eLocity A7 Tegra 2 Tablet Hands-on: $369 and Access to 75,000 Apps

Today the folks from eLocity dropped by to show off the comapny’s new A7 tablet, a Tegra 2-powered, 7-inch slate that blends entertainment and productivity into one smooth, Androidified experience. In our shorts hands-on time we were impressed by the speed and media chops of this little machine, which is available for pre-order for $369 on Amazon.com, but does it have what it takes to stand up to the hefty competition?

At a time when the 7-inch tablet market is starting to look crowded, eLocity’s offering stands out in some key ways. The big one for most people is apps. Unlike the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the ViewSonic ViewPad 7, this tablet is not Google certified and therefore will not have the Android Market on board. However, it will have a third-party market called GetJar, which boasts over 75,000 apps for Android. And they aren’t 75,000 apps you’ve never heard of — many are also on Google’s market. One of the reasons eLocity says it went with GetJar is that the comapny can work directly with developers to ensure their apps will work on the larger screen.

Another stand-out spec is the tablet’s HDMI-out port. There is a proprietary connector on the bottom for docking, but if you just want to hook the A7 up to a monitor, HDTV, or projector, you won’t need a special cable. In fact, the A7 currently available for pre-order on Amazon will come with an HDMI cable. You’ll want to utilize this function because 1080p video played smooth as silk.

Nvidia’s Tegra 2 makes this possible, along with gaming (we saw smooth framerates there, too), and the 3D user interface. The A7 will run Froyo and have support for Flash, which should be a significantly better experience than we’ve seen on phones.

Other specs include 4GB of onboard memory, a microSD card slot that accepts up to 32GB, a front-facing 1.3MP webcam, and an accelerometer.  This intriguing slate will ship in November, but we plan to bring our review much sooner than that so you can decide whether to pull the trigger. Check out our hands-on images below.