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Ask Slashdot: Tablet With Root Access By Default?
hweimer writes "I am looking for a small (7") tablet that comes with root access out of the box. I know, I could get one of the usual suspects and root it myself, but I don't want to waste my time in the process and end up voiding my warranty. Basically, I'd like to use it for web browsing, reading PDFs and accessing my e-mails via SSH (extra bonus for X11 forwarding). Any good suggestions, or should I wait for Tizen devices to hit the market?"
I know it's a little dated, and not as fancy as other tablets, but it has everything you just asked for, along with X11 forwarding. I'd strongly suggest taking a look at it. You can even use it as a phone if you'd like. I think they are about $250 now.
Still a pretty decent device considering it's over a year old now.
You don't have to root it per se, but you do want to put on VeganTab or some other ROM (which likely voids the warranty, but the device is cheap for a dual 1Ghz Tegra with a 10" screen... <$250 these days). There's no "jailbreak" step like most other devices. Just put the ROM in the right place and reboot.
The Android market works great now (very improved from the situation before!), so you can load Google Earth and just about anything else without any hassle.
Also have one of these cheap USB keyboard cases for it. Even with that, it still ends up being less bulky yet more fun than my old EeePC 901.
Unfortunately, Android doesn't work great with physical keyboards yet (all kinds of focus issues, and the Ctrl key annoyingly doesn't work in ConnectBot).
None of the things that you said you want to do require root access. Web browsing, SSH, X11 forwarding, PDFs... You can do that all with an Android device without rooting. Heck, you can do that with an Apple device without jailbreaking.
Nook Color, it boots from the CF slot first so you just put down your own OS on a CF card and should you ever have a problem you just pull the card and it's back to factory fresh.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Everything you could pretty much want. But only 16GB. Only one SD slot. Wish they had a way to upgrade the on-board flash to larger capacities. We seriously need a smaller footprint for SSD's. Would be perfect with 128gb.
You can put whatever OS you want on it and the manufacturer encourages it, it just happens to come with android which is Linux under the covers.
I cannot speak for the upcoming Transformer Prime, but its predecessor TF101 can be rooted extremely easily (no time wasted here).
OTA updates keep working and the rooting can easily be undone (actually, the device gets automatically un-rooted every time you do an OTA update).
The super simple rooting procedure is discussed here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1198303
You basically just download a jar to your computer, connect the tablet via USB and follow the instructions on screen. It takes less than 5 minutes. I cannot guarantee that it does not invalidate the warranty, but I would say it doesn't.
I had good experiences with this $200 SmartQ 7 7" tablet which I got 3 years ago (for $200). Runs an Ubuntu build that's mostly in english; apt-get did everything i needed to get my remote desktop on. I don't have a Nook so I'm not sure how it compares.
The supplier I used seems to be out of stock, but presumably there are others:
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/smartdevices-smartq-7-7-0-touchscreen-linux-mid-internet-tablet-667mhz-cpu-wifi-bluetooth-1gb-27904
it is 9" but he HP Touchpad doesn't have to be rooted. Simply enter developer mode ( just type webos20090606) and you've got root access. If not for poor decision making by execs and poor advertising more people would understand just how much you can do with WebOS and the touchpad.
Not the warranty you actually care about, anyway. Even if you root the software, that only voids the software warranty. The hardware is still covered under any applicable warranty. If the piece of junk falls apart in your hands after you rooted it, there is nothing preventing you from sending it back for a replacement. Flash the software back to stock if you are paranoid about it. The manufacturers and carriers don't give you root by default because the average person would fuck up their device if they had root access. Not giving you root limits their liability so they dont have to replace devices because some dumbass fubared his /system partition. If you can root, then you can also learn how to fix the damn software yourself. It becomes your own responsibility. Fixing defective hardware is always the manufacterer's responsibility, unless you modded the hardware. See Magnusson-Moss warranty act
class 10 micro SD card
Um, no. Do NOT get a class 10 SD card if you are planning to boot from the SD card. Class 10 is optimized for sequential read/write of large files. It will have very poor random access performance. It is an unavoidable trade-off. Running an OS is mostly random small read/writes. Get a SanDisk class 4 card, or any other card with high scores on the "4K Random Write" benchmark. See this thread for more details (the thread refers to WP7 but the same is true for Android)..