Affordable Android

The T-Mobile Springboard joins other low-priced tablets entering the market in time for the holiday season, most notably the Kindle Fire.

The Springboard runs Android 3.2 Honeycomb without many of the design bells and whistles that other manufacturers have been fitting to graft onto their tablet interfaces.

The 7-inch screen offers a 1280×800 resolution.

T-Mobile hopes the tablets support for 4G speeds will prove a draw for consumers wanting to download the latest content faster. Speaking of faster, the device also comes with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor.

Unlike some 7-inch tablets hitting store-shelves, the Springboard offers full access to Android Marketplace and its hundreds of thousands of apps.

In addition to some pre-included apps from Netflix and other content providers, Springboard users can rely on Google services for music, email and the like. For those who like to store local, the device offers 16GB of onboard memory, upgradable to 32GB via the microSD card slot.

Many aspects of the Springboard, including the widgets, will be instantly familiar to anyone who has used an Android tablet before. The email app supports Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, and a variety of POP and IMAP email services.

The tablets smaller size (in addition to that 7-inch screen, it weighs 1.34 pounds) and built-in GPS make it a solid navigational companion.

The Springboard features a 5-megapixel camera in the rear and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing aperture.

T-Mobile insists that Springboard is good for seven hours of continuous use and 12 days worth of standby time.