Don’t get me wrong. I think the new iPad sounds wonderful. The retina screen, which Ray Soneria predicted, looks great. Even if its A5X processor isn’t as fast as Apple claims, it’s still amazing fast. And, while I really doubt that the iPad’s battery will really last as long as they claim it will, even if comes close it will still be amazing battery performance. But, still the cheapest model, the 16GB Wi-Fi only, is $499. Might I suggest that at $199 Barnes & Noble’s Android-powered Nook Tablet might be the better deal?

What’s that? Of course, I know the Nook Tablet only has a 7-inch display, only has Wi-Fi, has a much slower processor, only 8GBs of storage, no camera at all, and it only runs a simplified version of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).

If I wanted to, I could boot the Nook Tablet into Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwtch) with the brand new CyanogenMod 9. Once there, I’ve been able to add the usual Google Android apps to my modified Nook Tablet with the CyanogenMod 9 Google Apps package. But, while the geek in me rejoices in that, the ordinary user in me has found the simple Nook Tablet native interface to be just fine.

Still, there’s no question in my mind that the new iPad is the better tablet. I’ll get one. But, I can afford it. Can you?

The new iPad’s great but what’s wrong with a good, inexpensive Android tablet? More >