This New HTC Tablet Is A Missed Opportunity

Fledgling Taiwanese technology company HTC has not been too active with its smartphone and tablet launches for the past few years. While the company has been continuously launching smartphones in its native market of Taiwan for a while now, HTC's international product portfolio continued to be in tatters. Complicating matters even further, HTC — faced with mounting losses – also withdrew from several key markets in 2019. Among the key reasons for HTC's continued decline was a lackluster product portfolio that offered little value for money and a general lack of competitiveness. In addition, the emerging threat of Chinese brands made any possible attempt at a revival harder.

Miraculously, unlike LG, which decided to give up on its smartphones business and make money elsewhere, HTC persisted. The company continues to manufacture smartphones and VR headsets — and of late, it has announced its intentions to launch some of its newer products in international markets. The most recent example of this was a smartphone called the HTC Desire 22 Pro, which saw a wider launch net. Even though it is touted as a device that will work seamlessly with HTC's Vive Flow VR glasses, the rest of the hardware did not exactly send smartphone enthusiasts' pulses racing. Now it seems the company's newest attempt at a tablet will elicit a similar reaction from people who loved HTC at one point in time. The device in question is the new HTC A101 tablet, which will be launched in South Africa soon.

The fact that the HTC A101 is an entry-level budget tablet is evident from the design itself. Take, for example, its massive bezels, making it seem a bit dated. The display used on this tablet measures 10.1-inches across and has a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels. While the HTC A101 gets a respectable 8GB of RAM, the processor used here is the UNISOC T618 chip. Designed by UNISOC, this SoC is an entry-level chipset that is based on a 12nm manufacturing process. Given its credentials, do not expect blazing fast performance on this tablet. The model features 128GB of onboard storage and packs the option to add a microSD card, as well.

The camera setup on the A101 includes a 12MP primary rear-facing camera and a 2MP ultrawide camera. HTC has also thrown in a decent 5MP front-facing camera. Powering the tablet is a 7,000 mAh battery that does not support fast charging. On the software side, this tablet will ship with Android 11 at launch. Clearly, the HTC A101 is an entry-level device that targets people who do not have a huge amount of money to splurge on a tablet. 

Unfortunately for HTC, the advent of fiercely competitive Chinese smartphone brands has blurred the lines between mid-tier and low-end devices. This means that consumers of late have been getting really good-looking, well-specced products for low prices. With the HTC A101 tablet, that doesn't seem to be the case. Our perception of the product may change in case HTC decides to price the device competitively, but unfortunately, the company has yet to reveal this rather crucial piece of information.