Orange unveils £70 Tahiti Android tablet

Orange has followed up its own-brand Android smartphones with the release of Tahiti, the operator's first own-brand tablet device.

Available immediately, the Tahiti is a 7in device running Android 3.2 Honeycomb and Orange customers can pick one up for as little as £69.99 on a £25 per month tariff.

Alternatively, the Tahiti is being offered for free as part of a Connected 24-month plan, along with Orange's San Francisco II handset for £41 per month.

The Tahiti is apparently manufactured by Huawei, making it likely that the device is a version of the Huawei MediaPad, seen by V3 last year.

In specifications, Tahiti sports a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 8260 processor with 512MB memory and 8GB built-in storage, and supports 802.11b/g/n WiFi, HSPA+ 3G, Bluetooth and assisted GPS.

Weighing 390g, the tablet also integrates a five megapixel camera for capturing video and still images. It has a micro SD slot for storage expansion, HDMI video output and is powered by a 4000mAh lithium polymer battery.

The £69.99 price is for a 24-month Orange data plan, which includes 1GB of anytime data plus 1GB of quiet-time data (midnight to 4pm), plus unlimited WiFi hotspot access.

Meanwhile, Orange's Connected plan comes with a 2GB anytime data allowance and unlimited WiFi hotspot access shared across both devices, as well as 200 anytime call minutes and unlimited texts.

The device will offer tablet fans on a budget yet another option, after Asus revealed at the CES show on Monday that it would be launching a 7in device powered by Nvidia's Tegra 3 processor and costing just £160.