You know all the good things about tablets such as the and? Their beautiful screens, slick touch controls, speedy operations and excellent battery lives? What if you didn't bother with all of those, and made a really, really cheap tablet instead? But let's start on a positive note. The form factor of the HomeSurf is fairly good. It's quite light, it's not too thick and it's easy to hold.

Though it's purely plastic, it doesn't feel flimsy. If other cheap tablet makers are going to copy anything from the HomeSurf, we hope it's the chassis. Conversely, if there's one thing we hope that other cheap tablet makers don't copy from the HomeSurf, it's the resistive touchscreen. Lyrics Mercedes Lackey. Yes, like all the best horror villains, resistive touchscreen technology keeps appearing just when you thought it was dead for good. For this tablet, it means no multi-touch on the 7-inch touchscreen, and generally a severe lack of responsiveness. Typing, in particular, is a nightmare, unless you've got calluses like rhino skin on your fingertips.

The 600MHz processor inside powers Android 2.1, so whole package is a little like an Android phone from 18 months ago. Except that it doesn't have Google's useful apps, including the Android Market. There is a place to get apps, but it's pretty limited, and lacks nearly all the big names. There are few games, but since even Angry Birds won't run smoothly on the HomeSurf, it won't make much difference.

With a low-power processor and low-resolution screen, you might be thinking you'd get good battery life from the HomeSurf. You would be wrong.