excellent. No way would I throw it against a wall just because it doesn’t have some features of more expensive devices.
People like options, not everyone wants/needs multitouch. This is not just for the oldies or the non-techies.
These are entry level products that fills a niche, they are not pretending to be anything else than that!
Michael
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 1:53 PMin response to Simon Reidy, i dont think that you understand how markets work. As Peter mentioned, we need options, and in fact; Telstra and Optus WILL be selling the Samsung Galaxy tab (which competes directly with the iPad) and a number of other slates and tablets as they are released – it is about having options in the low, mid and high device range.
the T-Tab is getting quite good reviews, and will help to fill gaps where people want something like that.
Steve
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 5:48 PMHah. You realise the iPad is anything BUT high resolution. There are ebooks I can’t stand reading on that screen because the pixels are unbearably huge.
And the Galaxy Tab doesn’t have the same resolution as a 3.7 inch phone. In fact, it’s considerably higher density than the iPad you love so much.
No-one’s arguing that resistive touch screens are good, in fact.. they’re garbage. Which is why all these no-name, bargain bin devices are coming from unknown manufacturers. Capacitive screens are industry standard, not Apple standard.
But don’t confuse ’7 Inch Android Tab’ with ‘Low res screen/resistive touchscreen/low quality/bad apps.’ The Augen tab in the US is released with this very purpose, but we’re obviously going to see higher end 7 inch Androids closer to the Galaxy Tab in the near future.
John Andrews
Saturday, November 13, 2010 at 2:28 PMre: “as a device for kids or grandparents, it has potential”. As a grandparent I take exception to Nick’s notion that we are likely to be content with second rate.
Sandor
Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 4:46 PMI bought a dreambook and took it back. Too slow. I have just checked out the Telstra pad and though faster is still slow. I await actual hands on for the Optus entry. I have a PDA with resistive screen as did my Palm and apart from zooming with two fingers, they work fine! There is another Big W just over $200 coming out from India and I’ll check it out. If you want to spend the dough, get an apple, if not these others seem to work fine for casual surfing / email and book reading. The dreambook however was terrible viewing video as it jerked terribly.