Lowest cost Android tablet as a component?

I bought one of those dinky CPC things -- Scroll 4" Android tablet -- the urge proved irresistible.  Such is the danger of sub-£30 pricing, random things get bought on a whim even without any projected use nor reason.

As it turns out, you get a lot for your money.  While it's not Gorilla glass nor metal, the unit is surprisingly solid, and even heavy for something this small.  Everything I've tried works fine on it, even the documentation is good (both paper enclosed and online product brief and manual), and I'm hard pressed to think of any real shortcomings at this price --- maybe battery life is on the short side (battery is 1400mAh).  For a little Cortex-A8 (A13), it's doing a great job.

Of course, a 4.3-inch screen is not my idea of "usable" for a tablet (YMMV, and Y<Eyesight>MV), but bearing in mind that this thread is not about Android tablets for normal use but about employing them as an HCI component for projects, the screen size can be entirely satisfactory or even on the large size.

I'll examine it further on rainy days.

This weeks CPC mail shot arrived with another cheap tablet http://cpc.farnell.com/goclever/r70kb/tablet-7-k-b-bundle-tab-r70-kb/dp/SB05246?Ntt=sb05246

it's a bit more than the 4" scroll, but still interesting

The manufacturer always has something to lose even without brand recognition if the product doesn't work well, because when that happens the product gets returned to the merchant. 

I think when the price is low enough and the hassle of getting an RMA number

and repackaging and shipping the product is great enough, that the return rate is low,

regardless of the failure rate.

Most users don't even take the trouble to create an account on a vendor forum to tell

their stories (good or bad).  For example, less than 2% of E14's RPi customers are members

of E14's RPi forum here, even though membership is highly encouraged for example

by making various documents inaccessible without creating an account.

coder27 wrote:

 

I think when the price is low enough and the hassle of getting an RMA number

and repackaging and shipping the product is great enough, that the return rate is low,

regardless of the failure rate.

 

Most users don't even take the trouble to create an account on a vendor forum to tell

their stories (good or bad).

I agree with that.  At the "below the radar" pricing end of the market (the exact point varies, but I believe there is such a point for everybody), it's too little to matter.  That's why we buy 30-quid  tablets and ARM boards without thinking twice about the brand.

Does this mean that we suffer bad quality product?  Not at all !!  Branding has very little role to play in this sector, and at the bottom end, none at all.  In fact, it may have the reverse effect (see my line in bold italics two posts up).

coder27 wrote:

 

even though membership is highly encouraged for example by making various documents inaccessible without creating an account.

Please add wink smily !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nobody believes that, I sincerely hope.  A far more likely effect is frustration, annoyance, alienation and rejection.

You don't attract customers by giving them pain and promising it'll go away.  Yes I know that's a common M.O. of mafia and drug gangs, but it seems to me that they don't make a very good role model.

Nobody believes that, I sincerely hope.  A far more likely effect is frustration, annoyance, alienation and rejection.

I think they are very serious, and I think they have statistics to support what they're doing.

It does however make for some interesting user names, such as:

http://www.element14.com/community/people/veritax

http://www.element14.com/community/people/explodingdolphins

http://www.element14.com/community/people/giveup

http://www.element14.com/community/people/atix007

coder27 wrote:

 

I think they are very serious, and I think they have statistics to support what they're doing.

Well let me put it this way.

People don't like to be at the mercy of others.  They don't like single suppliers that leave them without options.  They don't like restrictive agreements that limit what they can do.  They don't like closed source software (except when they are the beneficiaries of the restriction) because they or their communities cannot improve it.  They don't like closed hardware (except when they are the  beneficiaries of the restriction) because nobody else will be able to market a cheaper or better version for them.  If they're techies, they don't like closed technology of any kind because in effect it enforces blindness upon them despite their ability to understand it if they wish.  All of these types of restriction on information (and many others) create a bias in favour of the provider and against the interests of the user.

