Ever heard of Ainovo? No, we didn’t think so. Prepare to welcome them into your life, though, as they’ve just put the finishing touches to not only the world’s first commercially available Android 4.0 tablet, but also the world’s cheapest. It should worry Amazon no end.

The Ainovo Novo 7 rocks Ice Cream Sandwich, the fourth and newest iteration of Android, has a decent spec thanks to a 1GHz MIPS processor with Vivante GC860 GPU, 512MB RAM and 4GB of internal storage (which is expandable). That’s not ground-breaking by any means, but for $100 (£63), you really, really can’t complain.

And it’s that price that really makes things interesting in the current tablet market. Over the weekend, several US retailers outed charts that had the Amazon Kindle Fire above the Apple iPad. The Kindle Fire is also a 7-inch Android tab on the cheap, but it’s still nowhere near as wallet-friendly as the Ainovo Novo 7.

Not to mention that the Novo 7 blows the Kindle Fire out of the water in terms of extras. Not only is it more free thanks to Ice Cream Sandwich, but it also rocks a front and rear-facing camera set, a USB port, an HDMI port and a MicroSD port.

How the Amazon Kindle Fire 2 needs to adapt to survive

It’s currently only available from China, which means it might not find its way into the right stores to compete with the Kindle Fire, but it doesn’t need to: it simply proves that an Android 4.0 tablet – with full Android Market integration – can be done far cheaper than anyone had previously thought or was willing to try.

If any of Apple and Amazon’s competitors are watching, we advise you give this a go. You never know, you could transform the tablet market like the original iPad did.

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  • Anonymous

    Amazon’s problem is not this.  It’s that consumers are waking up to the fact (slowly) that Kindle is a closed platform that’s trying to lock consumers in, in exactly the same way consumers are locked into Apple wether they wish to or not, via the content they have bought.

    Kindle Fire uses an intentionally gimped version of Android, that whilst it runs Android applications, you can’t get them from the lavishly stocked Android Marketplace, you can only get them from Amazons crappy marketplace instead.
    This means whatever price Amazon decide to charge, and whatever apps they want to offer.  You can bet that there aren’t any ebook or music apps that might compete with their home-grown offerings, so no Kobo, no Barnes and Noble, no Google Music store etc etc etc.

    • Anonymous

      What price to pay for a readable screen, however. No one else is offering that quality hardware at that price – no one else can.

  • Anonymous

    Amazon’s problem is not this.  It’s that consumers are waking up to the fact (slowly) that Kindle is a closed platform that’s trying to lock consumers in, in exactly the same way consumers are locked into Apple wether they wish to or not, via the content they have bought.

    Kindle Fire uses an intentionally gimped version of Android, that whilst it runs Android applications, you can’t get them from the lavishly stocked Android Marketplace, you can only get them from Amazons crappy marketplace instead.
    This means whatever price Amazon decide to charge, and whatever apps they want to offer.  You can bet that there aren’t any ebook or music apps that might compete with their home-grown offerings, so no Kobo, no Barnes and Noble, no Google Music store etc etc etc.

  • Matt

    The company is called Ainol (yes really!) not Ainovo; the product line is the Novo. And no, it’s not going to be a Kindle Fire killer, even at $99.

    There are a few major differences between this and the Fire which you failed to mention.

    The biggest is the screen. The Fire has 1024×600 IPS behind Gorilla glass whereas the Novo is a regular LCD at 600×480. That’s quite a big difference to the day to day operation of the device.

    The single core MIPS processor in the Novo isn’t in the same league as the dual core OMAP in the Fire, not to mention the MIPS architecture isn’t compatible with many games.

    Ainol have recently launched the Elf and the Aurora which both have 1024×600 screens (IPS on the Aurora) as well as ARM processors, 1GB memory, 8GB internal storage with an SD card slot, camera(s), USB and HDMI out. You can pick these up delivered for anywhere from $150 to $180 so these certainly could become Kindle Fire killers if they take off.

    @Mr_Jelly:disqus 
    It’s relatively easy to add Android market to the Fire, or even to replace the stock OS completely if you want. These Chinese tablets don’t usually come with Android market either and often require quite a lot of tinkering to get them to an acceptable usable state.

    • chdcchris

      The Novo 7 Advanced and Basic have 800×480 not 600×480.
      The Novo 7 Advanced has a Cortex A8 ARM processor which is better and more compatible then the MIPS in the Basic version.

      The Novo 7 also has a very good Mali 400 GPU. The same as in Galaxy s2 which, in most benchmarks scores better then the PowerVR SGX540 in the Kindle fire. Novo 7 is very good for games. I think the Novo 7′s are a better deal. Especially the new elf and aurora.

      • Matt

        Sure the Elf, Aurora and upcoming Advanced 2 are better than the Basic or the Paladin, but then they will cost you more than $99. Once you add shipping and import duty the Aurora is not much less than the Fire for example.

        The Mali-400 in the Galaxy S2 is the 4 core variant but AFAIK the Allwinner chips use the single core version so I don’t think you can compare the performance of the two. You also have to take the screen resolution into account; if the GPU is driving a lower res screen then it’s bound to perform better.

        It will be interesting to see how the Aurora performs against the Fire given that the two are closest in specification and price.

        The other major thing you need to factor in is support. Most of these tablets come direct from China and if there’s a problem you are at best going to have to ship it back and wait weeks for a replacement or refund. Then there’s the ongoing firmware and OS support. Some companies are pretty good at updating theirs, others less so. Also don’t expect stuff like full access to the android market out of the box and be prepared for teething problems with ICS.

        I’m not saying that the Fire is always a better choice over a Novo Basic/Paladin, or even the Aurora, but you can’t just compare the spec sheets and make a judgement.

        Certainly if you are prepared to take a bit of a gamble on support and enjoy tinkering with your tablet to get the best performance then the Chinese tablets like the Novo line are excellent value for money.

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