In 3 months I will actually have some money. YAY! This money is for school stuff and in addition to my textbooks, I’m thinking of getting a tablet.
I’m leaning toward Android because my phone is an Android and I really like it. My other reason is that I’m not looking for a tablet to be my life. I don’t need something earthshatteringly wonderful (my mother seems to think her iPad qualifies for that).
What I want:
The ability to connect to a keyboard dock.
Word processing ability (preferably compatible with Word but I don’t know if this is possible).
The ability to write notes with a stylus.
WiFi
That’s about it. I want to take notes at school. I want to be able to type in lectures because I type a hell of a lot faster than I write and I can type while still watching my professor so I don’t miss anything. But, occasionally I need to write equations or draw pictures so I’d like to be able to do this as well,** and to be able to easily swap between the two. **
When I’m not in class I’d like to be able to check my email and facebook, look up class websites for updates, and other basic things like that. (Believe it or not, some college students find it incredibly rude to do that stuff while in class).
So, do you have an Android tablet? Can you do any of the things I mentioned? Do you do any of the things I mentioned? Do you love your tablet? Do you wish you had bought another? Do you wish you had gotten more memory? Do you wish you had gotten a laptop instead? Do you wish you had gotten an iPad instead?
iPad owners - What’s so good about the iPad?
Please don’t bother telling me about all the wonderful things you can do with games and movies and stuff like that. I have a desktop at home and a netbook that I’m using now. I’m just want to make notetaking easier, neater, and more complete. I don’t want or need snazzy entertainment options.
If you like the android format and your android phone I’d stick with an android tablet.
I have an ipad and had an android phone and I hated that each platform had different looking app icons for the same app.
I did the opposite of you and ended up getting an iphone so it would be similar to my ipad.
I agree that if you have Android for your phone and like it, go for an Android tablet. If nothing else, you can download any apps you’ve purchased through Amazon or Google onto your tablet at no extra charge.
There’s a couple apps that claim to allow you to create Word files. I can’t say I’ve used either.
Well, the keyboards I own have their own batteries so they don’t directly affect the tablet there. I suppose having the Bluetooth “on” on the tablet drains the battery a bit more. I just thought Bluetooth would give you more options than a potentially proprietary docking unit.
Bluetooth is pretty universal in my experience. My HP Touchpad keyboard works with both my tablet and my Samsung GS2 phone and my wife’s Touchpad is actually using a third party iPad Bluetooth keyboard (because it’s pink).
I just looked back at where I read that and I think it’s one specific tablet, not necessarily all of them. It said the keyboard has 10 hours and the tablet has 8 hours so you’d end up with 18. Either someone explained it wrong and the tablet doesn’t draw off the keyboard or it actually does, which would be nice. Anyway, I’m not too worried about the keyboard - as long as it works. My netbook has a completely shitty keyboard. The A, C, O, and N keys barely work so I have to keep fixing my notes so I can figure out what the heck I was trying to say. So, as long as it works and is small, lightweight, and doesn’t drain the tablet battery, it doesn’t really matter.
I agree with other posters that if you like Android you’ll probably like an Adroid-based tablet.
However, with your other requirements, you may want to look at Windows 8 tablets when they come out later this month. You may or may not like the Windows 8 OS, I can’t predict, but since you don’t have to make a real decision for 3 more months, it will be one of your options when you are ready to buy.
That’s a good idea Motorgirl. I definitely wont make up my mind until the last minute so I can see whatever comes out between now and then. I’m leery of Windows 8. My experience has been that every other Windows OS sucks balls and I like 7. Luckily 8 will be out long enough to find out how much it sucks before I commit to anything.
I believe you might be thinking of the Asus Transformer series. This is one, the middle-of-the-road TF300 model. This is the latest, the TF700, with a screen that attempts to match the Retina screen in the iPad.
