Affordable Android tablets seem to be the way forward, and following the success of Amazon’s Kindle Fire, other vendors are entering the value market.

Asus is picking up the gauntlet with a new 7-inch tablet based on Nvidia’s Tegra 3 chip. It features an 1280x800 IPS panel, but more importantly it costs just $249. This makes it a pretty good deal, as the Kindle costs $199 and Barns & Noble’s Nook tablet also goes for $249.

We are still not sure about the RAM and storage, but even so the new 7-incher promises excellent value for money, since it will probably perform on par with its 10-inch siblings, at just half the price.