I've been having problems with Google Play crashing on my rooted Fire 
with CM9.  I've heard that the CM7 ROM for the Fire is pretty stable and 
you can get a refurb Fire for $169 if you need it now, otherwise they 
occasionally offer them as a deal-of-the-day for $139. I think you can 
find similar deals for the Nook Color and Tablet. I think the refurb 
Nook stuff tends to show up on e-bay rather than at the B&N web site. 
I'd check XDA for specifics on compatibility but my impression is that 
the Nooks tend to be closer to stock Android.

Samsung has a fairly nice 7" tablet that just came out for $250 retail 
that comes with ICS. I know that you're trying to keep costs down but 
there are advantages to something like the Sammy when you're just 
getting started. Then you have a supported release rather than working 
against a ROM that's still in development.

One thing to keep in mind with cheap tablets (including the Nook, Fire 
and Sammy) is that they are missing stuff that might be important if you 
want to include features like GPS, camera, etc.

--rick

On 12-05-24 10:47 AM, Jason Hsu wrote:
> I was planning to buy one of those cheap<$100 Android tablets on Ebay.  However, I nixed that idea as a result of doing a Google search for "cheap Android tablets on Ebay".  This search revealed complaints about their inferiority - resistive touchscreens or inferior capacitive touchscreens and lack of compatibility with Google Play.
>
> What are the cheapest options (smartphone, tablet, or anything else) for being compatible with Google Play?
>