When the Chinese manufacturer EKEN released it’s M009S 7 inch Android 2.2 tablet around the end of March 2011, we were quite excited. EKEN after all still continues to carry about its reputation for producing the M001, which has risen to somewhat of a legendary status amongst Android tablet users. The M001, although a much outdated model, continues to be recognized as being exceptionally well thought about Android tablet both because of it’s sleek unibody design that put all the ports at the bottom of the tablet and because it was divergent from the trend that other manufacturers were following of copying the design of the iPad. The M009S caught our attention as being a small 7 inch Android 2.2 tablet that was able to bring to the market performance and features that could otherwise only be found on more expensive Android tablet models.

When the EKEN M009S hit the market, we were not disappointed. Despite being in the sub $100 price point the EKEN M009S sported a VIA MW8650 800MHz processor, 256MB DDR2 RAM, a clear 7 inch 800 by 480 pixel resistive touch screen display, 2GB of internal storage, a functioning accelerometer, 270° degree screen orientation, Wi-Fi connections over 802.11 a/b/g/n, and support for 3G dongles and ethernet connections via an adaptor. After getting our hands on the M009S and trying out, we were quite well convinced that the tablet’s sub $100 price point was deceiving and that it really should have been worth much more. Clearly, we thought, EKEN is in a league of its own to be able to produce such a great tablet at such an affordable price. Little did we know that a clone, a near exact replica, of the EKEN device would soon be out on the market and would include improvements to the M009S but still be able to stay within the same price point as the original.

The EKEN M009S Clone is easily distinguishable due to its green LED here.

Rumors started emerging of a tablet that looked exactly like EKEN’s M009S about a month after the M009S was released. Initially, it was discovered that some of the tablets that could clearly be identified as M009S tablets were exhibiting features that the M009S was not designed to have. The first, and most noticeable improvement came in the way of the touch screen. The original M009S does not support multi-touch with its resistive touch screen, but the unknown clone was capable of multi-touch and did it rather well. Then other reports also started to emerge about the tablet being unable to upgrade its firmware using the official download from the EKEN website without losing its ability to use the touch screen because of a difference in drivers. And finally people began to recognize differences in some of the design choices that were implemented on their tablets. The original had a blue LED for indicating that the unit was powered on that changed to red when the unit was charging. The clone, on the other hand, had a green LED light for indicating that the unit was powered on that also changed to red when the unit was charging.  The original EKEN M009S’s USB adapter had the USB ports pointing toward where the earphones plugged in that resulted in a collision of cables if ever anyone tried using both the USB and audio ports at the same time, whereas the clone avoided this by pointing the USB ports in the opposite direction. And finally that the audio jack on the original M009S was green, whereas on the clone it was black. The improvements made on the M009S moved a lot of people over to the side of the cloned device with better features, and who could blame them, it was indeed better.

Luckily, we were also able to get our hands on some stock of the M009S clone, as it has been selling, almost literally, like hotcakes from online electronics shops since it first appeared. A word of warning, however, the company that produces the M009S clone is quite obscure, so getting support from them will probably be in vain. But if you still think that you don’t mind the risk, there actually is a great support community on the Slatedroid.com forum for both the EKEN M009S and its clone. Furthermore, Roger Calver, the head firmware developer for the Slatedroid.com community and who is also well known for his Vestinious line of custom Android OS firmwares, publishes his Vestinious firmware updates for the M009S. The Vestinious custom OS improves on the EKEN firmware, giving it access to the Google Android Market, removing a lot of the bloatware, and improving the tablet’s performance by using another loader that uses less resources.

If you’re on the lookout for an inexpensive tablet that will do everything (and more) that you expect it to do for the price you paid, the by all means get the EKEN M009S or its clone.