A couple years ago I decided to switch my cellphone provider. On Black Friday, Verizon Wireless offered a "free tablet" deal upon activation. It was the same sort of persuasive deal many carriers offer throughout the year, almost always requiring a two-year activation commitment for the tablet itself, on top of the regular cellphone contract. The tablet was their own branded Ellipsis QMV7A 7" (by Quanta) with so-so hardware specs. (I had, in fact, just been gifted the all new 7" Kindle Fire HDX a week prior as part of an Amazon promotion, and the QMV7A was light-years behind it in resolution, technical specs and overall build quality.)
As I sat waiting for hours on end for the recently hired Verizon staff to activate my service, I checked the going rate of the QMV7A tablet online; $130 at most. Verizon promoted it as a $250 tablet, and with the two-year contract this "free" tablet would actually cost me about that much given the $10+ a month service charge. The data plan was shared with the main phone as well, so there was no extra data allowance. Still, I saw some value in owning another Android tablet for development purposes and agreed to the commitment.