New Christian Tablet: Jesus-Approved or Junk? (PHOTOS)

By Vincent Funaro, Christian Post Reporter Friday, July 13, 2012

Christians looking to purchase gadgets inspired by God and His Word could pick up the new Edifi tablet.

The device is sold by a bookstore chain called Family Christian, who bills it as the world's first Christian tablet.

"We wanted to be able to offer our customers the ability to use our Holy Bible application, which has 27 different English translations of the Bible," Brian Honorable, a technology supervisor at Family Christian, told FoxNews.com in an interview.

Honorable told the publication that the company's mission with Edifi is to "get people closer to God … through a tablet."

The device runs Google's Android OS and is manufactured by a South Korean firm known as Cydle. Specifications on it include a 7-inch resistive touch screen with 480 x 800 resolution, 512MB of RAM, and 8GB of expandable storage.

Honorable stated that his company hopes to compete with Amazon's Kindle Fire by offering a device that is believer-friendly.

The tablet also comes with safe search, a feature that blocks the owner from viewing pornography on the device.

It retails at $149 and can be purchased through Family Christian.

Gizmodo was quite critical of the Edifi, stating that it was nothing more than a "seven-inch piece of junk."

The site also said that this device is nothing more than the Cydle M7, a gadget created by the same manufacturer that most people have never heard of. This unbranded model is even $20 cheaper than the Edifi. Bible applications can also be purchased and used on all iOS and Android devices including the Amazon Kindle Fire and iPad.

Christians looking for a cheaper alternative to the iPad should probably wait for the Google Nexus 7 tablet. The device will cost $199 and features top-of-the-line specifications including a quad-core processor and Android 4.1, JellyBean.