For a long time I've always thought that tablets are not of much use until you reach the 3rd or 4th use case. You know, you have a laptop on which you can have 20 tabs of browsers open, have a full blown IDE to code in or even run a local instance of your dev environment. The second use case is your smart phone for when you're on the go, don't want any bulk or weight but still want to surf and check emails and listen to music. It's not until you've got all those covered that you'll consider spending hundreds of dollars on a 3rd device (or 4th if you have a desktop).
The wife is considering having a bigger screen than her Incredible to watch Netflix and read blog posts, news and library books on. This will likely spill over into reading kids books for our kids Emmett and Violet as well. Below are the tablets we're considering. Each item has a product, review and purchase link in the first row. The second row is the presence or lack of a camera. While researching this piece I found Lisa G's 7" Tablet Smackdown on Mobile Tech and John P. Falcone's Kindle vs. Nook vs. iPad on CNET reviews quite helpful. Also, those that wanna blow past the 7" screen (to 7.7") and $400 price should consider waiting for the Samsung Tab 7.7 ($600-$800 at this writing). Of course that depends on where you fall in regards to my and Moore's law. Finally, if you're looking for cellular connectivity, consider the T-Mobile Springboard .
 Samsung Tab 7+ $399 |
 HTC Flyer $299 |
 IdeaPad A1 $229 |
 Kindle Fire $199 |
 Nook Tablet $249
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product – Review – $ | Product – Review – $ | Product – Review – $ | Product – Review – $ | Product – Review – $ |
| Front and Back | Front and Back | Front | None | None |
| 1024 x 600 | 1024 x 600 | 1024 x 600 | 1024 x 600 | 1024 x 600 |
| 7.5" x 4.7" x 0.45" | 7.7" x 4.8" x 0.52" | 7.68" x 0.46" x 4.90" | 7.5" x 4.7" x 0.45" | 8.1" x 5" x 0.48" |
| 12.1 oz | 14.82 oz | 14.08 oz | 14.56 oz | 14.08 oz |
| dual-core 1.2GHz | 1.5GHz | 1.0GHz | dual-core 1.0GHz | dual-core 1.0GHz |
| WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS | WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS | WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS | WiFi | WiFi |
| 16GB Int & MicroSD | 16GB Int & MicroSD | 16GB Int & MicroSD | 8GB Internal | 8GB Int & MicroSD |
| Android 3.2 | Android 2.3.3 | Android 2.3 | Android 2.3 | Android 2.3 |
Update: I've added lil' thumbnails for each tablet.
