Climbing into the CES 2013 limelight a little early this year, Coby Electronics has announced the MID7065, a brand new 7-inch Android tablet that costs just $149. That undercuts existing mini-tablets such as the Google Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle Fire HD and the Nook HD by $50. What's the catch? Don't thumb your nose at this slate just yet.
Unlike previous Coby tablets that forced users to use a third-party app store, the MID 7065 includes full access to the Google Play store. In other words, you can download all the hottest apps, games, movies, television shows and music with your Google account. This device also packs in other Google services like Chrome, Gmail, Maps and YouTube.
The MID7065 features a 1.2-GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 and a front-facing 0.3-MP camera. The device includes 8GB of flash storage with a microSD Card slot that lets you expand that up to 32GB.
Now come the trade-offs. The new Coby tablet runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, so it lacks Google Now, offline voice typing and other benefits of the new Jelly Bean OS. The company also hasn't listed the screen resolution yet, though we hope to get the full scoop here at CES.
None of the above necessarily takes Coby out of the running. A good 7-inch may not be hard to find, but an extra 50 bucks sure can be.
