I posted an earlier thread here a while back about a $20 Android tablet. Retailer MicroCenter had opened an outlet in Brooklyn, NYC, which was convenient to me by subway, and a card appeared in my mailbox offering a 7" Android tablet for $20 as part of a grand opening celebration. I bit, and documented the results here.
Me and MicroCenter are like cats and string. If I go there, I find something that makes me pounce. In this case, it was a $50 Android tablet. My SO was visiting our friend Naomi, and called and said "Meet us at MicroCenter. Naomi needs a new tablet." It seems her previous Android tablet came out of its case and hit the ground, so a new one was needed. I got there first, was looking at their most recent flyer while I waited, and saw this.
The device is an HP Slate Plus 4200us 7" Android tablet. It has a 1.3ghz nVidia Tegra processor, a 1280x800 screen, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of flash with about 5.5GB available for application storage, and a slot to install a microSD card for additional storage. It's an SDXC slot capable of handling a 64GB card or larger. It has Wifi and Bluetooth, though Bluetooth is disabled by default, likely to save battery. It has a rear facing 5MP camera and a front facing .3MP camera. It runs Android 4.3 Jellybean.
The device was apparently intended as a gaming and video machine. I do neither, but it was still a good base to start from, with the rear facing camera a selling point. My old digital camera went walkabout a while back and I'd been after a replacement. This was a decent digital camera for my usage that also happened to be a full featured Android tablet. The hi-res 1280x800 screen was an additional major plus.
The tablet came with an assortment of bundled software, including the Google Chrome browser, the Google Play Books, Magazines, Movies and TV and Music apps, and Kingsoft Office as the office suite. As is typical in such cases, the bundled apps are installed as System apps, and can't be removed via standard uninstall. Making them go away requires a rooted device, and rooting is the first thing I do on a new Android device.
Rooting the HP Slate Plus was trivial. Kingo Root, run from Windows and connected via USB cable recognized the Slate, pushed the exploit that gets root, and pushed the Superuser app that serves as a root request broker and provides access to apps that request root. (There is a Kingo apk that can be installed and run on device to get root, but I didn't test it on this device.) When an app wants root access, Superuser pops up a dialog asking permission, and if you Allow it, the app gets root access. You can disable root access by an app later in Superuser if you decide it's not required.
Running Kingo requires that USB debugging is enabled on the device. I got that by going into Settings, choosing About Tablet, and tapping on Build number several times. After about five presses, it says "You are now a developer", and a Developer options menu appears in Setting where you can enable USB debugging. Once it's set Kingo can communicate with the tablet.
There was an annoyance or two. In addition to rooting the device, and pushing the Superuser app, Kingo pushed an AliExpress shopping app and a Superbattery app. I wanted neither, and they were uninstalled. The Superuser app has also been getting expanded capabilities, and wants to try to optimize apps for fast loading. It popped up a dialog box after every app install offering to do so. I don't want that, but going into Preferences for the Superuser app and turning off Toast notifications made it shut up.
With 5.5GB of app storage, there has been no pressing hurry to remove unwanted System apps. I have Disabled the ones I don't need as they won't get used.
Thus far, things are coming along nicely, and the hi-res screen is a wonder. The main limitation is 4.3 Jellybean. 4.4 KitKat and 5.1 Lollipop are common (and I have devices with each), 6.0 Marshmallow is current, and 7.0 Nougat is being rolled out to selected devices. Whether a device gets Android upgrades depends on the manufacturer. HP is not rolling out upgrades to this model, so Jellybean is what it's stuck with. That's not a deal breaker, as I think I have two apps elsewhere that need KitKat or better, and both are things I can live without.
In terms of what I install, preference goes to open source applications, and a variety of worthy stuff is available. I'll detail what all I have on the device in another post in the thread.
Meanwhile, I'm quite pleased.
______
Dennis
Me and MicroCenter are like cats and string. If I go there, I find something that makes me pounce. In this case, it was a $50 Android tablet. My SO was visiting our friend Naomi, and called and said "Meet us at MicroCenter. Naomi needs a new tablet." It seems her previous Android tablet came out of its case and hit the ground, so a new one was needed. I got there first, was looking at their most recent flyer while I waited, and saw this.
The device is an HP Slate Plus 4200us 7" Android tablet. It has a 1.3ghz nVidia Tegra processor, a 1280x800 screen, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of flash with about 5.5GB available for application storage, and a slot to install a microSD card for additional storage. It's an SDXC slot capable of handling a 64GB card or larger. It has Wifi and Bluetooth, though Bluetooth is disabled by default, likely to save battery. It has a rear facing 5MP camera and a front facing .3MP camera. It runs Android 4.3 Jellybean.
The device was apparently intended as a gaming and video machine. I do neither, but it was still a good base to start from, with the rear facing camera a selling point. My old digital camera went walkabout a while back and I'd been after a replacement. This was a decent digital camera for my usage that also happened to be a full featured Android tablet. The hi-res 1280x800 screen was an additional major plus.
The tablet came with an assortment of bundled software, including the Google Chrome browser, the Google Play Books, Magazines, Movies and TV and Music apps, and Kingsoft Office as the office suite. As is typical in such cases, the bundled apps are installed as System apps, and can't be removed via standard uninstall. Making them go away requires a rooted device, and rooting is the first thing I do on a new Android device.
Rooting the HP Slate Plus was trivial. Kingo Root, run from Windows and connected via USB cable recognized the Slate, pushed the exploit that gets root, and pushed the Superuser app that serves as a root request broker and provides access to apps that request root. (There is a Kingo apk that can be installed and run on device to get root, but I didn't test it on this device.) When an app wants root access, Superuser pops up a dialog asking permission, and if you Allow it, the app gets root access. You can disable root access by an app later in Superuser if you decide it's not required.
Running Kingo requires that USB debugging is enabled on the device. I got that by going into Settings, choosing About Tablet, and tapping on Build number several times. After about five presses, it says "You are now a developer", and a Developer options menu appears in Setting where you can enable USB debugging. Once it's set Kingo can communicate with the tablet.
There was an annoyance or two. In addition to rooting the device, and pushing the Superuser app, Kingo pushed an AliExpress shopping app and a Superbattery app. I wanted neither, and they were uninstalled. The Superuser app has also been getting expanded capabilities, and wants to try to optimize apps for fast loading. It popped up a dialog box after every app install offering to do so. I don't want that, but going into Preferences for the Superuser app and turning off Toast notifications made it shut up.
With 5.5GB of app storage, there has been no pressing hurry to remove unwanted System apps. I have Disabled the ones I don't need as they won't get used.
Thus far, things are coming along nicely, and the hi-res screen is a wonder. The main limitation is 4.3 Jellybean. 4.4 KitKat and 5.1 Lollipop are common (and I have devices with each), 6.0 Marshmallow is current, and 7.0 Nougat is being rolled out to selected devices. Whether a device gets Android upgrades depends on the manufacturer. HP is not rolling out upgrades to this model, so Jellybean is what it's stuck with. That's not a deal breaker, as I think I have two apps elsewhere that need KitKat or better, and both are things I can live without.
In terms of what I install, preference goes to open source applications, and a variety of worthy stuff is available. I'll detail what all I have on the device in another post in the thread.
Meanwhile, I'm quite pleased.
______
Dennis