In the deluge of tablets that's currently making its way to living rooms all over the world, it's hard for one device to stand out. Technology company Cherrypal found one way to distinguish itself, and that's with bargain-basement pricing. The $188 (direct) Cherrypal CherryPad is among the least-expensive full-blown Android tablets you can buy. That magical under-$200 price tag means many people are interested, but the real question is, how well does it work and what do you get for your $188? The answer is yes—as long as you keep your expectations in line with the device's price. The CherryPad doesn't work perfectly, it won't download apps (for now), or be your productivity powerhouse, but if you want a light and portable Web browser, music and video player, and photo viewer, for a very low price, the CherryPad fills the bill. That's not to say you shouldn't spend more to get a better tablet.
Before we go any further, there are a few questions about Cherrypal, the company behind the CherryPad, that need to be answered. In 2009, the company announced a computer called the Cherrypal—a low-power, $99 laptop computer. Many people, in the U.S. ordered that computer, and some never received it, so they filed formal complaints and even sued Cherrypal for their money back.
MoreCherrypal founder Max Seybold, when I spoke with him, told me that every single person who ever ordered a Cherrypal either received the device or got a refund. The company, Seybold said, hit a logistical issue with fulfilling orders, and lost a large percentage of its funding during the financial crisis of 2008-2009. All the problems have been resolved, Seybold said, and he added that every CherryPad order had been filled.
My advice? Tread very carefully. Cherrypal's explanations make sense, but the company still has an F-rating with the Better Business Bureau. If you buy a CherryPad, use PayPal or a credit card—refunds are much easier to come by that way. With that out of the way, let's get back to the CherryPad.
Specifications
Operating System
Google Android 2.3 or earlier
Screen Size
7 inches
Storage Capacity (as Tested)
1.35 GB
Dimensions
7.9 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
Networking Options
802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n
More Design
To say the CherryPad takes design cues from the Apple iPad ($499-$829, 4 stars) would be a gross understatement—from the proprietary connector at the bottom to the three buttons on the side, the CherryPad tries its best to look like Apple's tablet beauty. The aluminum shell measures 7.9 by 5.2 by .5 inches, and weighs 14.7 ounces—it's smaller in every dimension than the iPad, but that's largely because the CherryPad has a 7-inch screen, not the 9.7-incher the iPad sports. From its size to its screen quality, the closest comparison is to the Archos 7 Home Tablet ($199, 3 stars), not the higher-quality iPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab ($399-$599, 3.5 stars). The CherryPad runs Android 2.1 (with an upgrade to 2.2 slated for later this year), and Wi-Fi connectivity is built-in, but there's no Bluetooth or 3G. The CherryPad runs on an 800MHz ARM11 processor, and comes with 256MB of RAM.
The LCD, like with most tablets, is the key feature of the CherryPad. It's a 7-inch, 800-by-480-pixel resistive touch screen, with no multi-touch support (so you can't pinch or zoom), and while it's not especially bright, it is bright enough. Just below the screen are three recessed buttons for the Android-standard Home, Menu and Back controls. On the bottom of the CherryPad you'll find a card slot (Cherrypal calls them "TF" cards, but don't let that confuse you—the slot is for micro-SD cards), and a proprietary dock connector for charging and syncing the CherryPad. On top of the tablet are a microphone and a headphone jack, and Power buttons and Volume controls live on on the right panel—they're much too close to each other, though, and led to my unintentionally turning off the CherryPad more than a couple of times during testing.
Performance
Let's start with the good: the CherryPad connected easily to Wi-Fi networks, and synced e-mail, calendar entries, and settings with my Google account. For basic tasks, the CherryPad's speed was average—never lightning-fast, but never annoyingly slow. As soon as two or three windows were open, or a video was playing, though, the device sometimes slowed to a crawl. The Web browser is the same found on any other Android 2.1-based device, and it works fine. Pages loaded a little less quickly than on a Droid X smartphone, but never felt particularly slow. YouTube videos played reliably and looked good on the 7-inch screen. The music player works fine (again, it's a stock Android app that comes pre-installed), as do the video player, e-mail client, and alarm clock. Audio sounded good over the integrated speaker, but distorted at high volumes, and the internal microphone picked voices up clearly in my tests. Cherrypal says the CherryPad will play up to 1080p video, but the resistive, darker, lower-resolution screen makes the quality suffer. For the few most basic Android tasks, though, the CherryPad works just fine.
There are a number of performance oddities with the CherryPad; things you wouldn't see on a more-expensive device. The CherryPad takes 50 seconds to start up, which is an incredibly long time for a tablet, and is all the more annoying because the CherryPad's default setting is to turn completely off after two minutes of being idle. Put the CherryPad down to brush your teeth, and suddenly it's another minute of waiting while it turns back on. That setting can be changed, thankfully.
The resistive touch screen is one of the biggest challenges that comes with using the CherryPad—typing requires very firm taps, and it feels odd to be mashing the screen to type a URL in the browser. If you press hard enough, you'll feel the screen bend under your finger—that's what it's supposed to do, but it's a little disconcerting. The experience was somewhat better with a stylus, but the device isn't bundled with one.
There are also a few things that simply didn't work in my tests. Despite having access to the Android Market, I was completely unable to actually download apps—when I tried to download Angry Birds, the "Starting Download" screen came up, and never went away. There's also an "App Installer" pre-installed on the CherryPad for installing apps from other sources, but apps installed there wouldn't launch. Cherrypal assured me that this is a known issue that doesn't affect everyone, and that a software update coming in a matter of days would fix the problem. Either way, given the speed of the device, I wouldn't recommend installing resource-heavy apps, if any.
Also, I inserted a 512MB micro SD card, and an 8GB card, and the CherryPad didn't recognize either one. The company, again, said this is a known issue, and that cards up to 16GB should be supported, and a fix is coming soon. Until then, you'll be stuck with the 1.35GB of available integrated storage. That's enough for a couple of movies or a few hundred songs, but it's certainly not enough to make the CherryPad a viable portable media companion.
Since there's no iTunes-like sync option available for Android, the best way to get files onto the CherryPad is to connect it to your computer via USB, and drag and drop files onto the CherryPad, which mounts as a hard drive. There may not be a ton of space, but it'll take just about any file format you throw at it: the CherryPad supports AVI, RM, RMVB, FIL, MPEG 1, and MPEG 2 for video, and a similarly large number of formats for photos and audio. As far as the battery, I got about 4 hours of continuous video watching out of the CherryPad, so you won't need more than a movie or two on there anyway.
Here's what it all boils down to: for $188, you get a tablet that does its basic job well. The Web browser is good (though the screen makes typing and scrolling a bit of a challenge sometimes), and it's a functional music and video player, photo frame, and alarm clock. It's really more akin to a Sony Dash ($199.99, 3 stars) or a Chumby One ($119.95, 2 stars), than it is to a full tablet device. If you're looking for the best tablet experience out there, you'll need to spend a lot more to get the Apple iPad or the Samsung Galaxy Tab. If you want another inexpensive option, consider the Archos 7 Home Tablet—at $200, it's only slightly more expensive, but it's not without similar issues. Though Archos has proven a more reliable company than Cherrypal. If you do decide to get a CherryPad (and if you do, I highly recommend waiting until the issues with expandable storage and the Android Market are ironed out), don't expect it be a great experience for games or productivity, or to look and feel as nice as an iPad—it won't. But it gets you into a tablet device for less than $200.
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