I want to get one, but I’m so frugal I can’t justify it
That’s it, the TF700. That was the one that inspired me to start this. As far as the Retina screen though - my mom has been raving about it since she first got her iPad and honestly I can’t what the big deal is. I also have a very hard time seeing the difference between HD and non-HD channels (something which really annoys my TV engineer fiance).
Anyway, it’s a good thing I don’t have the money now because I’d have run right out to buy that thing without doing any checking on other options first (or finding out if it’ll even do what I want).
I own a TF101, the very first of the Asus Transformers. It’s hardware is roughly equal to the original iPad. I’m perfectly happy with it, although I don’t push it very hard and I do have a few nitpicks. The keyboard dock is pretty brilliant, though I find I don’t often use it - but I think that’s mostly because I do my computing-with-a-keyboard on my gaming desktop and don’t really have much occasion to want laptop-like computing.
The TF101 came with Polaris Office Suite, which will open .doc files, though I’m not sure how faithfully it duplicates advanced formatting. For taking notes it would be more than adequate. Not sure about stylus input. I believe you’d be stuck with one of those fat styli for capacitive touchscreens, which aren’t very accurate. I think there are some recent Samsung releases under their Note line with much better stylus support, though in those cases you’d lose the keyboard dock option. While there are plenty of bluetooth keyboards available, the Asus docks are superior in having hinges (think about using your laptop on your lap if the keyboard and screen were separate pieces) and of course the extended battery. And the full-sized SD slot, and the USB host ports, and the built-in touchpad.
To answer a few of your other questions, don’t wish I’d gotten more memory because microSD slot in tablet and full SD slot in dock and two USB ports can host thumb drives = onboard memory not very limiting. Don’t wish for an iPad. Actually have one from work, and I never use it because I’m much more comfortable with Android.
Motorola Xoom - 10.1" tablet wifi, now at ICS, probably will get JB soon. Motorola is now owned by google. I had a Xoom and a HPTP, my daughter ended up getting the xoom and I now have the HPTP with webOS/Android ICS on it.
The Xoom is an outstanding tablet, don’t know about stylus input…
writing with a stylus is very different from pen and paper. you might want to try it out before committing to a tablet. mostly i think writing with a stylus and typing with a tablet UI are going to be slower than simply typing on a laptop or doodling on a piece of paper. most of my time seem to be spent on formatting the output. YMMV.
I picked up one of the TF300s and it’s great. I’ve not used the keyboard a whole lot, so can’t speak too much to how easy it is to type on, but it is a bit smaller than your normal keyboard so might take a little getting used to, but seems fine for the amount that I’ve used it.
One of the things I like about tablets and smartphones is how good the text predicting has become, I almost never have to type more then 3 letter before one of the sugested words is the correct one.
There are very few tablets with native stylus input, but you can buy a decent stylus with a rounded tip for around $20. The cheap ones have an edged tip that is pretty annoying. Apparently the stylus tip has to be a certain diameter and material to register.
There are various stylus input apps in the Android store.
There are a number of document editing programs that are compatible with MS Word. Documents To Go, QuickOffice, and OfficeSuite are 3 that I have (the “free” versions came with the phone, I happened to snag the “pro” versions when Amazon had them as the free app of the day). All of these are Android-based. Tough to use on a phone, but might be OK on a tablet especially with an external keyboard.
Oh - and there are bluetooth-compatible keyboards available; I got one for Typo Knig to use with his phone (an iPhone). I don’t know if tablets come with Bluetooth - I would assume so.
i guess i wasn’t clear. i type very quickly with the on-screen keyboard and a physical one would be even faster. maybe i simply lack practice, but the limited screen estate for writing with the fat stylus have meant that i either spent time fiddling with the text and drawings to get the formatting just right or simply wrote the non-text stuff on paper.
mind you, it’s still very doable and fun. it’s just not something i picture doing very quickly without ending up with pages and pages of scribbling that would have fit onto one piece of paper.
