My Christmas and Work Bonus Gift to Myself...

Other than going to Las Vegas, I figured I'd spend a little bit of my bonus from work on a cool gadget. I use my laptop a lot while I'm watching TV, but usually only for little unimportant things like checking my fantasy football teams, checking scores of games, looking at my e-mails, or checking out various message boards.

It is sometimes a hassle to get the laptop out, wait for it to boot up, only to use it for a few minutes then have to put it away because I want to use my table for something else...so, I have taken to using my iPod Touch for doing these internet based things recently because it's more convenient than getting out the computer. I still use the computer a lot, but the iPod has come in handy when I don't want to worry about booting up the laptop.

But the iPod Touch doesn't browse the web in the best ways. It only goes to mobile sites sometimes, even when I want to go to the full website. So I had been looking at Android Tablets...things kind of similar to an iPad. I was looking at the Samsung Galaxy Tab, but it was pretty expensive at nearly $700. I had found a good deal where you got a $300 rebate for buying it, but the small print showed you had to subscribe to a 3g wireless plan for it...so it wasn't really going to save me anything, but instead cost me $40 a month. No go for that.

I kept looking at some of the other Android tablets, and I found one that really stuck out. The Archos A70 Internet Tablet.

It's got a 7" capacitative touch screen...so it's basically like a huge iPod Touch...but it runs the Android operating system. It's got WiFi, so obviously it will connect to the internet at home and at work. It's also quite a bit lighter and thinner than most of it's competition.

I found that most of the reviews of it are positive and everybody that has one seems to like it. Some say that it feels a bit less solid than it's more expensive counterparts, but I think that's to be expected when it's coming in at the price that it is.

It's $275...less than half the price of the device that seems to be it's best competitor. that Galaxy Tab. The ONLY issue with the device is that Archos apparently isn't part of some cooperative with Google...so the device runs Android, but it doesn't have access to the Google Android Marketplace. Of course, there are hacks that will get it to work and they seem to be pretty easy to do...but...the device does have another application marketplace built into it that seems to have quite a few pretty good apps...and they're all guaranteed to work on the A70.

I went ahead and ordered one tonight from Amazon. I was going to wait, but they only had three left. I also have been reading that supplies that stores have may be all that they get for a while, because they've been selling like mad.

It should be here early next week. I'm looking forward to playing around with it!!