Buying a budget Tablet | Things to remember.

Why getting a low cost off brand tablet is not such a great idea.

Anyone looking for a cheap tablet would find that there are dozens to choose from. The market is flooded with Chinese make tablets from as low as Rs 3000 to up to 10000. Most of us get lured seeing the price tag thinking what could possibly go wrong. Well a lot actually. Getting these tablets isn’t such a great idea after all due to plenty many reasons.




This is exactly what I’m talking about.

#No Google Play Store (Market)

Yup that’s right. Even though these tablets come with Android operating system on board, majority of them wont have access to Google Play Store (Google market). That means no access to Angry Birds, Temple Run, Facebook or another 500,000 apps on the market. Though they might come bundled with their own markets to provide apps, you can pretty much forget finding quality apps in there. List of Play Store's rival.

#No Software updates

As if not providing access to the Play Store wasn’t enough, here comes another shocker. You can expect to be stuck on the same version of android for an eternity (that is if the tablet is able to last over a few years). Most of these tablets come with Android 2.2 or 2.3 and getting ICS or even minor updates is out of the equation. You get what you buy and sadly that is how it stays forever. Don’t expect guys at xda to bail you out either.

#No warranty/ Cheap build quality

Though these tablets might work fine when you get them, the real problem starts after some time. The components used in these tablets are of inferior quality and degrade much sooner than those found in branded tablets. For instance the battery backup would degrade significantly in a few months. The cheapest tablets come with resistive touch screens instead of capacitive ones and these are frankly terrible to use. Also these tablets usually come without warranty of any kind. So once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.

Though these tablets make bold claims on spec sheets, truth is quite the opposite. If you are looking for a decent tablet that would last you another 2 years atleast, it is recommended to go for branded ones. You can find brands like HCL or Reliance tablet for around 10000 and they offer warranty as well as access to Play Store.