Android Tablet Questions

[wa3zrm]

It also doubles as a serving tray for me to serve drinks to all my douche bag friends when we get together and sit around making happy faces and take pictures of each other doing that.

Sounds like we know the same people

[EricHill78]

I'd go with the andoid over the Kindle Fire.
It depends on your needs. Get a smartphone.

I'm writing from my DROIDX phone.
32 gig micro sd card.
8 megapixel camera
720 hd video
Wifi
and more

I agree I have an andrlod as well.

I went to the ATT store the other day and played with the iPad a little. All it is is a big ass iphone.

[CoderGuy]

I agree I have an andrlod as well.

I went to the ATT store the other day and played with the iPad a little. All it is is a big ass iphone.

That's why I love it! I love my iPhone, and iLove my iPad more!

[Ainkor]

That's why I love it! I love my iPhone, and iLove my iPad more!

This isn't a fanboy response, but I'll just leave this here...

We switched to smartphones at work about 1.5 years ago and the only thing VZW offered was Android phones or Blackberries. We had some experience with Blackberries and they didn't pass the feature needs that we all had. We did have WM6.5 phones to do audits so we knew those weren't even in the running.

We all went with either Driod 2's or Droid X's. Top of the line phones at that time. As soon as the iPhone came to VZW I switched right away and shut down my personal AT&T line.

I played support guy constantly for 10 people. Crashes, daily restarting, hardware failures and on and on.....

I convinced our VP to get an iPhone. In fact, I told her that if she didn't like it, I would pay for it out of my own pocket.

5 months later I've done exactly 1 support call for her and she has only restarted her iPhone 1 time. No crashes, no issues and she absolutely loves the phone. She uses it for the usual stuff along with spreadsheet viewing, remote controlling her office computer and all sorts of other things that her Droid 2 didn't do very well.

Trust me, I am not a fanboy of any computing device, just the best device at that moment. One thing I do believe in though is buying the best that is out there. It saves me time and to me, time = money. Hell, my iPad saves me about 15 hours a week alone and it paid for itself in a touch over 2 weeks counting time saved.

So yes CoderGuy, I love my iPhone and iPad too

[lxskllr]

I got a NextBook Net6 tablet from BigLots today. It had a $150 sticker, but I got it for 20% off, so $120. It isn't that great, but probably worth $120. I'll either give it to my daughter for Xmas, or keep it myself. I haven't turned it on yet, but I want to see what can be done with hacking.

http://www.nextbookusa.com/productde...p?product_id=6

[lxskllr]

I've been doing a little playing, and I'm not feeling the tablet love. The form factor's convenient, but everything's too locked down. It's a device for pure consumption, and not creation. The apps I've seen are unimpressive, and like a bunch of Vista sidebar gadgets. They do one job, and generally do a crappy job of it. Nothing can be tweaked; you're completely at the devs mercy.

The way I see it, tablets are the ultimate n00b machine. If you can't make your own apps, you get the n00b experience. I'm happy enough with it for $120, but I wouldn't pay over $150 for any tablet that isn't x86 based.

[devilock76]

I've been doing a little playing, and I'm not feeling the tablet love. The form factor's convenient, but everything's too locked down. It's a device for pure consumption, and not creation. The apps I've seen are unimpressive, and like a bunch of Vista sidebar gadgets. They do one job, and generally do a crappy job of it. Nothing can be tweaked; you're completely at the devs mercy.

The way I see it, tablets are the ultimate n00b machine. If you can't make your own apps, you get the n00b experience. I'm happy enough with it for $120, but I wouldn't pay over $150 for any tablet that isn't x86 based.

I would say that for the android tablets, but there are some iPad apps for music creation that truly rival many full computer systems. The win on the tablet is the interface for such an application.

Ken

[Ainkor]

I've been doing a little playing, and I'm not feeling the tablet love. The form factor's convenient, but everything's too locked down. It's a device for pure consumption, and not creation. The apps I've seen are unimpressive, and like a bunch of Vista sidebar gadgets. They do one job, and generally do a crappy job of it. Nothing can be tweaked; you're completely at the devs mercy.

The way I see it, tablets are the ultimate n00b machine. If you can't make your own apps, you get the n00b experience. I'm happy enough with it for $120, but I wouldn't pay over $150 for any tablet that isn't x86 based.

I'm not going to say I told you so, but them's the breaks for Android. I consider myself very knowledgeable in the areas of computers and here are my thoughts:

Android - Second rate, poor app quality and poor usability. There is some top notch hardware out there, but the OS is pretty blah. Anyone who tells you it isn't as locked down as iOS is a maroon. Rooting is exactly the same as jailbreaking and accomplishes exactly the same thing.

iPad - Top notch hardware, much better usability, great apps. Tons of apps that allow you to create content, but.... It's a tablet

x86 tablet - The one I use is an Acer W500 with Windows 8 dev preview. Mid to low end hardware, usability is that of a notebook without the keyboard. Obviously you can create crap, but an on screen keyboard blows for it. Windows 8 Metro has potential, so we will see. Another year baking in the oven might produce the best of all.

