It's a bad time to buy an Android tablet. Skip these five models, save your cash, and wait for tablets with Google's Honeycomb operating system.
When you look at the Apple iPad's sales figures, it's not hard to see why every technology company on the planet is jumping on the tablet bandwagon. The thing is, even despite its wild popularity, not everyone can afford the $500 minimum required to get into the iPad game, and not everyone wants an Apple tablet.
With scores of hardware manufacturers aiming to snag a slice of the big, fat Apple pie, the Android tablet army is growing fast. Too fast, in fact: The truth is, a lot of these tablets just aren't very good.
In some of the tablets we've tested, we've encountered flimsy hardware, low-quality resistive touch screens, serious display resolution issues, and poorly skinned or old Android versions with limited or non-existent access to apps. None of this makes for a very enjoyable tablet experience.
That's not to say that every Android tablet is a disaster. Take the Samsung Galaxy Tab, for example, it's fast, well-designed, and comes with a decent Android implementation. Overall, the Tab is a solid tablet, but for the price ($250 to $550, depending on the carrier you choose), it should do more than an Android smartphone can. One of the reasons the iPad has been so successful is that it provides a rich tablet-specific experience that you just can't get on an iPhone.
Google, this week, unveiled Honeycomb, its tablet-specific Android OS, which is sure to usher in an era of higher-quality, more-capable Android devices and better apps to run on them. And from what we've experienced with the forthcoming Motorola Xoom, it's definitely worth waiting for. So unless you need an Android tablet today, you should pass on the models below, and hold out for the next round of Android tablets with Honeycomb.
With scores of hardware manufacturers aiming to snag a slice of the big, fat Apple pie, the Android tablet army is growing fast. Too fast, in fact: The truth is, a lot of these tablets just aren't very good.
In some of the tablets we've tested, we've encountered flimsy hardware, low-quality resistive touch screens, serious display resolution issues, and poorly skinned or old Android versions with limited or non-existent access to apps. None of this makes for a very enjoyable tablet experience.
That's not to say that every Android tablet is a disaster. Take the Samsung Galaxy Tab, for example, it's fast, well-designed, and comes with a decent Android implementation. Overall, the Tab is a solid tablet, but for the price ($250 to $550, depending on the carrier you choose), it should do more than an Android smartphone can. One of the reasons the iPad has been so successful is that it provides a rich tablet-specific experience that you just can't get on an iPhone.
Google, this week, unveiled Honeycomb, its tablet-specific Android OS, which is sure to usher in an era of higher-quality, more-capable Android devices and better apps to run on them. And from what we've experienced with the forthcoming Motorola Xoom, it's definitely worth waiting for. So unless you need an Android tablet today, you should pass on the models below, and hold out for the next round of Android tablets with Honeycomb.
