The problem with $99 Android tablets - they suck!

CNet's Donald Bell makes some interesting points about the Android Honeycomb OS, but it is comments on price that caught my attention. Here's the point that Bell made about price that caught my attention:

If we're to hold up the Kindle Fire as the first genuine Android tablet success story, I think it's too easy to say that price is what put it on top. There are other $199 tablets out there. Hell, there are $99 tablets out there.

Yes, there are $99 Android tablets out there. But guess what? They're junk! CNet's own rating system classes them as such. Here's the $199 Velocity Micro Cruz T408:

And here's the $110 Maylong Universe M-150:

Our very own Jason Perlow got his hands on a Maylong M-150 and branded it an “awful piece of junk.”

Maylong M-150 $99 Android Tablet from Walgreens from Off The Broiler on Vimeo.

What Amazon did with the Kindle Fire is make good, solid, reliable tablet for $199. There's a big gulf between some no-name brand generic Android tablet and the Kindle Fire. People know the Kindle brand, and they sure know the Amazon brand. The trick isn't to make a cheap product, it's to make a good value product. Amazon knew the difference between the two. The no-name makers didn't. This is why the Kindle Fire was a hit, and it's also why you might not have heard of the other two tablets. There's a lot of cheap and nasty junk out there produced with one goal in mind - suckering people into buying something that vaguely looks like an iPad, only built so cheap as to be utterly useless. Don't fall into the trap! Related:

• The problem with Android tablets - Manufacturers see them as disposable
• Poor quality tablets could harm Android's reputation
• Android crapware - Greed at the expense of reputation and user experience
• Jason Perlow: Disaster: What happens when you buy an Android tablet at Walgreens