I think I said in a previous post, know what you want to use your tablet for and buy it for that reason. They aren't the second coming, the end all be all or anything of that nature, but I can say for me that my tablet saves me about 15 hours of work a week and that makes it quite possibly the best device I've ever owned. Granted, I took a year refining my work flow to trim the fat, but in the end, I'm easily 30% more productive, more time at home and having more fun while I do it.

Just a thought.... Exactly how much does one actually customize Windows other than a new wallpaper and application icon placement?

[lxskllr]

Just a thought.... Exactly how much does one actually customize Windows other than a new wallpaper and application icon placement?

Windows? I used to run custom themes and stuff on XP. I was pretty happy with Vista, so I mostly left it alone. Linux is infinitely customizable. Some of it is outside the scope of a regular user, but there's a lot you can do with just a little reading, and effort.

My complaint is mostly with the applications. You can't change anything. Want smaller borders? Too bad. You'll take it the way we give it. Want to tweak the displayed information? Nope. If you don't like what we show, you're free to look over the other 40,000 crappy apps to see if something else meets your requirements.

The whole thing is just too far removed from a proper O/S. I'll never give up my netbook for real work. It's small, has a keyboard, and my choices for how to run it are only limited by hardware constraints. Like I said, for <$150, it's an amusing toy. For any kind of real money, I want a real computer.

[wa3zrm]

Have you unlocked or "rooted" the device?

[lxskllr]

Have you unlocked or "rooted" the device?

No, I haven't. I'm still just playing, and trying to decide if I'm going to keep it, or give it to my daughter for Xmas :^D

The fact that's used won't be an issue. I always customize electronic devices for her, before I give them as gifts :^)

[sgreger1]

In my mind the Ipad is still the only decent tablet. Almost 100% because of the high quality software available in the App Store. The programs on there are priced very competatively, I mean Beatmaker 2 for example is a mobile AWS for making loops, music etc and it is more powerfull that other software that costs hundreds of dollars, but you can pick it up for $10. Same with the office suite, it's like $15 last time I checked, but buying a copy of MS word or excel for the computer costs hundreds. In general the apps are high quality and the selection is massive. For this reason alone I think the Ipad is the best bet for anyone truly trying to use a tablet for anything. The droid ones are okay but they suffer the same problems as windows computers in my opinion and for some reason they just don't have the polished feel that the iPad does.

[CoderGuy]

In my mind the Ipad is still the only decent tablet. Almost 100% because of the high quality software available in the App Store. The programs on there are priced very competatively, I mean Beatmaker 2 for example is a mobile AWS for making loops, music etc and it is more powerfull that other software that costs hundreds of dollars, but you can pick it up for $10. Same with the office suite, it's like $15 last time I checked, but buying a copy of MS word or excel for the computer costs hundreds. In general the apps are high quality and the selection is massive. For this reason alone I think the Ipad is the best bet for anyone truly trying to use a tablet for anything. The droid ones are okay but they suffer the same problems as windows computers in my opinion and for some reason they just don't have the polished feel that the iPad does.

^^^^THIS

And based on new benchmarks, the iPad 2 and even iPhone 4S (arrives Friday at my door!) are faster than the competition in most benchmarks.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4951/i...pu-than-ipad-2

[Ainkor]

In my mind the Ipad is still the only decent tablet. Almost 100% because of the high quality software available in the App Store. The programs on there are priced very competatively, I mean Beatmaker 2 for example is a mobile AWS for making loops, music etc and it is more powerfull that other software that costs hundreds of dollars, but you can pick it up for $10. Same with the office suite, it's like $15 last time I checked, but buying a copy of MS word or excel for the computer costs hundreds. In general the apps are high quality and the selection is massive. For this reason alone I think the Ipad is the best bet for anyone truly trying to use a tablet for anything. The droid ones are okay but they suffer the same problems as windows computers in my opinion and for some reason they just don't have the polished feel that the iPad does.

I'll third that. Especially for business. The apps are MUCH better than their Android cousins. If something comes along thats better, you bet your ass I'm dropping serious funds on it, but until then, there are iPad's and they are crud. In fact, according to a recently announced browser tracking firm, the iPad has 97.2% of the tablet browser share (http://gizmodo.com/5848590/no-one-uses-android-tablets).

So are there really as many tablets out there as the competitors say there are? Apple is the only one that reports sold whereas the others report shipped. Huge difference there!

[devilock76]

I'll third that. Especially for business. The apps are MUCH better than their Android cousins. If something comes along thats better, you bet your ass I'm dropping serious funds on it, but until then, there are iPad's and they are crud. In fact, according to a recently announced browser tracking firm, the iPad has 97.2% of the tablet browser share (http://gizmodo.com/5848590/no-one-uses-android-tablets).

So are there really as many tablets out there as the competitors say there are? Apple is the only one that reports sold whereas the others report shipped. Huge difference there!

Business maybe, media definitely, Ipad kills (unless we talk about flash sites).

Android in my usage has one advantage, and that is from the sys-admin side, better VNC/SSH tools available. Just my experience granted. I find it enjoyable working on my BSD server from my Gtablet at times.

Ken