Augen Tablet Has Some Unlicensed Parts
Todd has written about all of the low priced tablets making their way to market, most running a version of Google Android. One that we have written in particular about is the Augen GenTouch tablet due to its $150 sale price tag at K-Mart. At the time we first learned about the GenTouch we were skeptical about how good it could be at that price. Turns out the GenTouch has a resistive touchscreen that makes it harder to use, and amongst the limitations is that while the Android Market app is on the tablet, you can’t install apps from the market.
There may be a good reason why one cannot install apps on the GenTouch, which is that it may not be licensed to do so. While Android is open source, there are some components of it that are specifically licensed by Google, presumably to make sure a Google version of Android is easily recognizable. You might notice that some Android phones are labeled “with Google,” which I assume to mean that they have the officially licensed software.
The downside in all of this is that it can be very confusing for consumers to know whether the device they are buying with Android is the real deal. Here is what I suggest. First, give the price a sniff test. Frankly, $150 or even the $169 full price sounds too low for a fully functioning tablet. I would expect to pay around $300 and be skeptical of anything lower at this time. Second, look for the “with Google” labeling. Note that Augen’s web page for the GenTouch mentions Android plenty of times, but there is no mention of Google. The picture of the tablet with Google loaded in the web browser may be a sneaky way to get Google on the page. Finally, my suggestion to Google is that they put up a web page on their site that lists their official partners, that way consumers can be confident that the product they buy will have the full support of Google.
