CAM00507We live in a world where you can walk into an Office Depot and buy an Android tablet for $50.

Not a very good Android tablet, it should be noted: 28 reviews on the Office Depot site give it an aggregate score of 2.5 out of 5 stars. But for fifty bucks (normally $80, but it’s on holiday sale) it doesn’t have to be very good. It just has to work at all. And that’s a $50 tablet in a brick and mortar retail store. Not ordered over the Internet from China or who-knows-where.

The Apex AP-7S118’s specs aren’t great, but are decent for the price. Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, 4 GB RAM plus 32 GB SD card slot, 7” 800×480 resolution capacitive LCD touchscreen, front facing 0.3 MP camera for video chat, micro USB port, battery life of “up to 4 hours.” (Which probably means more like 2 hours.)

CAM00508At $50, that’s practically cheap enough to be disposable. This would make a great kiddie tablet if you didn’t want to risk letting them get their paws on a $230 Nexus 7, It could make a decent spousal tablet, too, among couples who share a more expensive tablet but would like to have something for one person to use when the main tablet is in the hands of the other. It could be a bathroom-or-beach tablet, for taking places you didn’t want to risk your more costly one. Or it could be something to keep around for houseguests who didn’t have their own gear but wanted to surf the Internet. It is also squarely within range of lower-income households who need some way to get on the Internet and fill out forms but can’t afford a better device.

Of course, it’s only $50 right now because it’s on sale. But we’re probably not that far away from devices being that much at regular price, and better devices occasionally going that low. Crazy ol’ world, huh?

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