Cheap chinese tablets?

[strollin]

As others have said, you can't presume that just because it's Android that it can access the Play Store. Of course you can copy over the apk and install that way but the apk for an app can be hard to find (sometimes the apk can be found on the developer's website, other times not). If you have another Android device that has the app installed, you can do a backup to an apk then copy it over to another device.

I dealt with this all the time when I had my Amazon Kindle since the Kindle didn't have access t the Play Store.

 

[berry120]

It probably won't. Google has some licensing requirements that have to be met to be able to preinstall the play store. The manufacturers of these ultra cheap tablets don't care enough about their devices to go out of their way to meet them, so they usually end up coming with some really terrible third party market installed. You can generally just copy the apk over from another device with the same android version and have it work though.

Sure thing, I may well have to copy a new APK over, have done that before - I don't count having to do that as "not having access" to the play store Since the main use of this thing (if I ever get round to it) is going to be playing with tablet development, I'm not concerned with a bit of manual installation here and there!

Of course, it may turn out to be entire junk even for that... entirely prepared for that, but I'm not writing it off just yet. We shall see.

 

[foothead]

Of course you can copy over the apk and install that way but the apk for an app can be hard to find (sometimes the apk can be found on the developer's website, other times not). If you have another Android device that has the app installed, you can do a backup to an apk then copy it over to another device.

I guess my previous post was kind of ambiguous, but what i meant was you can usually find a play store apk that will work on unsupported devices. this definitely worked on that tablet my mother had. I recall having to change one of the configuration files to an officially supported device, but idk if that's still necessary.

 

[DogSong]

My brother got a chinese tablet..... He got it off Amazon, and he wanted to throw it away the next day. The wifi isn't dependable, and it was slow as molasses on a cold day!

 

[Jack-AH]

I have one which comes with Android OS, but I think quality and warranty is matter, when you get Samsung or Apply, it is better in perfomance but the price is high.

 

[berry120]

So, it arrived this morning and I've been playing around with it a bit. Build quality is okish (not great but better than I was expecting), it comes with the cheapest pair of earphones I've ever seen, the camera is average at best and the battery life does appear to truly suck (looking on par for two hours worth of usage at the moment before it's flat!)

But to use? It's absolutely fine, far from a pile of junk as I feared it may be. It's snappy, responsive, has a good wireless range, good screen, comes with the play store, near enough stock Android 4.1 (albeit with a few easily removable junk apps) - for the price I paid I'm more than happy with it. Judging by some other replies on here, I may have just got lucky with this particular model - but as far as I'm concerned it's been a good buy.

 

[jmacavali]

2 hours? It's going to have to be plugged in to use before long. That really does suck. Are there any apps that might still be installed that are "phoning home"? I'd do my best to turn off all auto-update apps. How long to fully charge?

 

[berry120]

2 hours? It's going to have to be plugged in to use before long. That really does suck. Are there any apps that might still be installed that are "phoning home"? I'd do my best to turn off all auto-update apps. How long to fully charge?

I'd expect it to get a bit better since this is the first charge, and batteries generally increase their capacity a bit once settled in, but yes this is the most sucky point of it. Considering this thing is staying around the house it's not really an issue for me (I never would have bought it otherwise) and this is with the screen on maximum brightness (I generally use them around half brightness which seems to be pushing it up to the 3 hour mark.)

Oh, and less than an hour to fully charge it seems.

 

[strollin]

As long as you're happy with your purchase, that's all that counts. Sounds like battery life isn't that critical for you so the tablet will perform fine for what you intend to use it for.