Most of the tablets Coby is introducing this year feature ARM Cortex-A9 processors and support for the Google Play Store, suggesting that Coby’s cheap tablets are starting to bridge the performance gap with higher-end tablets from Asus, Samsung and others.
And then there’s the Coby MID4331. It sell for just $81 and lacks Google Certification, which means it comes with the GetJar app store instead of Google’s Play Store. It also has a slower ARM Cortex-A8 CPU.
But  did I mention that it sells for just $81?
The Coby MID4331 is powered by a 1 GHz Allwinner A10 single-core processor and 512MB of RAM. It has 4GB of built-in storage and runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
The mini-tablet has a 4.3 inch, 480 x 272 pixel capacitive multitouch display, 802.11n WiFI, a rear-facing 2MP camera, a headset jack and a USB port.
It also has a microSD card slot for up to 32GB of additional storage.
While Coby calls the MID4331 a tablet, it’s probably best to think of it as a cheap device for watching videos, listening to music, and surfing the web. It’s like a poor man’s iPod touch… or more likely, a poor kid’s.
The MID4331 passed through the FCC website this week, and you can order it from Neobits for $80.95, although the device is on backorder at the moment.
Used smartphones? I guess the same could be said for most cars–a used BMW will cost the same and provide better performance. In most countries, most people don’t get new smart phones every year and leave the old ones gathering dust. They simply are not there for people to buy. And not many of the good ones will be 80 USD. And if they are, they are still used. And they were probably replaced for a good reason.
This thing looks like it’s just going to disappoint.
If this had Bluetooth is would be great for an mp3 player but it does not so is basically useless unless you don’t mind cords
I am a little surprised that winamp or one of the other big audio software giants has not made a Audio Launcher for android.
there are dozens of used smartphones that can be used to cover this niche I don’t understand why these products exist…
Ditto. Smartphones are so all-in-one that it’s easy enough to just find a used phone on Craigslist and ignore the features you don’t need. I wanted a couple Android devices to let my kids play with, so I gave them a couple of last year’s phones I had still laying around, but that weren’t connected to cellular service.
>>>480 x 272
Why couldn’t they go at least 480 x 320?!
Cost.