Alcatel has made enough of an impression at CES already to be called one of the stars of this year’s trade show, but that can’t stop the surprisingly active French company from revealing yet another enticing Android product.
That means that, besides the One Touch Scribe line of 5-inch “phablets”, the newest world’s slimmest smartphone and the 7-inch tablet duo with optional 3G and 4G, we have another gadget to look forward to. This is named the One Touch Tab 8 HD, and, you guessed it, sports an 8-inch panel.
We’re dealing more exactly with an IPS display of 1,024 x 768 pixels resolution, so don’t expect this to be marketed as some sort of an “iPad killer”. Then again, with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, a dual-core 1.6 GHz CPU and 1 GB of RAM on its side, it might prove to be a stiff competitor for budget-friendly devices such as Google’s Nexus 7 or Amazon’s Kindle Fires.
What does the OT Tab 8 HD have that those don’t? Well, for starters, microSD support for expanding the 8 GB of on-board storage. There’s also a 2 MP shooter fitted on the tab’s back and a VGA front-facing webcam, though you probably don’t really care about cameras on tablets.
Image credit : Engadget
Last, but definitely not least, Alcatel’s 8-incher looks like a crowd-pleaser in the design department, being fairly elegant and chic while weighing in at just 355 grams. For comparison, the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD has a chunkier 395 grams body, while the Nexus 7 weighs in at 340 grams while obviously sporting a smaller display.
As far as pricing is concerned, the latest addition to the One Touch family looks very promising as well. Alcatel says the Tab 8 HD will start at just $179, which is 20 bucks less than both the Nexus 7 and Fire HD (though those do come with 16 GB of memory each).
And now the downsides, which start off with the obvious – Alcatel’s not very reliable name in the industry, as well as the dual-core unnamed and undetailed SoC that is probably not as snappy as the one inside the Fire HD and definitely slower than Nexus 7’s quad-core. But there’s one more thing that you should know – the One Touch Tab 8 HD is due out in US only in Q3 2013, and by then we expect the affordable tablet niche to be flooded with new devices.
All things considered, is anyone thinking of holding out for Alcatel’s 8-incher?
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