The Cheapest 8" Android Tablet in the World?
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 8:24PM 
This week Chinavasion rushed me over their latest budget Android Tablet. I say rushed, because they needed me to have my review done within three days of receiving the parcel so that they can coordinate it with the product launch. Well I'm up for a challenge - so rather than take my usual month or so to put together an overly long, complicated and unnecessarily intricate video review - here's what I can slap together in a few evenings. Please bear in mind that I haven't touched an Android device before, so we really are in unfamiliar territory here - oh and I've got a terrible cold so my voiceover may be a bit weird....anyway on with the show...
This 8” tablet is one of the cheapest Android Tablets on the market, and is currently available from Chinavasion for just £64 (+ postage) - it's called the Leotab and the Product Code is CVWS-PC17
Here is the direct link to the product on the Chinavasion website.
http://www.chinavasion.com/wzpu/
Apple’s current lofty position at the top of the tablet mountain seems virtually insurmountable, they have the mid to high-end tablet market all but sewn up. They have however stated that they have no interest in making cheaper tablets with smaller screens. So whilst the Blackberry Playbook struggles on and the HP Touchpad retreats from it's fight against the almighty iPad with a bloody nose – the bargain-end of the tablet market has been left wide open. It therefore makes a lot of sense for smaller tablet manufacturers to direct all their efforts at this segment of the market.
There are two ways that a manufacturer can approach the budget tablet market. One approach is to try and shoehorn in as many features as possible whilst offering a competitively priced product, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab or the Motorola Xoom. The other approach, the one favored by this tablet is to try and make the cheapest tablet on the market using the most economical components available to them today.
So what do you actually get for your (rather small amount of) money - well the one extravagance on this tablet seems to be the screen, which is a pleasingly sharp 800x600 8" display. Beyond that everything has been stripped back to meet the lowest possible price. The screen is resistive rather than capacitive, you'll need to supply your own storage memory (on microSD), the wifi is 802.11b/g (no 802.11n), there's no built in 3G sim card slot or bluetooth, there's no GPS, it's running Android 2.2 and the processor is an 800mhz ARM 926EJ-S (Rev 5).
How does this translate into real world usage and what can you actually do with a £64 tablet? Well one way of finding out, might be to press play on the video below. If after watching this you decide that you really do need a higher feature count and more oomph, then it's still worth having a look at Chinavasion's Android Tablet range. They seem to get new models in all the time so they might still have one that fits your needs.
Reader Comments (3)
nice review and very thorough as per usual.
I do like the way u point out the weaknesses aswel as the good things even tho it was given to you gratis - well done for being impartial.
Please dont be swayed to become a fanboy if other suppliers start sending you stuff - remain true to your followers - I feel you always will :)
PS any new 808 cams u know of soon?
Another outstanding review from you..... I feel that the £64 for the entry level tablet is not bad value for money.... A bit of a let down looking at their website... You cannot flash upgrade the Android OS....
Personally, I really think that that tablet is just sexy. :)
George Z.
Impact Battery