Best New Cheap Android Tablets

HP Slate 7 Tablet Reviews - Introduction

HP Slate 7 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Budget tablets aren’t what they used to be. Where they used to have diabolical screens, poor build and ropey third-party app stores, today they offer an experience comparable with tablets double the price. The HP Slate 7 is a 7-inch Android tablet that wants to undercut many of the the biggest names, including the Google Nexus 7. But does it cut one corner too many in the process?

HP Slate 7 Tablet Reviews – Design and Features

HP Slate 7 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Like most budget Android tablets, the HP Slate 7 is made of plastic. Its rear is an unassuming grey shade, letting the Beats Audio logo pop out clearly. The inclusion of Beats Audio here shows quite how simple it is – it’s a set of software algorithms used to jazz-up a device’s sound output, with increased bass. It's not magic.

The HP Slate 7 is a little on the heavy side for a 7-inch tablet at 372g, which is 30-odd grams heavier than the Google Nexus 7, but not so weighty than you can’t hold it one-handed comfortably.

One of the key hardware benefits of this tablet is that is has a microSD memory card slot up top. This makes the limited 8GB of internal memory only a minor issue. Several big-name budget tablet don’t offer expandable memory.

HP Slate 7 Tablet Reviews – Screen

The HP Slate 7 has a 7-inch screen, but its resolution is significantly lower than all the current big players. With 1,024 x 600 pixels, it’s a lot less sharp than its rivals. This is the same resolution seen in the original Samsung Galaxy Tab, released all the way back in 2010.

HP was keen to big-up that its FFS display offers the viewing angle benefits of an IPS screen with better brightness. However, in person what stood out were the weak-looking colours, the clearly limited resolution and its clinical tone. The Google Nexus 7 display isn’t perfect, but we prefer it to the HP Slate 7’s, by a significant margin.

HP Slate 7 Tablet Reviews – Software and Performance

HP has sensibly decided to use a more-or-less vanilla version of Android in its HP Slate 7. This will help bring out optimum performance for the spec, as fancy animated extras will generally only serve to slow the system down.

The processor of the HP Slate 7 is capable but, like most aspects of the tablet, a little limited. It has a dual-core 1.6GHz Cortex-A9 processor – nippy enough for Android but not quite on-par with the quad-core devices that are rapidly becoming the norm slightly higher-up the food chain.

Performance was decent during our hands-on, no doubt in part down to the Project Butter speed increases introduced in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean – this performance alone is enough to make the HP Slate 7 worth keeping an eye on for some.

HP Slate 7 Tablet Reviews – Camera

HP Slate 7 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. The HP Slate 7 has two cameras – some manufacturers leave out the rear camera with the justification that at the price they could only bung-in a bad one. The main camera of the Slate 7 is a remedial 3.2MP snapper. This is the sort of "bad" camera Asus was talking about when it omitted one from the Google Nexus 7 – it can only capture basic low-detail shots.

The user-facing camera is equally basic, with a VGA-resolution sensor.

HP Slate 7 Tablet Reviews – Impressions

The HP Slate 7 is an aggressively-priced tablet. Set to sell for $169 in the US, it’s cheaper than the bargain basement Google Nexus 7. However, that the screen has been whacked with the ugly stick a few times makes it worth spending a few extra pounds on a better spec’d rival if you can afford it. However, performance is decent – we’ll see if it really makes up for the screen shortfall in our full review.

Source : TrustedReview

Dell XPS 10 Tablet Reviews - Introduction

Dell XPS 10 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Windows RT is seeing a quite limited hardware selection, and some of the big PC names are not supporting it at all (HP, Acer and Toshiba) or at least not in the US (Samsung). So from the major brands we have the Microsoft Surface, the 11-inch ARM version of the Lenovo Yoga 13, the Asus Vivo Tab RT and – on this side of the pond – the Samsung ATIV Tab. And there’s Dell, with its XPS 10 which we’re looking at today.

All of the available RT tablets are convertibles – yes, even the Surface with a Type Keyboard Cover can be classed as a laptop replacement – meaning they give you a ‘pure’ tablet with keyboard attachment. The Dell XPS 10 follows the same route as the Asus and Samsung Tabs, offering a clamshell detachable form factor with a second battery and extra connectivity in its keyboard dock. Frankly, we think every convertible should offer this, so the XPS 10 is off to a good start.

Like its rivals, it sports a 10-inch IPS screen with a 1,366 x 768 resolution. Windows RT hums along on a dual-core Snapdragon 1.5GHz CPU rather than the usual Tegra 3 quad-core offering, backed by 2GB of RAM and with either 32GB or 64GB of storage.

Dell XPS 10 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Of course, Windows RT also means you’re getting the ARM version of Microsoft Office 13, albeit without Outlook – on a tablet starting at under £400. Best of all, Dell claims a whopping 18hrs and 18mins of battery life for the XPS 10 with dock, though this combo will set you back around £550.

Dell XPS 10 Tablet Reviews - Design and Build

Two things are likely to hit you the moment you see the XPS 10: it’s good-looking, but it’s chunky. First let’s talk visual appeal. This hybrid Windows RT tablet utilises Dell’s premium XPS genes to good effect, sporting the same incredibly attractive mix of matt, soft-touch black and metallic silver as the XPS 13 Ultrabook.

Obviously though, on a sub £400 device Dell couldn’t go with metal and carbon fibre. The only metal part on its XPS 10 is the hinge and lock mechanism. However, the faux-metallic silver strips that surround both the tablet and dock’s keyboard area certainly look the part. In fact, in a no-touch poll around the office, everyone thought they were the real deal.

We can’t emphasise just how nice soft-touch black plastic is. It lends a premium, executive vibe to any nicely built product it’s used on – something Lenovo is well aware of with the likes of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. And aside from those silver strips and its Gorilla Glass screen, the Dell XPS 10 is smothered in the stuff. This makes it lovely to touch and provides a great grip, yet is quite rugged and doesn’t pick up fingerprints.

While not as sleek as some rivals (it’s 9.2mm, thinner than the 9.3mm Microsoft Surface but thicker at the edges than all its other competitors), we’re also fans of the XPS 10’s more rounded, non-tapering design. It has no sharp edges to dig into your fingers after long periods of holding, and is one of the comfier Windows tablets we’ve tested. At 635g, it’s also lighter than the Surface but again heavier than the Asus.

Dell XPS 10 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Unfortunately, while the finish of the XPS 10 tablet is attractive and durable, we aren’t as impressed by its build quality. Mind you, everything was very seamlessly put together and most of it felt reasonably solid, but there was a slightly disconcerting, audible crackle and creak on the back, and far more flex than we would like towards the centre with a slightly hollow feeling behind it.


Thankfully, the same doesn’t apply to the dock, which is superbly built all-round. The metal hinge in which it holds the tablet is nicely crafted, and the tab locks securely into place with an audible click. Detaching the Dell XPS 10 tablet is simple with a front-mounted sliding switch. Once docked, the tablet only suffers from minimal wobble, and overall, Dell’s implementation is great.

Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 Tablet Reviews - Introduction

Source : TrustedReviews

Source : TrustedReviews

Source : TrustedReviews

Source : TrustedReviews