Affordable android device

[sturgis]

As the subject says, i'm looking for a decent but affordable android device (prefer a tablet) to test on. With capacitave(sp) touch screen, and .. well it doesn't have to be a speed demon, but i'm hoping to avoid a slug speed device. Does such a thing exist for under 300 us? Hopefully under 250? Buying one blind is a bit scary at the going prices!

[FourthWorld]

On the ultra-cheap end I got the SYNET7LP. I paid US$99 on Ebay, and I see a seller there now has it for US$79:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sylvania-SYNET7 ... 336bd559c5

It has a resistive screen, which is mildly annoying but not too bad once you get used to it. I got the SYNET7LP primarily to see what the low-end experience is like, and for that it delivers in spades. Still, not too bad for the money, and it's also a good test machine for rooting if that sort of thing is of interest (for what I paid I don't really care if I screw it up <g>).

I don't know of any capacitive-screen tablets for under $250, but if you could raise your upper range to $349 you can get what is perhaps the best tablet available in the world today: the Asus Transformer.

I love mine. A lot. Great screen, both larger and higher-res than my iPad 2, with the blazing fast Nvidia Tegra 2 processor and similar battery life to the iPad 2.

The Android Honeycomb it ships with rocks. And I mean rocks! After enjoying the flexibility of defining my work spaces with widgets, I'm convinced that iOS 6 will add widget support; it'd be silly not to.

The Transformer lists for US$399, but if you shop around it's not hard to find it for $349. A bargain, at even the full list price, IMO, since it's such a joy to use.

I initially got mine just for testing, but I fell so in love with it that just days later I went back to the store to pick up the optional keyboard dock, providing a netbook experience for the device and contains its own battery, double its battery life up to 16 hours. The keyboard is a reasonably responsive chicklet style, and with it I can write extensively and even do server admin with the device. I've since retired my netbook; now the Transformer is both my favorite tablet and my favorite netbook.

[sturgis]

Uh oh. I think you may have just cost me some extra money! I want both. As far as rooting goes, since the underlay is linux, I assume rooting it would mean I could run other services and such, not android specific? While still doing all the regular old android stuff too I'd assume..

*goes to read up on both*

Thanks much for your suggestions!

[BarrySumpter]

Hi FourthWorld,
Do either of those support a bluTooth keyboard connection?

[FourthWorld]

Do either of those support a bluTooth keyboard connection?

The Transformer does, but for >$100 I don't believe the SYNET7LP does (never use Bluetooth except on my phone, so I'm not sure).