Coby budget tablets now shipping with Android 4.0 on board

For those who might remember, back in 2011 we reported that Coby, an electronics manufacturer in the US, announced a series of Android tablets that feature modest specs which is safe to assume that they will not be breaking the bank upon its release. Well the good news for those in the market for an affordable Android tablet, you will be pleased to learn that Coby has recently announced that their series of Android tablets announced last year have begun shipping.

If you weren’t around at that time or missed out on CES 2012 earlier this year, the Coby tablets come in six different sizes:

• Coby MID7042 – 7 inch, 800 x 480 pixel display
• Coby MID8042 – 8 inch, 800 x 600 pixel display
• Coby MID9042 – 9 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display
• Coby MID9742 – 9.7 inch, 1024 x 768 pixel display
• Coby MID1042 – 10 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display
• Coby MID10245 – 10 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display

Apart from the different display sizes and aspect ratios, internally they appear to be all the same. This means that would-be buyers can expect to find a 1GHz Allwinner ARM Cortex-A8 single core processor with 1GB of RAM, microSDHC card slots, HDMI and USB ports and front-facing cameras. The Coby tablets 9” and above will come with 8GB of internal storage, while the 7” and 8” model will only feature 4GB.

While they will not come with support for Google Play or other preloaded Google apps, they will come with the latest build of Android in the form of Ice Cream Sandwich and access to the GetJar app store. The 7” Coby MID7042 is expected to retail for a little over $150, while the high-end Coby MID10245 appears to be retailing anywhere from $260 to $280 depending on which retailer you purchase them from