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Want a tablet, but don't poverty to clear the iPad 2's $499 toll tag? There's ever the after-Thanksgiving sales, but sometimes Negroid Friday can't come presently enough. Here are a some ideas that crapper spend you money and still intend you your shiny tablet, without grappling the crowds in November.

Go Refurb

Every time Apple introduces a newborn model, the online Apple Store's presently filled with refurbished units of the older model. Right now, for instance, there are prototypal procreation 16 GB Wi-Fi iPads on sale for $349. A handful of other varieties are there too, some of them cheaper than the iPad 2's itemize price.

Apple's refurbished iPads every hit a newborn shelling and a one-year warranty, nonnegative an all-new outmost shell. On the downside, the 1st procreation iPads can't ingest the iPad 2's Smart Cover or FaceTime chat, and their availability varies as grouping acquire discover the refurbished stock. With the iPad 2 facing a continual shortage, though, this strength be an captivating option modify for grouping who crapper give it.

Go Android

Some of the newborn tablets running Google's Android operative system, same the Motorola Xoom, are priced higher than the iPad 2 is. Others, however, same the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, cost up to $100 inferior than the iPad 2's $499 itemize price. And patch they're commerce discover apace too, that toll tag strength be conception of the think why.

If you've only ever proven discover the iPad, you may be in for a surprise if you ingest an Android tablet. The paper edition of Android, titled Honeycomb, is a bit more involved than the iPad's iOS, with more on-screen buttons and assorted ways of doing things. It also doesn't hit nearly as some paper apps as the iPad does, although it crapper separate Android sound apps. I'm personally a fan of Android, but you should understand the differences before purchase an Android tablet.

Another option would be to acquire a Barnes and Noble Nook Color. It's a color multitouch tablet, and it's half the size of the iPad 2 but it's also half the cost, at $249. While Barnes and Noble isn't marketing its "Reader's Tablet" as an Android device, it does in fact separate Android under the hood, which allows app developers to opening their apps to it with bottom fuss. And yes, it already has Angry Birds.

Go home and think most it

What is it that you poverty a paper for? Do you meet poverty a touch-screen figure you crapper browse the scheme with? A smartphone strength impact for that, or an iPod Touch, or an e-reader same the Nook Color. If you poverty it to impact on the go, you strength rather intend a netbook, since they hit built-in keyboards and crapper separate Windows (or Ubuntu) apps. And patch the iPad has tons of games, a portable mettlesome housing same the Sony PSP or Nintendo DS offers a more polished recreation experience, nonnegative more games from name-brand publishers.

Whether it's a refurbished iPad or a Nook Color, there's belike a figure discover there for you. Just be certain of the rattling cheap, $149 tablets you strength see in stores -- affordable is good, but sometimes you intend what you clear for.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source code enthusiast, who uses an Android sound and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing most technology and electronics since 2008.

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