[ale] Ultra cheap tablet discussion. Are they useful or can they be made useful?

Jim Kinney jim.kinney at gmail.com
Thu Jul 2 14:21:58 EDT 2020


I just nabbed a dragontouch max10 for ~ $150. Nice screen, pretty snappy. Loading fdroid and friends now. 

On July 2, 2020 9:56:03 AM EDT, DJ-Pfulio via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>Cheap tablet comparison article today:
>https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/07/the-100-tablet-shootout-amazon-fire-8-hd-plus-vs-walmart-onn-8-tablet-pro/
>The specs shown aren't accurate. For example, neither device has GPS
>enabled HW.
>
>BTW, the new Fire 8HD was $60 a few days ago.  A little adb and you can
>remove the ads.
>
>On 7/2/20 7:43 AM, Neal Rhodes via Ale wrote:
>> This is probably heresy to say, but there is a simple process to load
>4 .APKs on a Fire 8 and then it runs Play Store and you can load
>android apps.  It has thus far run everything that we'd run on an
>Android tablet.   After muscling several LineageOs versions on a
>Samsung tablet I just wasn't in the mood to build myself.
>> 
>> This way Amazon still does their OS updates.   Only major gripe is
>that voice recognition doesn't work, because Alexa.
>> 
>> Do note that Fire tablets don't have a GPS chip.
>> 
>> Neal
>> 
>> On 2020-06-29 16:39, Charles Shapiro via Ale wrote:
>>> I'm fond of my Rooted and re-imaged Amazon Fire.  Rooting these
>>> devices is tricky, as Amazon actively works against you.  Best
>advice
>>> I can give is to research software versions and rooting methods,
>then
>>> buy the right one from Swappa.com or someplace.  Whatever you do,
>>> don't install OTA updates.
>>>
>>> -- CHS
>>> ]
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 11:19 PM Ben Coleman via Ale <ale at ale.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> When my last Samsung Tab A 7 died on me, Walmart had just come out
>>>> with
>>>> their Onn-branded Android tablets.  I picked up one of the 8"
>>>> tablets on
>>>> sale (they are normally $64, but were on sale for $5-10 off).  For
>>>> what
>>>> i use it for (primarily reading on the Kindle App, Google Play
>>>> books,
>>>> Packt's app, OverDrive for library books, and Olive Tree's Bible
>>>> Reader.
>>>> Occasionally I'll watch something on Hulu or Netflix), it's fine.
>>>> Android 9, 2G RAM, 16GB Flash 2.4Ghz and 5 Ghz Wifi, Bluetooth.
>>>> It's
>>>> not a speed demon, but it's about the same speed as the Tab A 7
>>>> tablets
>>>> I had been using previously, maybe a tad bit faster.
>>>>
>>>> With the Tab A's, I had gotten to the point where I had to
>carefully
>>>> prune what apps I had installed on the tablet to keep it running
>>>> acceptably.  So far, I haven't had to do that with this tablet.
>>>> I've
>>>> definitely got more apps running on it than I had on the Tab A's,
>>>> and it
>>>> hasn't really slowed down.
>>>>
>>>> From what I can google, it's hackable/rootable, though I haven't
>>>> tried yet.
>>>>
>>>> One very odd quirk - though the Android 9 on it is almost stock, it
>>>> does
>>>> include Walmart apps factory-installed.  When an update to the
>>>> Walmart
>>>> app became  available, running the Walmart App would detect this
>and
>>>> insist that it be updated.  However, the update would always fail.
>>>> This
>>>> lasted until the next system update for the tablet.  Recently, when
>>>> the
>>>> Walmart App and the Walmart Grocery app were combined, it started
>>>> doing
>>>> the same thing if you tried to go into the Grocery app.  I guess
>>>> I'll
>>>> have to wait until the next system update to use that app.  You'd
>>>> think
>>>> that Walmart would at least make sure that their own app would run
>>>> on
>>>> their tablet, or would at least make sure this problem didn't come
>>>> up
>>>> again, but Nooooo.
>>>>
>>>> On 6/27/2020 6:28 PM, Beddingfield, Allen via Ale wrote:
>>>>> For a couple of years now, I have been seeing these really cheap
>>>> ($40 to $50)Android tablets in Wal-Mart, dollar stores, and places
>>>> that normally don't even sell electronics.  Most of them are some
>>>> brand no one has heard of, or a shameless re-licensing of old
>school
>>>> brands like RCA or Polaroid.  I know they are going to be the
>>>> cheapest of Chinese made junk, but how bad are they?  Would they be
>>>> usable at all for basic web browsing?  I notice that most of them
>>>> are running Android 5.0 or 6 .0.  Have any of you played with any
>of
>>>> these, or investigated upgrading the OS on them?
>>>>
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