Considering buying a Tablet PC. Any advice?

[Danjanon]

I had a gander at the Kindle Fire, they're pretty cheap. There are others on the market at around the same price that aren't as locked down though. Have you looked at any of the comparison tables that are about?

[Richter]

The Kindle Fire is pretty heavily discounted for the hardware specs, since they expect you to use it mainly to funnel cash to Amazon.  First order of business would be rooting the thing for regular Android use.  Still, I'm wondering at the functionality, even rooted.

I haven't seen as good offerings in the ~$200 range from other companies, which leads me to just jump up to the Galaxy 7.  What models would you recommend?

[Danjanon]

Honestly, it sounds like you've done more thorough research than I have. I was looking at the Nook Color to do what you're thinking of doing with the Kindle Fire. If money wasn't an issue I'd get something that could support the latest Honeycomb.

[Richter]

I'll check into the Nook.  I've been kind of turned off to it by early iterations, but I should give the more recent versions a fair look-over.

I learned a lot having one of the early Asus netbooks and an Ipod touch.  When I'm out and about (the reason for having a tiny sub spec device)  I only really need books/music/internet/typing.  Fast power - on and good battery are essential, as is decent typing ability.  If I have internet, I can bang in text, no worries.  Ebooks are easy enough, but being able to access a PDF file on a tablet with minimal fuckaround is essential too.  Base kindle, Itouch, and netbooks never made it quick or clean enough.

[Oysters Rockefeller]

Nook Tablet is essentially the nook color, but slightly lighter and a bit faster. Also it comes preloaded with netflix and hulu and shit like that, and the ability to read graphic novels.

When compared to the Fire, the basic pros and cons people get down to are:
* Tablet has expandable memory
* Fire Has Waaaaaay more apps
* Tablet has a larger selection of books


I might be missing some stuff. It's been a while since I had to pimp one of those things out.

[Danjanon]

I still don't have a tablet

[Juana]

Got an old laptop laying around? http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-tablet-pc-from-an-old-laptop/

[Danjanon]

That is fricken awesome! Alas, it would be easier for me to save my dollars and cents for a little while rather than take a project like this on.