By The team behind the Hott MD500 Android Tablet is already calling their new baby the “iPad Killer” – and THIS is probably the worst thing the company could do. The iPad hasn’t even been launched yet competitors are already giving it the stage as the device to beat. In my mind, silence is golden, but uttering anything “i” with a killer comment is sure to grab more attention and unfortunately I’ve taken the bait.
The Hott MD500 has a 4.8″ screen so it hardly competes directly with the iPad. The key thing with this Hott device is that the manufacturer will be selling it for only $98. You’ll then have to pay the middleman-fee, I’m assuming this will be rebranded or picked up by a big retailer taking margins, but it should still be pretty darn affordable.
My concern is the old saying “you get what you pay for”. With the $98 Hott MD500 tablet, does it have shortcomings in specs that price won’t be able to overcome? Here is the Hott next to the Archos 5:
By the way, tune into about 3 minutes where the fully excited conversation goes limp. The videographer (Charbax) asks about Android 1.5 and whether or not they’ll upgrade it to which the company rep responds with reluctantly Frankenstein-ish “uhhhh. yes.” Doesn’t sound too convincing.
If it’s really $100, I’ll buy one. You should go easy on his answer about upgrades. Non-native speakers occasionally takes a bit longer to understand the question, leading to the “uh…”. Anyway, I’m more excited as more of these Android devices coming to market.
LOL. Definitely a non-committal affirmative.
How many times was he just going to flip through the home screens like we were seeing something new?
You’d think with a larger screen they’d try to customize the stock keyboard to add more functions instead of just making it larger.
I am sure Apple is hard at work trying to come up with something to sue them for already.
If it actually is 100 bucks, I would get one. That is pretty cheap and would easily be worth 100 dollars.
Time will tell. Of course you can only kill a product with a product that has been released, the sooner the better; and soon does not mean one year.
Lord, I hate the *-killer statement. It’s just setting yourself up for failure. Damn memes.
I wouldn’t expect upgrades just yet seeing Android’s current upgrade record with existing devices. However, I will say that screen is gorgeous! it looks brighter and sharper than the Archos does. And 720p? that in itself already tops the iPad’s non-HD output. It does look a little too much like a giant iPod Touch with the design of the body for my tastes though. I think someone should make the Droid Tablet :D
For as much of a beating the iPad takes for being an oversized iPod Touch… this thing should take a beating for looking like an oversized BlackBerry Storm.
Meh. The video was choppy and dubbing something as an “ipad killer” when the device was pretty solidly panned was stupid.
Here is the Android based device that looks most promising: http://notionink.in/
I would say “iPod killer” is a tad optimistic. Apple are sitting on a mountain of cash (US $40 billion, according to their latest financial statements) largely because their products enjoy an unparallelled level of consumer acceptance. It will take more than the Hott MD500 to knock them off their perch.
This reminds me of when the Voyager came out a few months after the iPhone & dubbed itself the iPhone killer. it was not. unfortunately, I was duped into getting one. :(
The IPAD name was the ipad killer.
FOR 100.00$ you can not go wrong! il be giving these babies away as gifts……wifi or tether off my nexus one and this thing would rock for on the go when i want to see movies and log things in journal and just random surfing :)
Looks interesting.
There are a lot of tablets coming out.
They’re gonna get sued. They even put a chrome bezel around it to make it look almost identical to the iPad. Nothing wrong with trying to kill iPad but at least do it with a unique design.
This is not an Ipad killer :P
[NOTE] I am NOT an ifan. The reason i am saying this is because people believe that everything that apple makes is revolutionary,therefore people buy the Ipad instead of an Android tablet which is pretty unfamiliar
Who cares if it is an ipad killer? $100 for an android device with a 4.8″ screen? Not bad at all. Once this is rooted and you can install custom roms it will be great. Any word on processor?
Looks awesome. 512mb ram would be sweet. 16gb flash drive is a meh. 32gb/64gb or higher for me please. Other than that I like the look of the internet tablet.
Don’t need no Apple iPad liller… it will die all by itself. The built in battery issue will keep away anyone with a brain. Apple will get it’s loyalist to drop 2x the price of a comparable netbook to buy their crapola, but all others will stay away.
I like the pricetag but I am not enthusiastic about all of these options. The tablet form is going to work for apple because they have the clout to pull together content and change the way websites and publishers design. Apple and I believe Microsoft understand that you have to offer a different experience and function for tablets. It can’t just be a pc in a pad form. Now I think that a cheap pad has a great place but I don’t understand why some of these folks with tablets ready to go don’t team up with companies that are developing machines. If amazon could use an existing color platform and simply tweek the design. I think that it could work for both the companies. I just think some of these companies are going to canabalize eachother.
“Don’t need no Apple iPad liller… it will die all by itself. The built in battery issue will keep away anyone with a brain.”
Doubtful. The entire iPod line has built-in batteries and they’re obviously selling well.
The point is the Android tablets are good for the market, brings cheaper and better alternatives to Apple.
Why on earth are so many “new” Android devices being released with 1.5? Android 1.5 is ancient history. Sheesh, get cracking on 2.0 already. I mean c’mon, Android 3.0 is even on the horizon already.
Wow, if this is really $100, I’d get one for sure. Hope it’s at least 2.0 eventually.
Why. Let us imagine for a moment that engineers designed this thing several months ago. They focused on getting the hardware perfect on whatever was the current Android build when they started. It is pretty difficult to target hardware for a constantly changing software platform. It makes sense to lock your engineers to flesh out and implement most of the design on a stable version of the intended software platform, then once you’ve more or less worked out the hardware bugs, see what breaks when you update the software.
So imagine if you will, that you need to do a demo to impress someone. Which version of the software would you use? The one that your engineers have beat from here to hell and back getting your hardware as great as possible? Or the one they are still tweaking to ensure that same experience?
It looks promising enough, but we’ll have to wait and see if any distributors pick it up outwith it’s native China (at that price, I daresay they will). The Android-powered Archos 7 and 8 Home Tablets should be out over the next month or so too, and they’re only slightly more expensive than the Hott MD500 is supposed to be. It’ shaping up to be a good summer if you’re in the market for a tablet.
It’s good, It’s cheap, It’s cool, but where to buy it?
where can i buy this item?
IDK if its just a translation issue but it sounds like it is not a great product first he didn’t know the exact speqs and he could not identify the earphone port and if you have to use an adapter that stinks esp since its not a regular usb port but something special I have a cheap tablet and it has a universal mini usb port so i can lose it and not be efffed and i think this device could be better but personally the only thing i like is the possible metal backing LOL its quite shiny and android 1.5 and its not out yet……. IDK anyway nice article