$120 ICS tablet from Ainol now available for pre-order

If you thought the Kindle Fire was cheap, think again.

Chinese company Ainol will soon be releasing a tablet equipped with Ice Cream Sandwich for only $120. Called the Novo7 Paladin, certain online retailers such as PandaWill and Merimobiles, are already taking preorders for the device.

The 7-inch tablet will run on a 1GHz JZ4770 MIPS CPU, in contrast to the ARM architecture of almost all other Android tablets. According to Liliputing, however, a number of Android apps are not built for the RISC-based instruction set, and may therefore not run on the Novo7 at all.

Otherwise, the specs for the affordable tablet are run of the mill or at least as run of the mill as it gets for a $120 ICS Android tablet. The Novo7 will run on an 800x480 resolution multi-touch display, include 512MB RAM and an 8GB SSD. Other features include 1080p playback, wireless-n and a built-in 4000MAh battery for up to 6 hours of battery life. Unfortunately, the specs description from PandaWill and Merimobiles differ slightly, as one says the device will support Flash with a built-in microSD reader, while the other says only HTML 5 is supported with a built-in TransFlash reader. Regardless, when taking into account the low price, the Ainol tablet is actually quite impressive. Heck, even the Kindle Fire doesn’t have a TransFlash or microSD card reader!

Still, judgment should be reserved until we get impressions of the build quality and responsiveness of the device. Shipment is expected to begin on January 5th.

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