Until now, the iPad has faced almost no competition. Soon, though, the Android and WebOS tablets will start to ship in bulk, and things may change. Amongst the first will be Velocity Micro’s Cruz lineup, which brings a wide-screen (16:9) tablet running Google’s Android OS for just $300.

It’s not the first Android tablet (the underwhelming, underpowered Archos 7 holds that distinction) but the Cruz is the first you might seriously consider buying. It comes from Velocity Micro, a company that makes notebooks and desktops but is probably best known for its high-end gaming PCs.

The touchscreen Cruz is flanked by an e-reader and a “kid-friendly” (read: drop-resistant) model, which come in at $200 and $150 respectively.

The Cruz tablet looks a bit like a cut-down iPad. It has 802.11n Wi-Fi, 800 x 480 pixels on the little 7-inch screen, 4-GB storage (expandable via SD-card, with an 8-GB card in the box), an accelerometer, a seven-hour battery-life and (oh Lord, can it be true?) a USB port.