Hisense isn’t just another Chinese company, they’re a Chinese company that’s owned by the Chinese government. With all the anti-Chinese rhetoric flying around in FreedomLand, it comes as shock to me to read today’s new about Hisense tablets coming to Walmart.
And these aren’t just any tablets, these are the most ridiculously cheap tablets I’ve ever heard of in the West. For $99 you can get a dual core 1.6 GHz 7 inch 1024 x 600 pixel tablet with 1 GB of RAM, and it even runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. For an extra $50 you get an NVIDIA Tegra 3 clocked at 1.3 GHz, Android 4.2, more pixels (1280 x 800), NFC, and a 5 megapixel rear facing camera.
Can we all please take a moment to just enjoy what the race to the bottom has given us? For me, it feels just like yesterday when the first sub $1,000 laptop was announced, and no, it didn’t even have WiFi. But now, thanks to Android, Chinese chips, Chinese labor, and the ARM ecosystem, people can spend less than $100 for a device that gives them a capable web browser, video player, music player, eBook reader, and so on and so forth.
Should you buy either of these tablets? Ehhh, you know what I’m going to say. Spending a little bit of extra money will get you a far superior product. Google is soon going to announce a new Nexus 7, and it should cost $199. If you’re like me, meaning you buy gadgets that you then use for at least two years, then paying a little bit more is totally worth it!
