Blast from the Past: Maxell Surprises by Jumping Into the Cheap Android Tablet Market

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A new competitor has entered the budget Android tablet market with some new Android Tablet products, and their name is Maxell. If you are old enough to have been around during the time of cassette tapes, then you might just remember this company's name from that bygone era. Yes, in fact, this is the same company that moved from casette tapes to CD's and DVD's, and other recording media. Now it seems they are branching out. They just announced two new budget-friendly Android tablets at IFA 2012, and apparently, this isn't the first time they have branched out into other consumer electronics products. Here's a quote with the skinny on these new Android tablet entries,

Maxell also brought two new Android tablets to Berlin, the MaxTab H10 and the MaxTab H8. The former boasts a 9.7-inch IPS touchscreen display at 1280 x 768 pixel resolution, runs on Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and is powered by a dual core ARM Cortex A9 processor running at 1.5 GHz and an included dual core Mali 400 GPU. There's 4 GB of internal solid state storage (with microSD expansion) plus 1 GB of DDR 3 RAM, an included HDMI out port for onward connection to a big screen TV or monitor, a mini-USB port and a 2 MP front-facing camera module and 5 MP at the back.

The H10 benefits from 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and is ready and waiting for a 3G dongle. The 7800 mAh Lithium battery is claimed to be good for video playback of up to 7 hours or 8 hours of browsing before needing to be recharged, or 310 hours on standby. At just £169 (US$268), you're not going to get the type of user experience or performance offered by higher end Android tablets like a Galaxy Tab 2 or the latest IdeaTabs and the H10 did suffer from rather poor display brightness, even at its highest setting. Other than that though, it looked to be a good budget offering from Maxell.

Archos is nipping at the heels with its 97 carbon model, though, so it might be worth shopping around before handing over your cash.

The £149 (US$236) MaxTab H8 has the same screen resolution, CPU and GPU as its bigger brother and also runs on Android 4.0.4 but has an 8-inch capacitive touch display and a 0.3 MP webcam to the front and a 2 MP snapper round the back. Its 5000 mAh Lithium battery offers up to 6 hours of browsing or 5 hours of video playback, or 180 hours on standby.

What do you guys think? It's at least interesting to see the name Maxell again.

Source: AndroidTablets.net via Gizmag

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