[ale] Ultra cheap tablet discussion. Are they useful or can they be made useful?

[DJ-Pfulio]

Cheap tablet comparison article today:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/07/the-100-tablet-shootout-amazon-fire-8-hd-plus-vs-walmart-onn-8-tablet-pro/
The specs shown aren't accurate. For example, neither device has GPS enabled HW.

BTW, the new Fire 8HD was $60 a few days ago.  A little adb and you can remove the ads.

On 7/2/20 7:43 AM, Neal Rhodes via Ale wrote:
> This is probably heresy to say, but there is a simple process to load 4 .APKs on a Fire 8 and then it runs Play Store and you can load android apps.  It has thus far run everything that we'd run on an Android tablet.   After muscling several LineageOs versions on a Samsung tablet I just wasn't in the mood to build myself.
> 
> This way Amazon still does their OS updates.   Only major gripe is that voice recognition doesn't work, because Alexa.
> 
> Do note that Fire tablets don't have a GPS chip.
> 
> Neal
> 
> On 2020-06-29 16:39, Charles Shapiro via Ale wrote:
>> I'm fond of my Rooted and re-imaged Amazon Fire.  Rooting these
>> devices is tricky, as Amazon actively works against you.  Best advice
>> I can give is to research software versions and rooting methods, then
>> buy the right one from Swappa.com or someplace.  Whatever you do,
>> don't install OTA updates.
>>
>> -- CHS
>> ]
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 11:19 PM Ben Coleman via Ale <ale at ale.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> When my last Samsung Tab A 7 died on me, Walmart had just come out
>>> with
>>> their Onn-branded Android tablets.  I picked up one of the 8"
>>> tablets on
>>> sale (they are normally $64, but were on sale for $5-10 off).  For
>>> what
>>> i use it for (primarily reading on the Kindle App, Google Play
>>> books,
>>> Packt's app, OverDrive for library books, and Olive Tree's Bible
>>> Reader.
>>> Occasionally I'll watch something on Hulu or Netflix), it's fine.
>>> Android 9, 2G RAM, 16GB Flash 2.4Ghz and 5 Ghz Wifi, Bluetooth.
>>> It's
>>> not a speed demon, but it's about the same speed as the Tab A 7
>>> tablets
>>> I had been using previously, maybe a tad bit faster.
>>>
>>> With the Tab A's, I had gotten to the point where I had to carefully
>>> prune what apps I had installed on the tablet to keep it running
>>> acceptably.  So far, I haven't had to do that with this tablet.
>>> I've
>>> definitely got more apps running on it than I had on the Tab A's,
>>> and it
>>> hasn't really slowed down.
>>>
>>> From what I can google, it's hackable/rootable, though I haven't
>>> tried yet.
>>>
>>> One very odd quirk - though the Android 9 on it is almost stock, it
>>> does
>>> include Walmart apps factory-installed.  When an update to the
>>> Walmart
>>> app became  available, running the Walmart App would detect this and
>>> insist that it be updated.  However, the update would always fail.
>>> This
>>> lasted until the next system update for the tablet.  Recently, when
>>> the
>>> Walmart App and the Walmart Grocery app were combined, it started
>>> doing
>>> the same thing if you tried to go into the Grocery app.  I guess
>>> I'll
>>> have to wait until the next system update to use that app.  You'd
>>> think
>>> that Walmart would at least make sure that their own app would run
>>> on
>>> their tablet, or would at least make sure this problem didn't come
>>> up
>>> again, but Nooooo.
>>>
>>> On 6/27/2020 6:28 PM, Beddingfield, Allen via Ale wrote:
>>>> For a couple of years now, I have been seeing these really cheap
>>> ($40 to $50)Android tablets in Wal-Mart, dollar stores, and places
>>> that normally don't even sell electronics.  Most of them are some
>>> brand no one has heard of, or a shameless re-licensing of old school
>>> brands like RCA or Polaroid.  I know they are going to be the
>>> cheapest of Chinese made junk, but how bad are they?  Would they be
>>> usable at all for basic web browsing?  I notice that most of them
>>> are running Android 5.0 or 6 .0.  Have any of you played with any of
>>> these, or investigated upgrading the OS on them?
>>>