13 Mar 2011, 5:53 pm
D and i have been talking about getting a tablet pc for a few weeks, specifically for K since he does so amazingly well with touch screens. we can hand him one of our android phones and he can find the games and start playing without any help from us. we arent rich by any means tho, and the thought of shelling out $500-800 for a tablet then handing it to a 5 yr old child makes us both shudder.
our solution: a nookcolor with android installed. the nookcolor is $250, so significantly cheaper than any of the decent tablets. there are several android home cooked operating systems available for it, all legal since android is open source. free games and apps are available for android as well, and there are productivity and educational apps too. the nookcolor has some advantages over an ipad such as a microSD expansion slot. it has wifi so we can put a browser on it and use it for internet with a wifi connection.
because of the microSD card slot, you can put android either on the device itself, or leave the nook as is and put the android OS on a microSD card and boot from the card. using the dual boot method means your nook is still usable completely as intended.
the one caveat is that you have to be willing to learn how to do what it takes to use android on it. D says its easier than it sounds, especially if you use dual boot. the nook is also very newbie friendly since you can boot from the microSD card, you cant really brick the device (brick it = render it inoperable and unrecoverable). the info you would need is all available online at the xda developers site, in the nook specific forums http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=860
we just wanted to share this info in case someone out there was considering a tablet, too. they work really well for visually oriented kids, and i imagine you could even come up with some kind of pecs system on your own, or there is already an AAC application available for android phones, and it should work on an android nook, the cost is about $30 for the app.
here are some pictures i took of the android nook, taken with my phone so the quality isnt the greatest, the screen is much nicer than in the pics, and a short video of one of the android programs where you can draw or write and then play it back as a video:
(and my pics and video arent showing right, but you can cut and paste if i cant figure it out =P)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=BVn-sHoy7AU[/youtube]
13 Mar 2011, 8:44 pm
Cool. Glad you found something that works for you.
In our house we wear through electronics really fast so I'll be interested in what kind of life you end up able to get out of it.
My kids are older and have netbooks for home; my AS child has an alphasmart for school but will probably be taking a netbook when he gets to high school next year.
I actually got my first ipad last week, a gift from work, and it's a cute little toy, but I still like my laptop. My NT daughter, though, has been all over it; she's a touch screen girl beginning to end.
Anyway, I think it's really cool you've found such a nice solution for your young one 
It takes years before they can really keyboard, so touchscreens are great.
