Coby Kyros 7-Inch Android 2.3 4 GB Internet Touchscreen Tablet - MID7012-4G (Black)

Let me start out by saying I bought this for my 2 8 year old boys so they would leave my Droid X alone. I did not buy this to operate my small business off site or plan to have the ultimate toy for angry birds.I have a lot of downloaded aps (thanks the the generous free offers from Amazon). I was able to download all of the appropriate aps to the Colby Tablets. Some did not work but I expected that since a) many aps are not optimized for tablets and b)these tablets do not have the horse power to run some of the more involved applications. I bought this for 8 year old boys in hopes that most of my applications would work and they did. I can get approximately 85% of the applications to work on their tablets. For $100 plus a $12 usb keyboard and cover from Amazon this is a pretty awesome gift for 8 year old boys(or girls). When you think what we had when we were 8, this is pretty sweet. Wifi is the only way to communicate with the world so I installed text plus gold and now they can text each other, and my wife and I. Amazing how fast an 8 year old can type now compared to when we were kids.There is a good reason this is a $100 tablet: The touch screen is a resistive type so a while finger tip works a stylus works better. It can be very touchy at times and I have had a ap download come up from the other side of the screen from where I touched. Patience prevails. This thing can really only run 1 maybe 2 programs at a time. There is just not enough flash memory or processor speed to handle it. It will crash if you try to do too much. The process of downloading application, scrolling to find them and installing can at times be frustrating and time consuming but hang in there and it can be done. It probably took me at least 5 hours per tablet to move 50+ applications. Battery life is only about 3-4 hours of game play but recharge time is only a little more than an hour so put is down for a while get outside and play and it will be ready to go again soon. I had trouble installing an 8gb micro sd card (Sandisk class 4)on one tablet. It kept giving me an error message that the chip was defective. Suggested reformat did not work on the Cobly. I called Colby customer service and did manage to reach someone in about 12-15 minutes only to have them tell me that a "tech" would have to call me back because they were backed up. OK, it's right after Christmas and everyone is trying to do the same thing so I give them some slack at this time of the year. Especially since people buying $100 tablets are not veteran tablet users so there is likely a lot of hand holding. I eventually got into the storage and memory myself, reset everything and also formatted the micro sd on my computer instead of the Colby and the problem was solved. I did not have this problem on the other Colby tablet, it worked fine the first time I added memory card. The bottom line: This is a slow tablet with some quirky screen play but if you are patient and allow the processor to "catch up" it will work and play the games one at a time. My subject line called this a Ugo, meaning you should not expect Lexus or even Chevy performance from this, but it will get you from A to B for a lot less $. This was 1 of only a handful of tablets at the $100 price point this Christmas. Colby was by far the highest rated by consumers and I would have to agree on a 4 star review (relative to the price point). You can bet next year there will be 10X the number with 2X the operating speed for the same price. I give it 4 stars because it will run most of the aps I already have and it met but did not exceed my expectations for a $100 tablet. I don't think there is a 5 star tablet in this price range right now. Maybe next year.

...if you are willing to spend a few hours doing some research (or following the instructions below) to tweak it!I read most of the reviews before I made the purchase. Some of them made it sound great. Other trashed it thoroughly. After having it for about two weeks, I realize now that both types of review are completely true. At $100, the manufacturers clearly made compromises (no camera or video camera, weak/low speaker, high definition, etc.) to keep it at that price point. For that reason, anybody expecting it to be ready to use out of the box with no tweaking will probably be disappointed. On the other hand, those folks with the time and inclination to make some quick, easy and free modifications to it will probably be very happy with it. At a cost of $100 and often less, it is worth these sacrifices to me. If it isn't too you, then spend $300+ on an ipad or ipad knock-off and save yourself some hassle.These are the reasons it is worth the price to me:* has a sturdy build (will it survive a drop onto concrete from a 3-4 feet? probably not but few electronic devices will...lol)* works great with the following case/keyboard with kickstand - HDE 7" Tablet Stand with USB Keyboard - Black Faux Leather Carrying Case (costs $16 on amazon); fit perfectly in the case; plugged in keyboard using the mini usb adapter included in the coby kyros box and it worked instantly - no tweaking or setting changes necessary* clear bright display (not hd but clear; if you want hd then pay more for another device)* touchscreen display is fine - same as my htc hero phone (press and hold to move things; press and let go to activate an icon)* android interface, buttons etc. is familiar to me since i have an android phone; there will be a bit of a learning curve for folks not used to how android devices work - 4 standard function buttons on it; touch screen operation, etc.These are the things that I had to do to do it after doing a few hours research to make it work for me:* added android market (WASTE OF TIME)- very easy if you are comfortable following directions using the following video posted on utube ([...] everyone talks about the android market so i thought i had to have it; once i got it i was disappointed with it; why?; i couldn't find the apps on it that i wanted - rhapsody, pandora, etc.; when i typed these items in the search box, dozens of apps came up but these were not anywhere in the first 3 or 4 screens after which i gave up looking* added amazon marketplace app (AWESOME) - very easy to follow instructions from the amazon apps website; after i installed it i was able to easy find the pandora and rhapsody apps; when i typed those names in the search field, those items were the FIRST THING in a list of only 3 or 4 items; amazon app store has the same free apps as andriod market but the searches as much more likely to lead you to what you are looking for on the first screen* added netflix (AWESOME) - you can get it to work fine at normal speed on your coby kyros if you install an older version of it (1.2.1 with the automatic app update feature disabled; you can find it at com.netflix.mediaclient-v1.2.1; there are much newer versions but they don't work with the kyros because the movies run at an almost frame by frame pace making the movie unwatchable* buy a class 10 memory card - about $20 for 16gb(recommended by another reviewer) and move all of the apps to it instead of allowing them to use the small amount of memory on the device* angry birds also works fine on it once you move it to the memory card mentioned above; without it runs "herky jerky" and crashes often* some other apps i installed on it were google docs, words with friends, amazon kindle book reader (lot of free books - new and old available there), etc.I plan on buying a few more at this price now that I know how to quickly tweak it for my mom and young nephews. I hope this review helps those of you who were confused like me after reading reviews that said conflicting things and wondered if everyone was reviewing the same device! This is my first ever review on amazon though i have buying stuff on here over a decade. Forgive me if it is too long! :-)