From the article: " Yes, we can all agree that the displays are seriously cruddy and the overall build quality and design, for lack of a better work, suck, but at this point we've just come to expect that for a tablet under $300. "

Definitions of decent vary.

"Yes, we can all agree that the displays are seriously cruddy and the overall build quality and design, for lack of a better work, suck, but at this point we've just come to expect that for a tablet under $300."

That looks like trash compared to the iPad. We've seen in the market so far that building a tablet that is remotely close to iPad in terms of hardware build, let alone software, costs more.

The $250 Nook Color has solid build quality and is trivial to root and turn into a full Android tablet.

And a refurbed iPad 1 is $349 from Apple, $399 new, as long as they last. Presumably, they're still making a profit.