Ematic launches EXP8: a budget-friendly ICS-running 9.7-inch tablet

Ematic a California-based company release a number of decent budget-friendly Android tablets in the past, but the company still seems unable to break the barriers of anonymity and become a mainstream player.

The last Ematic gadget was the eGlide Pro X 9.7-incher, a tab running Android 4.0 and featuring HDMI output,it has a resolution of 800 x 480 pix display.

The EXP8 is marketed as a “value tablet”, but, at $179.99 it’s starting to look not that cheap, considering the direction the market is heading. Still, this is a 9.7-inch tab, and not a 7-incher like the Google Nexus 7.

The IPS capacitive multi-touch screen comes with a 1024 x 768 pixels resolution, which is not exactly the standard for 10-inchers these days, but it is still a significant evolution over the eGlide Pro X.

The EXP8 is powered by a 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor. The rest of the features are not that bad and include 1 GB of RAM, a 400 Mhz GPU, 8 GB of internal memory, 5 GB of free cloud storage, microSD support, HDMI, USB 2.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, 3-axis gyroscope, accelerometer, dual cameras, and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.