For the life of me, I have never understood why so many companies are against giving enthusiasts the (easy) option to mod/jailbreak hardware and operating systems.
Think about it: If I’m paying $500 for your tablet or your smartphone, what I do to the software should be completely up to me, and I should also be able to do whatever I want with the device itself.
Obviously, despite the way I feel, many companies such as Apple go to all sorts of extremes in an efforts to lock down hardware and prevent consumers from using their devices in a “non-approved” manner.
Fortunately, a company known as Aluraslate seems to get the point that modders should be able to do whatever they want with the hardware they purchase.
If you think the manufacturer should stay out of the way and leave the device open and ready for the consumer to do what they want, you might want to check their LifePad lineup out, as no attempt is made to lock the devices down.
Meaning, if you buy one of these tablets, which run Android 4.0, you can easily apply your own custom ROM; nothing is standing in your way.
The company offers the tablets in 7-inch and 10-inch sizes, and, as noted above, both are preloaded with Android 4.0. The tablets can be purchased with a CD containing source code for all the tweaking you can handle.
The tablets are also surprisingly cheap, with the 7-inch version starting at $139. For that price point, you get a screen with a resolution of 800 x 480 covered by Gorilla Glass. The tablet is powered by an 800 MHz ARM Cortex-A9 single core processor that can be overclocked to run at 1 GHz, along with a 400 MHz embedded GPU.
The 7-inch version also boasts 512 MB of RAM, 4 GB of storage, a microSD card slot, mini HDMI port, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a front camera. The 10-inch version is equipped with the same specs, but (obviously) includes a larger screen with a resolution of 1024 x 768. The larger tablet sells for $199.
Both versions of the device can be purchased here.
