TIPS - Android, my recommendation

Android has gained worldwide popularity, and is gradually mature enough for practical day to day use. Samsung, HTC are big names, yet I found that this China brandname - Cube - a very quality product.

Tested model: Cube K8GT ( <USD100)

Main Specification: Cortex A8 1GHz RK2918, 7" 16:9, 800×480 resolution, 512MB DDR3, 8GB built-in storage, Android 2.3
Other features: wifi, 3D graphic accelerator, USB port, microSD slot

Benchmark: Quadrant - 1673 (higher than HTC Nexus One, 2 times faster than Samsung Galaxy S)

Test Results:
I've been using it for more than a month. Everything works very smoothly - the screen, the senors, the buttons, the wifi, the sound, the slots, ... yes, everything to my satisfaction. Battery is always the concern, yet I found the 4000mAH battery did a very good job. If left the wifi on, the battery can run for 6-7 hours. Turn off the wifi and you can work on the tablet for more than 24 hours. I used it to take notes and run various software tools throughout the day, after 10 hours the battery only dropped by about 10%. Of couse, it inherited all the advantages and strengths of Android system, which I love so much!

Bonus feature:
The built-in USB port is very useful! I can plug my USB thumb drive on it, connect a USB network card (for wired network), and even a USB mouse!!

The microSD (or T-flash) card slot is very useful, I have a 16GB UHS-1 microSD card inserted with my music, videos, and other big files...

The "Home" button is handy!

Important Tips for those looking for a Android Tablet:

• Look for a tablet with physical Home, Menu, ESC and power buttons
• Look for one with USB port and card slot
• For security concern, you may want to create a new Google account just for your tablet
• If ever possible, always download and install apps from Android Market, which is actively monitored by Googles; downloading apps from third party sites should be avoided
• If not needed, turn off your wifi card
• When installing apps, carefully read the rights you will allow the apps' vendor. For exapmle, if an apps needs full access to the network, you need to think seriously if you can trust the vendor
• If ever possible, I'll only install apps without ads

Android proves to be a very good and stable OS, and high quality yet low cost hardware are not difficult to find. Yet, on software side, it seems software vendors are having a hard time catching up, or may not be so eager to invest on developing quality software. Therefore, apps crashes are quite frequent. Big software developers like Skype and Adobe, should feel shame that their Android versions have defiled their names! ePub support is certainly not as good as iPad.