Coby has made a name for itself by offering consumer electronics at dirt cheap prices. What's interesting is that they're not all that bad. I was kind of impressed with how much tablet you got for the money with last year's $200 Coby Kyros MID9742 9.7 inch tablet. And this year Coby has stepped up its game a bit.
All of the company's 2013 tablets feature dual-core processors, Android 4.0 software, and they're the first tablets from Coby to be Google Certified — which means they ship with the Play Store and other apps such as Google Maps and Gmail.
The star of the show is the 10.1 inch Coby MID1065, which is the only model in the lineup to feature an IPS display with wide viewing angles. But that's not the tablet Coby loaned me to review.
Instead I got a chance to spend some time with the Coby MID8065 8 inch tablet. It offers decent performance, a pretty good price, and an underwhelming display.
You can pick one up for as little as $156.
Overview
The Coby MID8065 features an 8 inch, 1024 x 768 pixel display, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of built-in storage. It has a 1.2 GHz AMlogic AM8726 ARM Cortex-A9 dual core processor.
There's a 5MP camera on the read of the tablet and a 0.3MP front-facing camera. It supports 802.11b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 and features stereo speakers and a microSD card slot for extra storage.
Coby ships the tablet with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and while Google is already up to Android 4.2, the vast majority of apps that can run on Google's later versions of Android can also run on version 4.0.
Most importantly, Coby no longer ships its tablet with GetJar or other third party app stores. Instead you get access to the full Google Play Store, which makes it easy to download and install hundreds of thousands of apps.
The Coby MID8065 also features a stock Android experience. Coby hasn't dressed up Google's software with a skin in any way. The settings, notifications, home screen, launcher, and notifications on this tablet all look pretty much exactly as they would on a Google Nexus device.
Design
Coby's 8 inch tablet has a display that's just a bit larger than the one on the Apple iPad mini. And like the iPad mini, the Coby MID8065 has a 1024 x 768 pixel screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio.
But while Apple's tablet measures 7.9″ a 5.3″ x 0.28″ and weighs less than 11 ounces, Coby's tablet is a bit on the chunky side. It measures 8.3″ x 6.25″ x 0.45″ and weighs a little over a pound.
That still makes it smaller and lighter than most tablets with 10 inch screens. But clearly this budget tablet is no iPad mini.
In some ways that's a good thing. Unlike Apple's tablet, the Coby MID8065 has a mini HDMI port which you can use to connect the tablet to a TV or monitor. It also a microSD card slot which you can use to add extra storage for music, movies, or other files.
The ports, including a micro USB port, headphone jack, and power jack are on one of the tablet's short sides. On the opposite end you'll find stereo speakers which are reasonably clear, but not very loud.
The front of the tablet features an edge-to-edge piece of glass covering the display which meets the strips of plastic covering the tablet's sides.
There are power and volume buttons on the side next to the power jack.
On the bottom you'll find a plastic panel which curves up to meet the edges — so the tablet's actually a bit thicker than you'd expect if you only measured the flat plastic on the sides.
The microSD card slot is built into that sloped rear panel, and covered by a small plastic door. When it's open, you can get a better idea of how thick the tablet is.
Don't get me wrong — at less than half an inch thick and
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