[ale] Tablet PCs

[Chris Fowler]

There were a few stores selling Android tablets real cheap over Black
Friday but I steered away.  My father called and he asked about them.
He wants to look at the Internet while sitting in his Lazy Boy :)

A week ago I saw a Samsung at Frys but it was $600+.  I was amazed at
some of the cheap prices duing BF.  KMart was selling one for $130.  

I found this on eBay

http://cgi.ebay.com/Android-Tablet-PC-7-MID-wifi-touch-screen-laptop-8GB-/110617119786?pt=Laptops_Nov05

I think that may fit his needs but I'm very interested in knowing if it
would be a waste of time for me.  I would immediately expect to be able
to download app-store programs to use with it.  

My biggest concern with Android is the same problem I had when I used
Windows PDA's and phones.  when looking for software I had to also make
sure that the software I was downloading supported the device processor
as well as screen resolution.  I had been let down many times by wanting
to run a program only to find out my device could not run it due to
incompatibilities.  The thing I love about my iTouch is that I don't
have to search the net for software and anything I download will run.

I was reading about some of this over the weekend and IMO, it is
unfortunate that developers are allowed to "hide" apps from devices that
can not support them.  Maybe I'm wrong but I believe that non-computer
people are going to share the same frustrations as I did while trying to
find software for my Windows phone.  I toyed with that phone for 3 days
and gave it away after downloading countless programs that were not
supported.

Am I wrong?