My husband and I are looking at buying a Coby tablet. We’re holding off because we understand that Android v 3 will be out soon, and we haven’t researched what would be involved in updating the tablet if we bought one with whatever v 2.x.x came loaded on it (please forgive me if I’m missing small details; I’m basically repeating what my husband has said).
I know that phones get new versions automatically pushed onto them; how about tablets?
(I’m asking because if it’s easy/automatic to update, I’d like to surprise him for Father’s Day)
Yes they do, but like phones, the regularity of the updates depend on the vendor. Right now the market is still in flux, so you need to do your research. A great research source is http://www.xda-developers.com/.
Devices that currently have 2.x.x may never receive Android v3, so you have to be careful what device you purchase.
I have a GTab, which I enjoy, but it has been abandoned by its vender. It is forever stuck on Froyo. If I was forced to rely on the vendor for support, I would have a device that never reached its potential. Now with the developers I have a good device software wise and there is even very good progress on getting honeycomb on it. All without vendor support.
Still, I have resigned myself in the future to stick with ‘pure’ google devices.
Anyway, if I was buying a device now, I would get one with Honeycomb or whatever the current version on it, as opposed to waiting for the vendor to update an older one; as the update may never come, despite promises.
Just pointing out that there are several Android 3 tablets currently on the market. I would not expect any 2.x tablets to ever be updated to any version of 3.
Tablets get new versions pushed to them just like phones. The upgrades are done differently depending on the manufacturer and carrier, but it is meant to be painless. The current crop of tablets run on Honeycomb (version 3.0 and 3.1).
As the others have stated, it’s not clear that Coby will upgrade their current devices to Honeycomb (the current version). It is possible they will wait to upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich (the next version). Is is also possible they will never upgrade. I searched a bit and didn’t find anything either way. This is one of the main issues with Android devices.
The differences between 2.1 and 3.0 are pretty significant for tablets. 2.1-based tablets have a UI like a phone whereas 3.0-based tablets have a UI built specifically for a tablet. This may or may not be important depending on what you want to use it for.
Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” is not a generic upgrade for 2.2. It’s a version of Android optimized for large tablet devices. It’s not necessarily better either; in fact, 2.2 has been smoother and more stable in my experience*.
Some manufacturers may upgrade their existing 2.x tablet devices to 3.0, but I suspect few will.
Also, the Coby is a 7" tablet with an 800x480 display. That’s the same pixel resolution as most high-end smartphones. I don’t think a display this size will benefit from Honeycomb anyway.
*My phone has 2.2, and my EEE Pad Transformer has 3.0.1.