Viewsonic is trying hard to win the low-end of the tablet market with, and now they’re pushing once again to do that with a wave of 3 tablets, all running Android 4.0, which should be a huge improvement over their previous tablets that only used Android 2.3. They are also trying to win the market with lower prices, that are more Kindle Fire-like, at least when it comes to the ViewPad E70, which should be £129 in UK, and anywhere from $150-$200 in US, I would assume. The E70 specs include a 7-inch display, a 1 GHz processor, 4GB of storage, a front-facing camera (only), WiFi, and a microSD slot. It will sell in Europe by the end of June.
The ViewPad G70 is also a 7″ tablet, but costs twice as much (£260). What do you get for that? Well it has a 7″ display with a 1024×600 resolution, 1 GB of RAM, 2MP rear camera, 0.3MP front camera, and connectivity for 3G, WiFi, and Bluetooth. It will also have mini HDMI, Micro-USB, and Mini-USB ports.
Last but not least, is the ViewPad E100, which is a 9.7″ tablet, with an awkward 4:3 resolution of 1024×768, which is very unusual for Android tablets. Other than that, it has the same specs as the G70, again with its 1 Ghz processor, which is also strange for a tablet that is even more expensive at £325, which would be converted to around $500 in US, but will probably be $350-$400 in US. I still think the price is too high, though.
The lesser known brands might have have a small window of opportunity to capture a bit of market share in the low-end, until the much better equipped companies like Samsung and Asus show up with their much better economies of scale, to sell a tablet with the same specs, or better, for a lower price. At the mid-to-high range, I think they’ve already lost that battle to the bigger companies.