For mundane reasons, we’re about to purchase two tablets. I’ve been using a two-year old Galaxy Iconic A500 and love it. Aside from a bit of heft (primary reason for upgrading), it does everything I want it to do—so it sets the floor for minimum capabilities and, unless a bell and/or whistler is really out of this world, the ceiling for what it needs to do. Given the number of Apps and familiarity I have with the OS, I want to stick with Andorid (so no iPad or Win8 machine).
I feel silly buying electronics this close to cyber/whatever, but timing is timing (unless it’s expected that Android devices are going to radically change price points with the release of Win8 tabs and the holiday season).
So, any advice? Samsung has been in the news a lot lately, but I haven’t paid attention to the tech. Is it just lawsuit hype or is there something worth looking at? Other than that … anything I should know?
The Nexus 7 is REALLY nice, if you want a small tablet.
The Asus Transformer T300 was the best balance of nice and cheap I found the last time I looked. Has a dockable stand/keyboard that turns it into a laptop and also gives it 12 hours of battery life, and a usb port you can attach flash drives or a mouse to.
Where was I? Sorry 'bout that.
When choosing between models that have an SD slot, what’s the difference between internal storage amounts? For example, the Galaxy Note has 16 and a 32 GB versions that look otherwise identical. The price difference is $50, but a 16 GB card is only $20. Am I missing something?
And what are the critical stats to look at? Used to desktops, I get what difference RAM can make. Does Asus’ 1 GB versus Samsung’s 2 GB make for a noticeable difference? Is there a wide variation in processor capabilities/speeds?
All you’re missing is that many people aren’t going to think about what the storage difference means. One of my brothers for example has been storing his movies and music externally for a couple of years, but the notion that this means his internal drives don’t need to be 1T hasn’t landed yet. The other one… has interesting notions of “backup”. “Nava, see what you can do to speed up my computer willya?” “We could take off three copies of Música… you have the exact same songs in all four.” “NO! They’re backups!” “The backups are the additional copies you have in two external drives” “But I like having those!” “OK then but don’t ask me to unclog your computer if you will insist in filling it to the rafters.”
I’ll chime in in favour of the nexus 7, fast and cheap with a great screen and battery life, tons of free apps, plays any file that you throw at it.Just the right size be pocketable and usable as a book reader.
There were eyebrows raised when the nexus7 shipped with no micro sd slot but you can get an app and a £2 OTG usb cable and either download or stream files from a stick or sd card so that isn’t an issue anymore.
I suspect that this form factor will become very popular over the next year. Apple are releasing their version soon and for those with an Apple infrastructure already I’m sure it’ll be a big hit.
I’m looking to get another 7" tablet myself for my wife to use and so the two little ones can use them in the back of the car on long trips. I’m pulled towards the Nexus7 (with a 32gb version set to supplant the 16gb version at the same price point) but I’ll certainly have a look at the mini ipad as well.