Cheap tablets have come a long way since the downright horrible Augen GenTouch78. Today’s models are still vastly inferior to what you can get if you spend a little more money… but they’r not absolutely awful.

Case in point: Budget tablet maker Ematic is introducing a new 7 inch tablet that looks halfway decent… for an $80 tablet.

Ematic Genesis Prime

The Ematic Genesis Prime is available for pre-order from Amazon for $79.99.

The tablet features a 1.1 GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of built-in storage, 802.11n WiFi, a front-facing VGA camera, and a 4.5 hour battery.

Most importantly, it runs Google Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and comes with access to the Google Play Store, which means you’ll have hundreds of thousands of apps at your fingertips.

There’s no word on exactly which processor this tablet has or what kind of screen resolution it features. Smart money is on a relatively slow ARM Cortex-A8 chip and an 800 x 480 pixel display. There’s got to be a reason this thing costs just $80.

But unlike some budget tablets, which aren’t enough cheaper than a good tablet like the Google Nexus 7, the Ematic Genesis Prime might just be cheap enough to justify the mediocre specs.

For $80 it could make a halfway decent eBook reader, web surfing companion, or portable video player.

via UberGizmo

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7 replies on “$80 Ematic Genesis Prime tablet offers Android 4.1 on the cheap”

  1. As a long-time reader who won the Augen GenTouch78, I can attest to it’s crappiness. It finally died and will not boot. 🙁 I am not sure there is enough benefit for an $80 tablet any more except as a disposable unit for my kids. If the touch screen is half way responsive it might be good for a couple games and apps for her and not worry about milk being poured on it.

    1. I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did!

      There was a time when a $150 tablet seemed too good to be true. And Augen proved that it kind of was 🙂

  2. A low-res, 16:9 aspect, 7″ tablet does not make a decent eReader. Bumping the resolution a little makes them usable with eBook software that will upsize fonts but in general (web surfing, etc.) portrait orientation is useless. There is a reason why more and more 7″ Android tablets are going to 4:3 ratio. Even using a high resolution doesn’t help since you still have to deal with absurdly teeny print. At the 10″ size range this issues does diminish, but who wants to lug a 10″ tablet around?

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