ViewSonic ViewPad E70 is a £130 Android ICS tablet

[Larry-G]

ViewSonic is preparing to fire a very cheap Android tablet into the UK market -- I was told the ViewSonic ViewPad E70, pictured above in prototype form at the company's stand at MWC, should retail for around £130 when it launches this spring.

It's a 7-inch tablet with a 1GHz chip, and Android Ice Cream Sandwich on board -- albeit heavily skinned with ViewSonic's own 3D interface. It is possible to toggle to an ICS-only view though via the home key.

Notably there's no access to the Android Market -- doubtless because it's so cheap -- so E70 users will have to make do with alternatives such as 1Mobile or web apps.
The E70 is a Wi-Fi only tablet but it's fully loaded with ports including mini-HDMI, mini-USB, micro-USB and a microSD card slot. On board storage is 4GB, and there's 512MB of memory. Bluetooth is also included.

The capacitive touchscreen has a lowly resolution of 800x480 pixels, and there's a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video calls, but the final device won't ship with a rear camera, despite this prototype sporting a lens on its back.

The company was also showing off a higher-spec version of the slate -- called the ViewPad G70 -- which includes 3G and access to the Android Market, but will cost about twice as much.

ViewSonic also has a 9.7-inch Ice Cream Sandwich slate in the pipe-line. Click through the photo gallery above to see snaps of all its tablets, plus a pair of dual-SIM Android smart phones it's bringing to market. Let me know what you think down in the comments

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