One Dollar and Seven Cents for a Tablet?

[icebike]

Ok, so I get this call from AT&T(or one of their franchise stores) offering me new plan options at better prices. I know, right? Shocked!

I've been paying for 30gig of data for three lines, and we were planning to drop a line anyway, so I went in and talked to them. (It was a business account).

So we dropped the data down to something reasonable (worst usage in the past year was 4.8Gig/month - we are always on wifi anyway), and we get the line dropped, etc. Substantial saving.

So then they offer this tablet, a ZTE K88, for $1.07 net price after promo.
(Plus a data charge, etc - still way less than we were paying.)

Little 8 inch-ish size. Figured I could try it and give it to a grandkid If I didn't like it, or just drop the data plan, yank the SIM and use it on wifi). 16Gig, 9gig unused, 8-core CPU. Yadda yadda.

I wasn't in the market for a tablet, (have a couple already) and for that price I wasn't expecting much performance.

I get it home, and Yikes, its almost pure Android, and really quite snappy. And it has adaptable storage option for the microsd slot, which means lots of room for movies and music and pictures without all the management hassle of a separate card etc. I had a spare super-fast microSD card sitting unused anyway.
The camera isn't much, but not horrible, the mic and sound are ok, good enough battery, bright screen.

Not bad for $1,07. Way more than I expected of it.
AT&T Trek 2 HD Tablet Specifications

So if you get this offer you might want to take a look at it even if you don't think you need a tablet.

Note: There is a $45 restocking fee, (for a 1 dollar item - salesman and I had a good chuckle about that). Disclaimer: I don't work for AT&T, or ZTE, and wouldn't have opened an account to get this. I've just been an AT&T customer for a long time.

 

[B. Diddy]

Good to know! I'm always a little leery about these carrier-specific tablets, but it's nice to hear that the UI isn't over-customized. Is there a lot of bloatware?

 

[icebike]

The usual Amazon, Facebook, and some AT&T stuff, Direct TV. Those are the ones you can disable but can't delete. A couple others are already gone.
But far less than came on my last HTC Phone unlocked non-carrier phone.

 

[cohoman]

Last year I was offered an LG F Pad 7" tablet for 99 cents when I upgraded to the Galaxy S7, so I took the offer (which required a 2 year commitment for service). It turned out this tablet was so underpowered with a low amount of RAM and slow processor that made it unbearable to use. Starting up apps took almost 60 seconds and web pages loaded super slow in the Chrome browser. I ended up ditching the tablet and bought a Samsung Tab E ($199) which was more usable. So, I would be a bit wary of these tablet giveaways and low cost deals.