[angusgr]

These devices really are cheap and nasty. I have an Eken M001 and an M003, which are the same WM8505 chipset and (AFAIK) the exact same Android port.

However, if you're stuck with one then it's worth loading one of the alternative firmwares from http://www.slatedroid.com/ on it. People have done quite a lot with the closed source Android port to make it more usable.

They also make for good tinkering/reverse-engineering on a budget. I'm actually just winding up a (very hacky) early stage Android 2.2 port to this chipset. although it isn't showing signs of being very good to use, it's been fun to hack together.

[pronoiac]

So alternate firmware really doesn't help that much? The hardware is too rough to salvage?

[angusgr]

It's really hard to make convincing generalisations about this.

A lot of people seem to be happy with their cheapie tablets as a e-readers, tinker boxes, light web browsers, portable video players, etc.

Noone who really wants an iPad equivalent is going to be happy with one, though. Different leagues.

Like all technology, it comes down to what you want to do with it. I'm not a very good measure of that, because I originally bought an M001 to hack on (I originally wanted to use mine as a cheap robotics controller, however it developed a hardware fault that makes it difficult to power on so it's not really a good candidate any more.)

[Xuzz]

Closed source Android port? I thought Android was open?

[angusgr]

Android is Apache licensed, so AOSP source is available but most vendors do not release their own source code that actually ships on the device.

The Android port on the WM8505 has a ton of hardware-specific hacks in it, including significant custom userland code to set the framebuffer modes up properly. Things that would be put into the kernel in a well-designed system (IMHO.)

[Xuzz]

Interesting; I didn't know that. Thanks!