And people certainly don't like being required to do something that is personally annoying.

In this Internet age, everyone talks to everyone else and posts interesting links to friends and acquaintances and colleagues.  Nothing is more annoying than giving someone a link to a great article only to have them tell you "It's hidden."  It dramatically reduces the utility of the site that holds it, and the unholy quartet of "frustration, annoyance, alienation and rejection"  ruin your day.  You cannot be expected to require your friends, acquaintances or colleagues to register with all the places where you have, yet this seems to be the poorly considered requirement of sites that hide their best content.  If it's good material, there is no better way of making your site interesting to others than making it publicly visible.

In today's world, closed content is a liability to users (because they cannot use it freely), not an asset, and if it's a liability to your users then it's a liability to you.  Open source is massive, and its younger sibling open hardware is growing ever stronger.  Academia is beginning to realize the value of openness professionally too, and the closed journals that once had it all their own way are finding that more and more academics hate them.  This tide is very strong, and I think it's dragging absolutely everything else with it today, ever faster.

Restrictions are never good for your users.  If "statistics show that it's good for us", then it's only because the users have been ignored in the measurement.

Please add wink smily !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nobody believes that, I sincerely hope.

You sincerely hope what?  That people like to be at the mercy of others?  That restrictions are good for users?  Or that people want all those things that I mentioned to be closed?

None of those, I assume, which is why there is no wink smily.  They're all quite obvious things, as it boils down to users not liking what is not to their advantage.

sometimes people that beg for open source:

A perfect argument for open source software.

turn right around when it is offered and say that rolling their own solutions would be too much trouble:

Indeed!  But people rolling their own doesn't obviate Christy's team needing to make E14's forum good as well.

Unfortunately you missed the point entirely, because the context was this one:

Dave Hamblin wrote:

 

Hmm  not sure if this is possible, but I will see what I can find out about  it what options we have from our vendor and see what other implications  that could have. Thanks!

In other words, Dave is at the mercy of his vendor and as a result is potentially restricted from being able to offer the facility for which we were both asking and which (implicitly) he would like to offer.  He's a user in his relationship with his vendor, and hence is a perfect example of one of the types of restrictions that I mentioned (closed source) not being to his advantage as a user.  QED.

Unless you were offering your example of REST to Dave and suggesting that he ignore his vendor and roll his own, it's not material to the point I was making about Christy's team needing (and wanting) to make the forum good.

Unless you were offering your example of REST to Christy

sure, no problem.

Unless you were offering your example of REST to Christy

sure, no problem.

It actually raises an interesting question as to how much room for change is available.  They regularly mention things that would require their vendor to fix or to develop, yet E14 has a development team (not just ops) so they must be developing something.  I wonder in what areas they are free to do so.

It actually raises an interesting question as to how much room for change is available.

The existing UI is based on REST, so infinitely customizable.

The underlying database not so much.

Oops, sorry, I missed a couple of  words essential to the question:

It actually raises an interesting question as to how much room for change is available to E14.

To the vendor, change is of course unrestricted, but that was not what I meant.

To the vendor, change is of course unrestricted, but that was not what I meant.

jive is the vendor. 

E14 or you or I can do whatever they want with the UI, including replacing it entirely,

which is where most of the concerns lie.

Judging by Dave's comment above, E14 either can't or don't want to replace the UI, nor even to modify it significantly.  That's why so frequently they tell us that they need to check with the vendor, even for bug fixes.  It seems that the bulk of the solution is bought in, otherwise they wouldn't be so dependent on what the vendor can do.

E14 either can't or don't want to replace the UI, nor even to modify it significantly. 

They "can", but they don't want to because it's a pain to merge their customizations

every time jive releases a new version, a typical open source problem.

To which open source has a strongly recommended solution, which is to push changes upstream.

To which open source has a strongly recommended solution, which is to push changes upstream.

That only works to the degree that upstream is receptive.

Hopefully being paid by E14 makes them more receptive.