ViewSonic goes downmarket with ViewBook 730 and ViewPad 7x Android tablets, starting from $250

Thanks to the ommission of certain features, like a dual-core processor and rear camera, which have become trademark for high-end Android tablets, the ViewSonic ViewBook 730 carries an affordable price tag of $250.

It comes with a stylus, however, so we might be talking a resistive 7" here, but it is not entirely clear from the press release. The display comes at the modest for this size 480x800 pixels of resolution, and the ViewBook 730 has only 8GB of internal memory, expandable via a microSD card. The cheap slate sizes up at 8.19x5.23x0.56" (208x132.8x14.1mm), and weighs 0.96 pounds. The 5000mAh battery keeps it up for eight hours straight, according to ViewSonic.

The ViewBook 730 is powered by a 1GHz processor, and runs Android 2.2 Froyo for now, sporting Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but GPS or 3G are mentioned nowhere in the presser. Two stereo speakers with microphone, a 3.5mm audio jack, a mini-USB, and a mini-HDMI port round up the offering. The HDMI-out port is however capable of pumping out 1080p video to your HDTV.

Excited yet? If not, the ViewSonic ViewPad 7xis another upcoming 7-incher from the company, this time with dual-core Tegra 2 chipset and a 4G HSPA+ radio, which will likely start from $400, probably when Google releases Honeycomb for 7" devices. It has front and rear cameras, HDMI-out and DLNA capabilities, as well as some sort of a surround sound technology.

Any of those two, and especially their price tag tickle your imagination?

source: ViewSonic