• Tweet
• Email

Velocity Micro is now taking orders for two Android tablets the company first introduced a little over a month ago. One is marketed as a 7 inch color eBook reader, while the other is pitched as a multipurpose Android tablet. Both are available for pre-order today, but won’t ship until early September.

Velocity Micro Cruz Tablet

The Cruz Tablet runs Google Android 2.1, features 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of internal storage space. It also comes with an 8GB SD SD card. The tablet has 802.11n WiFi, and a Lithium Ion battery which Velocity Micro says is good for 10 hours of run time.

But the thing that’s probably most exciting about this tablet is the 7 inch, 800 x 480 pixel capacitive touchscreen display. Priced at $299.99, the Cruz Tablet is one of the cheapest Android tablets I’ve seen to come with a capacitive touchscreen, which should make the experience of using the tablet significantly more pleasant than on cheaper Android tablets with resistive touchscreens.

I’m not saying that all resistive displays are bad, but Google Android was really designed for smartphones with capacitive screens and runs best on devices with similar hardware.

Velocity Micro Cruz Reader

The $199.99 Cruz Reader isn’t quite as exciting. This model runs Android 2.0 and comes with 256MB of RAM and 256MB of internal storage. This model comes with a 4GB SD card, 802.11b/g WiFi, and a 10 hour battery. It has a 7 inch 800 x 600 pixel display, but there’s no mention of what kind of screen it uses. My money’s on a resistive touchscreen.

Both tablets come with “access to the Cruz Market,” which seems to be a pretty good indication that you won’t actually be able to access the Android Market on these devices.

The Cruz Reader and Cruz Tablet also ship with an eBook reader which lets you access the 2 million digital books in the Borders online book store (powered by Kobo).

via Laptoping