So i Have Been Thinking About Tablets Again...

For some reason the concept of eventually getting a Tablet PC came up in my mind again.  i have been looking at the current crop of tablets on the market.  What did i find out?  i found out that the tablet with all the features i would like to have is not on the market at my price range.  So, if i do wind up eventually purchasing one, i would have to compromise on some things.  Here is some of the criteria i used


Criteria:

• Under $300 (can be $299.99)
• 7" form factor
• GB 8-32
• Dual Core Processor (preferably 1.0 GHz+)
• Resolution: 1,024 X 600 (or better)
• Camera
• SD Card Slot
• RAM: At least .512 GB
• Battery Life: >4 hours
• Brand <>: Apple (wouldn't touch with a 39.5' pole), Lenovo, Coby, Maylong, Sylvania, Ematic, Pandigital, Sungale, Itomic, and some other "cheap" manufacturers
• Can i buy brick-and-mortar?

So, basicaly out of the whole list (using store websites) i narrowed it down to a few models. They are the:  Acer Iconia A100, Kindle Fire and BlackBerry Playbook (would prefer the 16GB model if any brick-and-mortar store sold it for $199.99). 

The Acer Iconia has everything i am looking for (though worst battery life of the three), but is my third favorite out of the group here.  It has 8GB memory and SD card slot.  There are complaints online about wi-fi drop out and the screen.  Someone also brought up the issue where it cannot store apps on the SD card - i'm not sure if this is true. 

My second favorite is the Kindle Fire (which i would have bought at Wal-Mart if they had it in stock, with a $50 Wal-Mart gift card).  The Kindle fire only has .512 GB of RAM and no SD card slots or camera.  It can store some of your AMZN media on their cloud servers.  The app store's integration with AMZN seems like a nice touch to me (as it seems more convenient to me - especially with paid apps).  It is more of an Amazon tablet than an android tablet (modified Android 2.3, gingerbread?)

Just edging out the Kindle Fire, my favorite on the list was the BlackBerry Playbook.  The Playbook has been on sale at places for a while at $199.99.  Compared to the Fire that is a great deal.  However, actually finding a Playbook at brick-and-mortar is difficult (Best Buy just changed the price from $199.99 to $499.99).  i considered getting the 64 GB model at Office Depot (as the website had it at $299.99), however i got into the store and found it at least $400 more.  i guess i could use the backdoor route - gift cards for Wal-Mart with ship-to-store (for the 32 GB model).  One of my misgivings about the Playbook is that it is not Android (and therefore lacks apps - the apps it does have seem expensive).   

The only other tablet that fit most of my criteria was the Lenovo IdeaPad A1 (which BB has for $199.99).  It seems to be single core at 1.0 gHz.  For some irrational reason i don't trust Lenovo (though i've never purchased their products).   

If i were to up the price criteria up to $400, a few other tablets would fit much of my criteria.  They are a Samsung Galaxy 16 GB (GT-P2610MAYXAR) and the Toshiba Thrive (AT 1S5-t16.  The Thrive may be harder to find).  Of the two, the Galaxy is a little cheaper and more feature rich.  The Thrive does have a better screen resolution thoug.