If you want a cheap android for a child I just bought one of these
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-7-ANDR...item460a0e1da3
I made an offer of £40 and we settled on £45 plus £5 postage.
It comes with Google play already installed.
It seems to do what we want and will be my 6 year old daughter's christmas present. We are busy downloading some games and educational software to prepare it for her.
It has confirmed my opinion of tablets, that they are toys, not serious computers. It does what it's intended but is no substitute for a proper computer with a proper screen, keyboard and mouse for serious stuff.
One complaint. By default it was set up with a "power panel" on the home page, that had an icon to turn the screen off. How STUPID is that. ONE press and it's turned your screen off, and if you don't have the hdmi cable to connect it to another monitor, no way to turn the screen back on. We quickly removed that, otherwise an inquisitive child would have effectively bricked it in no time.
Another "complaint" is the touch screen only works with fingers, which is a problem when you have big fingers like me. It won't recognise the use of a stylus, which would be so much more logical for accurate "pressing" Is this true of all tablets or just a feature of a cheap one?
We settled for the cheapest we could possibly find, on the basis it's going to get dropped and abused, so better to wreck something cheap, than something expensive.