The mainstream news sites have over the last couple of months been talking about tablets. Despite cheap tablets been available for a while, there was a lot of press coverage when Tesco released the sub £100 Hudl tablet and the £80 tablet from Aldi that sold out in twenty four hours.
Now there is a £30 tablet available, the UbiSlate 7Ci.
The key question, is it any good?
Well the reviews of the Hudl and the Aldi Tablet were quite scathing, I would expect similar things to be said about this tablet.
The UbiSlate 7Ci has wi-fi connectivity, but no mobile internet, however that is quite normal for lots of tables (including the iPad). It has 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. That lack of storage space means that you won’t be able to put too many apps on there and certainly not many video and audio files. Also with only three hours of battery life, you’ll be able to use it in the morning, but after that, you’ll have no luck.
Yes it is very cheap, but personally I don’t see it as value for money as an educational device. It will be frustrating for learners who would want to use it all day. In addition the lack of onboard storage would cramp the sorts of content and resources you could keep and view on it.
This isn’t to say that everyone should go out and buy an iPad, there are some decent Android tablets out there, I do like my Nexus 7, which is a really useful device and significantly cheaper than the iPad mini. However when looking at any device the key is that total cost of ownership, which includes how long will it last.