Android, iOS and Windows-powered mainstream consumer-oriented tablets have been in circulation for the better part of a decade, but the sector has seen steady de-growth for several years now. While smartphones have gone from strength to strength, tablet sales have failed to encourage or enthuse the industry, but that doesn’t mean vendors and OEMs are giving up on the humble slate just as yet, even though newer and more promising sectors like virtual and augmented reality are capturing the imagination of the consumer electronics industry and consumers alike. It is in this background that one of the leading carriers in the UK, Vodafone, has launched a new tablet in the country, dubbed the Vodafone Tab Speed 6.
Priced at £125 on Pay as you go, the device is a decidedly lower mid-range offering, and comes without the sort of hardware that can make it stand out from the slew of inexpensive slates on offer from various manufacturers worldwide; but then again, that will be missing the point anyways. The Speed 6 seems to be aimed at the first-time tablet buyer who doesn’t want to spend the big bucks on a gadget whose utility is covered for the most part, by a laptop PC on the productivity front and the increasingly large-screen smartphones on the novelty front. The device is already listed for purchase on Vodafone’s official website, and the company says that buyers of the Speed 6 will get 6 GB of data for free, which comes with a 30 day validity period. The company is also offering long-term contracts, starting with a £16 plan that comes with 3 GB of LTE data.
Coming to the hardware on the Speed 6, the device features an 8-inch display that comes with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, and is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core processor of unspecified make. The tablet carries 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage, with support for a microSD card of up to 64 GB in capacity. There’s also a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing shooter to facilitate selfies and video calls. The Speed 6 comes with LTE connectivity, carries a 4,060 mAh battery and runs Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box.