2014 Android rooted cheap tablet recommendations

[drmike]

My kick about beater Droid phone committed suicide the other day.  Purely for wifi use...  Leaving me contemplating moving over to a more modern Android tablet instead.

Looking for recommendations for Android tablets that use 4.x OS, have bluetooth, have wifi (they all do I think) and comes rooted (tired of fussing with stuff).  Looking for something "cheap" / "affordable".  Should support bluetooth tethering of keyboard/mouse/etc. when/if I need it.  Heck, keyboard is welcomed already.

Someone have something that fits the bill?   Need not be some sexy popular beast with 4 cores and a fancy manufacturer.  Prefer cheap since these get used as beaters, dropped, splashed, etc.

 

[GIANT_CRAB]

Nexus 10?

Don't go for Nexus 7 btw, Asus tablet hardware is terrible, their routers are okay though.

 

[drmike]

But the Nexus 10 is nowhere near cheap.  Crazy what some folks spend on these toys...

I was a restaurant yesterday and a whole table of 20-somethings talking about how nearly each and everyone one of them drowned/destroyed a smartphone.  Typical pedestrian stuff - death by drowning being the most common cause of death.

 

[NodePacket]

This is a rather different recommendation, but have you checked Craigslist? I have been using the Samsung Galaxy Victory and have dropped it so many times, dropped in water once, and it's been to hell and back and works like a champ still. It's quite affordable as well.

 

[drmike]

 Samsung Galaxy Victory - looks to be rolled out with an Android 2.x OS... not rooted either is it? 

 

[WebSearchingPro]

I actually downgraded to a stupidphone about a week ago to thwart the tracking efforts of Google and the NSA.

 

[drmike]

I actually downgraded to a stupidphone about a week ago to thwart the tracking efforts of Google and the NSA.

I am with you on that... Phone is purely wifi-only and disconnected from the borg and filtered on the LAN in ongoing effort to detect leakage  I just use these phones and tablets when untethering from the desk. Notifications mainly.

My out of the house emergency phone is indeed a dumb phone

 

[Ishaq]

iNSA 4.

 

[WebSearchingPro]

iNSA 4.

I like how the iNSA5 have a fingerprint uploader built into them. You get fingerprinted before you are old enough to get ID  

 

[Neo]

Nexus 7 with 8gig Wifi?

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

I have one of these, and while it hasn't replaced my netbook fully (there are some things Android just can't do), it works great for a light-use platform: http://www.asus.com/Tablets_Mobile/ASUS_Transformer_Pad_TF300T/

Picked mine up (tablet and keyboard) for about 240$ refurb'd.  They pop up on www.woot.com every now and then in the 200-350$ range, depending on model.  It doesn't come rooted, but the process is pretty easy.

 

[willie]

1. I've never heard of any Android tablet, cheap or otherwise, coming pre-rooted.  Can anyone give an example?

2. The current Nexus 7 hardware seems really nice from everything I can tell.

3. However I'm scared to run Android in general.  Leaving aside NSA tracking, there is also GSA (Google Security Agency) tracking which is every bit as bad.  Plus the tracking by all the Ferengi-developed apps.  A lot of those tablets can run Ubuntu but Canonical has turned into a Google wannabe, so (while the situation is nowhere near as bad yet) I'm squeamish towards Ubunto too.

So whatever tablet I got, I wouldn't root it and keep running Android.  I'd instead trash Android altogether and run Debian on it.  Some of them can do that.  Also, older Archos tablets had an Angstrom distribution available directly from Archos.

How useful this is, I guess, depends on what you want to do with the tablet.  If you basically just want a small X terminal with some Posix and related tools (ssh client and so forth), then you can do fine with Debian on a tablet.  If you want all that "cloud" spyware then Android has a wider selection.

I have a Nokia N9 (Maemo) smartphone though I haven't been using it.  Its successor Jolla also looks potentially interesting as an alternative to 'roid rage.

 

[drmike]

I am holding on waiting for Ubuntu to roll their mobile phone/OS/tablet....

I am not sold on the whole app world, but are some good ones out there.   Clearly a tablet with Linux and not Android would be awesome and less paranoid about.  Not perfect, just better.

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

I am holding on waiting for Ubuntu to roll their mobile phone/OS/tablet....

I thought privacy minded folks were bailing Ubuntu due to the 'cloud' data gathering?

 

[drmike]

True about Ubuntu

Last time I installed it, found the desktop indexing files and some new functionality that crossed the creepy level.  But they'll claim that's a feature for new fangled desktop layer they don't write... Blah.

Yeah their deals with Amazon and probably Google raise flags too.

Do I trust them more?  By a slim bit.  Apple + Google are already proven loser government collaborators.  

Android I only sort of care about since everyone and their mother supports it and software galora.  Few apps I use.  Most are crap though.

 

[drmike]

I have one of these, and while it hasn't replaced my netbook fully (there are some things Android just can't do), it works great for a light-use platform: http://www.asus.com/Tablets_Mobile/ASUS_Transformer_Pad_TF300T/

That Asus transformer looks pretty darn cool.

Does it come rooted/unlocked?

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

That Asus transformer looks pretty darn cool.

Does it come rooted/unlocked?

Sadly no.. but you can unlock it without needing to install anything, and rooting is a simple, straightforward process (place specifically named file on microsd, boot into 'recovery' by holding down a button, let it do the rest).  Not counting the time to actually download the files needed (the 'recovery' file, and the desired ROM) - it took all of 10-15 minutes tops to do both mine and my wife's.

My one biggest gripe is that it becomes annoying when viewing certain websites, as an Android browser (regardless of actual display size) will either keep defaulting to 'mobile view', or refuse to properly understand percentages, leaving you with about 1/10th of the page offscreen.  Granted, that might be fixed by now, but I haven't been arsed to update Firefox on this thing in some time.

 

[Lucashayes]

That Asus transformer looks pretty darn cool.

Does it come rooted/unlocked?

Almost no android tablet (including the cheap Chinese ones) come rooted. But on most, including the transformer its just a matter of plugging it in and running a few commands.

Also if the tf300 is a bit much for you look at a used/refurb tf101. A little less in the specs department but there are some very good ICS roms for it so you're not stuck in the stoneage.

 

[drmike]

The Asus Transformers are pretty nice piece of kit.   Pretty impressed with them  Like the keyboard / dock ready made for them.

Definitely a short listed consideration.   I like Asus in general.  Have an old beater netbook that was even set on fire that keeps going

 

[Coastercraze]

ASUS has their newer MeMo pad series too, though not sure how good that is vs the Transformer series.

I have a Kindle Fire HDX myself and can install just about anything on it. Though, that's more of a media consumption device than a tech tool.