Tablet maker Augen shuts down

Little-known company Augen has unexpectedly thrown in the towel and, according to The Digital Reader, is not even responding to phone calls or emails. In fact, the official Augen website has reportedly been down for over a month with no clue as to why. A visit to the website will only return an Error 404 Not Found page.

A reasonable cause for the shutdown may be due to the poor profitability of Augen tablets. The company made headlines around the web last year for releasing a 7-inch $150 Android tablet and a $100 Android netbook. Unfortunately, the devices were somewhat disappointing according to many reviews. Called the GenTouch 78, the tablet came with Android 2.1, a 800x480 resolution screen, an 800MHz CPU and 256MB of RAM.

Augen had a presence at this year’s CES as well and showed off a lineup of 7-inch and 10-inch GenTouch tablets. The GenTouch Latte was supposed to be an upgraded GenTouch 78 while the Gentouch Latte Grande would have been the 10-inch variant. Additionally, the Gentouch Espresso and Gentouch Dolce were to be relatively high-end Android tablets with surprisingly cheap prices. The tablets, according to netbooknews, were to launch starting April of this year, although such a release was nowhere to be found or heard.

As it stands, it is unlikely that the new tablets will continue production and stock here in the United States.

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