Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Bangalore Based EAFT Launches 10.1-inch Android Tablet

It’s been hard enough trying to make a choice when it comes to purchasing a tablet, however, things just got a little tougher with yet another device that has been recently announced for India. The latest tablet to enter into the foray is by another local manufacturer, Bangalore-based EAFT (Everything at your Fingertips) Technologies. Their offering is the MagicTile-Marathon 10.1-inch, NVIDIA Tegra 2 infused, Android tablet.

With features that include full HD i.e. 1080p video playback and Flash 10.1 Support, the MagicTile should be worthy competition for the Xoom, ICONIA A500 or even the iPad 2. However, that might not necessarily be the case here. For one thing the MagicTile has very limited internal storage i.e. 512MB for the OS and running apps etc. and is available with Android 2.2 aka FroYo, which is not upgradable.

According to EAFT’s Engineering Manager for the project, Pankaj Verma – the reason why EAFT has launched the Marathon with FroYo and not Honeycomb, is because of the fact that this version has, so far, proven to be the most stable of the lot. While that’s understandable from a certain standpoint it seems a bit that even Gingerbread was not an option seeing as NVIDIA’s 1GHz Tegra2 processor is quite capable of handling it.

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Could it really take on even the ICONIA A500?


The lack of ‘GB-capacity’ memory is what will automatically take it out of the running with the big boys like Motorola, Apple, Acer or Samsung. What the MagicTile, or Marathon does support is USB 2.0 connectivity, which will allow you to connect a pen drive up to 16GB for added support. If that isn’t enough, you can also thrown in a 16GB microSD card. The USB port can also be used to attach a keyboard or mouse, which means it has only FAT32 support and not NTFS for hard drives.

With regards to media, the device is capable of reading AVI files and H.264 formats in full HD. EAFT is also providing customers with their own App Market for downloading applications (hopefully the device will also come preloaded with the native Android Market as well). The MagicTile is also equipped to handle 3G connectivity but will have no calling functionality, it’s strictly for data.

Here’s a quick look at the specs -
  • 10.1-inch TFT LCD capacitive touchscreen with a 1024 x 600 pixel resolution
  • 3G for data only, EDGE/GPRS, Wi-Fi,
  • Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP
  • GPS with aGPS support
  • USB 2.0 with plug and play capability
  • 1.3MP camera
  • HDMI out with 1080p video support
  • MicroSD card support up to 16GB
  • Stereo speakers built in

EAFT has priced the MagicTile-Marathon tablet at Rs. 29,990 (MRP), but it is available at a special online price of Rs. 26,990, since it’s only just been launched. You can get it online at that price here.

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