Gamestop starts taking Wikipad pre-orders

You can now confirm your $499 game-centric Android tablet.Gamestop announced that it will carry the device, and it has become the first national retailer to offer pre-orders for the gadget.

The Wikipad will sport a 1280×800 IPS display, along with an Nvidia Tegra 3 T30 quad-core 1.4 GHz processor. On top of this are a full gigabyte of DDR2 RAM and a minimum of 16 GB of built-in storage.

The tablet also comes with an 8-megapixel rear camera as well as a 2-megapixel camera in the front, and promises to come with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box.

What truly sets the Wikipad apart, though, are the physical game buttons. It looks more like a Wii U controller than an iPad, with dual joysticks, four action buttons on each side, and start/select buttons ergonomically placed.

That is, as much as is ergonomically possible for a 10-inch tablet, which we all know can sometimes be quite a handful.

It’s also not boasting portability, as the 1.2-pound device certainly won’t fit in your pocket alongside your 3DS or Playstation Vita.

Nevertheless, you have to give it credit for its uniqueness. There are certainly gamers out there who simply cannot deal with the touch-only input of the iPad and other tablets.