So about these 'Andy Pads'...

Raz · **Joined:** Fri Jul 25, 2003 5:53 am **Posts:** 22200

You may be thinking about 3.1 or whatever number ice cream sandwhich is.

TroyNation · **Posted:** Tue Aug 23, 2011 3:41 am

Ah, I was thinking about the Renesas tablet instead of this Andypad.

sere83 · **Posted:** Wed Aug 24, 2011 12:12 am

Yeah these are both the teclast tabs with slightly re-designed chassis'. When I spoke to Andypad they told me they got a good fw team behind this. 2 internal engineers, and 2 or 3 more external devs, one of which is a high ranking member at modaco.com, as well as the chinese engineers at the factory.

It is said to also come bundled with 20+ free apps some of which cost a bit. And of course they are speaking of an ice cream sandwich update too. Shaping up quite nicely to be honest, I think If were to buy a tab now it would probably be between the Andy Pad pro model and the Window N50.

The real selling points have to be the Dev team and potential Ice cream sandwich update though. Really separating it from your average chinese fare and probably makes it worth the extra money. Mind you saying that the Honeycomb port on the advent Vega is pretty stunning and I am starting to think that extra power is pretty important on these devices.

To be honest though I might have to abandon potential tablet purchases because the MIUI phone is just looking too good to be true, if it drops at the speculated price i'm gonna buy one on the credit card and forget it ever happened.

TroyNation · **Posted:** Wed Aug 24, 2011 2:59 am

Really, really good to here about the support team they've got behind this Andypad. I've always thought about some western company rebranding a chinese tab and bringing in some preloaded apps. It might be a good deal to talk some devs down on their paid apps to get something like that going. Stock android is so vanilla, the first thing I do everytime I reflash my MIDnite is go back into Marketplace and download about a dozen apps.

About 20 apps sounds more ambitious that what I was thinking about.

maderin1 · **Joined:** Sun Sep 30, 2007 2:50 pm **Posts:** 20627

it is good news but it makes me wonder how much they can deliver, people are inevitably asking for full GPL source, now we know that rockchip will not be willing to give that away easily with regards to their hardware but AP is saying "maybe" - so we will have to wait and see on that one, i hope too that they can get the mods done and the system updates, but again, in the world of the Chinese factory all their work could easily be stolen and sold on and that would not be fair on them

personally i wish they had not got the cheap version and just stuck with the PRO, if they had put all their money and order into the PRO only then they could have got them cheaper and added a 8" 4:3 model to the range and a 5" model as they are now becoming popular - i dont see a point in making a cheap 7" widescreen of the PRO

TroyNation · **Posted:** Thu Aug 25, 2011 9:52 pm

maderin1 wrote:

personally i wish they had not got the cheap version and just stuck with the PRO, if they had put all their money and order into the PRO only then they could have got them cheaper and added a 8" 4:3 model to the range and a 5" model as they are now becoming popular - i dont see a point in making a cheap 7" widescreen of the PRO

Ditto. I agree with you on that. Having Andypad 5, 7 and 8 would have been a good initial lineup.

sere83 · **Posted:** Thu Aug 25, 2011 11:43 pm

Yeah I mean, the main thing for me is that they have a respected dev/devs from the android community directly involved, so many times we've seen guys from sites like Modaco and XDA turning average devices into strong performers with their FW skills. My ZTE blade has been massively improved since rooting and using custom Roms. With devs like the maker of cyanogen being picked up by samsung, it really shows how much skill some of these guys have.

In terms of aesthetics, the fact they are essentially re branding and probably playing no real role in hardware manufacturing means they're options are unfortunately limited.

I agree, the low end model, although will probably be decent seems a little unnecessary, why have 2 tablets the same size? And why offer a cheap version of basically the same thing? It immediately screams to me, 'here is a cheap essentially worse version of the high end model'. They also forget most British tech enthusiasts or people likely to buy this have money. OK they also want to appeal to Joe public with less money but the iPhones astronomical success over here shows people will pay a whole lot more for quality. Plus £179 is not expensive over here, strikes a good balance between cheap and over priced.

I also think the whole image/logo/branding and aesthetics is very cheap looking and toy like. I think white chassis' were a mistake and I also think that if they had had control over hardware design they could have had far more visual continuity in the product range. I agree a 5,7,8 would have been better but to be honest I think the less products in you range to start with the better. 1 well designed product, trumps three average designed products any day, they can also focus more on refining it.

One thing that many people I speak to like about a device like the iPhone is the fact it feels solid and well made. One friend said to me 'it's more like having an expensive watch rather than something toy like or a boring grey square like most phones'.

The low budgets and lower quality materials doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't have brought in some real class and design flair particularly to the branding side of things. I have always liked my tech dark, minimalist and at very least giving the illusion of quality. Good design and a surface appearance or impression of refinement has universal appeal, a toy like appearance will immediately be discounted as cheap by potential customers with more money to spend.

IKEA the furniture company are a very good example of how great design using cheap materials can give the illusion of something more expensive and hence desirable.

Raz · **Joined:** Fri Jul 25, 2003 5:53 am **Posts:** 22200

On a business stand point they are probably just covering their bases by having both models, there sales from the first production batch would probably show if they should keep making the lower end version. Also brick and mortar stores seems to prefer lowend android devices as they probably sell well when the average Joe's walks into the shop and sees a nice looking tab for cheap.

maderin1 · **Joined:** Sun Sep 30, 2007 2:50 pm **Posts:** 20627

they are primarily starting from web sales with a hope to get into stores, but to be honest, here in the UK there are not many stores that sell this kind of thing, superstores sell them by buying in batches of cheap popular tech during xmas etc, the bigger electronics stores do apple and archos, so it gonna be very hard to get this into high street stores.
i admire what they are doing and have thought about it many a time, doing this myself - but, up until these tabs i would not have been happy selling any re-branded chinese stuff directly in the UK

good luck to them

TroyNation · **Posted:** Sat Aug 27, 2011 2:07 am

admin wrote:

On a business stand point they are probably just covering their bases by having both models, there sales from the first production batch would probably show if they should keep making the lower end version. Also brick and mortar stores seems to prefer lowend android devices as they probably sell well when the average Joe's walks into the shop and sees a nice looking tab for cheap.

I can see your point. I guess I've moved on from the resistive budget models and looking more at the PRO area of the tablet market. TBH, i was interested in buying a Rocktab when it first showed up here, so I can't throw stones.

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