$49 Skytex 4.3″ Android Tablet Now Available from Best Buy
If the $49 DigiLand tablet I posted on Saturday is too big for you, you might be interested in this cut down version.
While digging through the Best Buy website I came across an old frenemy which has appeared under many names. The Skytex Skypad SP458 is the latest iteration of a device that has been appearing under one brand or another for 3 years now, and I think it might finally be the one worth buying.
What the Skytex STEXSP458 lacks in screen area, it makes up for in price. This 4.3″ tablet might not have a high resolution screen but it does have a dual-core CPU, 2MP camera, and more storage than your average ultra-cheap Android tablet.
This tablet runs Android 4.1 on a 1.6GHz dual-core Rockchip CPU with 512MB RAM, a Mali 400 GPU, Wifi, 8GB internal storage, and a microSD card slot. It lacks fripperies like Bluetooth and Google Play, but it does have a camera with a decent resolution.
Now if only we could say the same about the screen. This could be good or bad, but this tablet is using the same low resolution screen which I found on the eMatic Twig 3 years ago. The screen resolution is a bizarre 480 x 272, a legacy of the original source for this screen size (DVD players). I don’t know how many are still being made, but the 4.3″ screen is a common size for DVD players (from ten years ago), and whoever originally designed the STEXSP458 must have bought the screen cheap and in bulk.
So would I recommend this tablet?
If you’re willing to take a chance that it will be crap, sure.
I’m tempted to get it just to see if cheap Android tablets in this size range are any better than the ones I tried in late 2011 early 2012. They were junk 3 years ago, but that might no longer be true. And this could be a good reason to start posting reviews again.
Is anyone else willing to gamble with this device? It could be fun.
Comments
Chris Meadows June 14, 2014 um 4:05 am
Interesting. That might finally be the Android iPod Touch substitute I was formerly looking for. Not that I care much now that I have a smartphone. 🙂
Nate Hoffelder June 25, 2014 um 7:02 pm
No, it’s not. The product listing lied about the CPU’s speed, maker, and the number of cores.
It’s running on a single-core 1GHz Allwinner chip. It has less than 512MB RAM, and the two cameras are only VGA resolution, not the 2MP mentioned in the product listing.
In short, it’s junk.