HTC unveils lackluster tablet one week after smartphone comeback

A week after announcing its first smartphone in more than six months, HTC is back with an affordable tablet that offers little to stand out from the crowd, both in terms of design and specifications.

The HTC A101 is nothing to get excited about

Marketed as the HTC A101, the tablet offers a rather outdated design with chunky black bezels around the 10.1-inch Full-HD display and an aluminum rear panel that’s home to a black camera bump.

The latter houses a 16-megapixel main camera and a 2-megapixel ultra-wide sensor, enabling portrait mode photos. HTC has also thrown in some software wizardry that adds support for night mode.

HTC’s commitment to low-end features continues inside, with the Unisoc T618 chipset sitting on the inside. It’s built on the 12-nanometer process — a far cry from the 5-nanometer process seen in recent high-end chipsets — and is coupled with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage.

Completing the internal setup is a 7,000mAh battery with support for 10W charging and Android 11 straight out of the box along with HTC’s custom interface. But considering Android 13 is right around the corner, the decision to use Android 11 is quite disappointing.

HTC’s tablet will initially be available in South Africa. Pricing and release date information hasn’t been shared and it’s unclear whether the HTC A101 will be made available in other markets later in the year.