My (Semi) New Tablet

Yep, that's my (semi) new tablet.  It's a Coby Kyros MID9742 and as far as tablets go these days it's decent.

Here's the story.  One of my techie friends who's new to the mobile and tablet market wanted to get his feet wet and for him the price of this Coby was right (personally I STILL think he overpaid for it).  I gave him a proper scolding for buying it (as proper as you can get after downing a couple beers that is).  Last night I catch him at our usual spot and he's had it with this thing.  He wanted to ditch the thing and move up to some of the more robust tablets coming out these days like the Nexus or the Galaxy Tab.  So I took it off his hands at what I thought was a pretty fair price.

Let me say it right here and right now, this isn't the tablet I was looking for (damn Jedis).  With the price of tablets dropping and their power increasing I was waiting for the right time to spring for one.  However, at the moment I'm lacking a powerful mobile device since mom has been using my Acer Aspire lately.  In that respect, the Coby's a decent substitute.

First thing I noticed right of the bat though was it didn't have Google Play.  I even went as far as just downloading the Google Play apk file and installing it but it won't even run.  What it comes with is a link to GetJar that doesn't have a whole lot of app options.  Good thing I remembered that Amazon has an Appstore too.  Best part is they offer a paid app for free everyday.  That alone is worth checking it out.

Back to the tablet though, the review I linked earlier is spot on.  If I was shopping for a tablet, the Coby Kyros wouldn't have even made my list.  At the MSRP I'd be better off buying a Kindle Fire.  The almost 10 inch screen, its saving grace, hardly makes up for its other failings.  But hey, if you bought this I doubt you were in it for the performance.  You just wanted a low cost tablet that works reasonably well. 

Chances are somewhere along the line I'm going to root this thing so I can sideload the Google Play apk but I'm in no rush.  I'll keep you guys posted if anything new develops.