Polaroid Q8
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Hands-on with Polaroid's budget Q8 tablet
Polaroid's not just about cameras. In fact, the company typically debuts a new tablet or two at CES. This year's no different: tonight we got a look at its latest cheapo, the Q Series slate. The Q7 goes for $129, but we got our hands on the 8-inch version, which will set you back $149. As far as specs go, the only outright positives here are the quad-core processor under the hood and the fact that the Q8's running Android 4.4 KitKat. Navigating home screens and apps on the screen was snappy and lag-free, even though the unnamed CPU is likely on the low end of available quad-core chips. Speaking of the screen: pixel density is appallingly low here, which is to be expected with such a budget-priced tablet, but nonetheless underwhelming -- especially when the Nexus 7 exists. The Q8 is done up in a soft-touch finish, which looks and feels anything but premium. Especially with the white model, we can imagine you'll pick up smudges quite quickly. Rounding out the spec list are 8GB of internal memory are on board, along with 1 gig of RAM, and both front and rear cameras. That's about it -- it's been a tradition to hit Polaroid slates at CES, so take a look at the photos below for our hands-on treatment. Billy Steele contributed to this report.
Polaroid's Q-series Android tablets offer a taste of KitKat starting at $129
Polaroid isn't known as a technology vanguard, but it's showing a little forward thinking today with the launch of three budget tablets. The 7-inch Q7 (pictured below), 8-inch Q8 (above) and 10.1-inch Q10 all run Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box, giving them a slight edge over more advanced devices that are still running older software. Not that they'll be especially noteworthy otherwise. All three ship with unnamed (but likely low-end) quad-core processors, and HDMI video is the only real standout feature. You may forgive the modest specs when you see the pricing, however. The Q series will sell at prices between $129 and $179 when it ships in the spring, which makes it one of the cheapest ways to try Google's latest mobile OS.
