Apple iPad vs. Blackberry PlayBook vs. ?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My wife wants to get me a tablet computer for my birthday (bless her), and wants to make sure it’s one that I prefer. Any info on how these compare would be much appreciated. I do have some questions.

I don’t have a smart phone, and don’t have Wi-Fi – what do I need to know about it? Will it be necessary to have Wi-Fi service to access the internet at all? We do seem to have a wireless router at home (laptop from wife’s work functions on it).

I expect I’d use it for general surfing and playing YouTube stuff. I don’t do gaming. Should I be concerned about apps? What about choosing among 16, 32, and 64 GB versions?

Are there other tablet brands we should think about? Anything else I should know about or ask about?

2

Bump for the weekday crowd. And my wife says that the laptop working wirelessly indicates we do have Wi-Fi – obviously this is my area of ignorance.

3

Your wireless router is wi-fi, and your tablet will hook up to that. What you don’t have is 3G/4G, which is cellular phone internet. Tablets don’t always come with that, it’s an option you pay for. If you get that, you not only pay more for the tablet, you need to pay for service with your cell phone company.

Wi-fi is all over these days, if you take the tablet with you, there are usually businesses that offer free wi-fi for their customers. Doesn’t work in the car, but it’s cool for checking email or the Straight Dope while getting lunch at McD’s.

If you have any interest in storing your music collection, or taking lots of pictures/videos, get the biggest storage you can.

In terms of apps, I only know about the iPad, the app store is the easiest thing ever. You set up an account, then you can search the store for anything you want. If you find something you like, a couple of touches, enter your password, and it downloads just like that. You can also just look at the most popular apps to see what other people are using and get ideas for things you might like. Lots of apps are free, many are under $5 and very few are over $10.

4

Tablets are wifi capable so if you have a wifi network you can connect. Availability of wifi networks outside the home is more common but “free wifi” is much less so. A few places you will find free wifi but more times than not, I find you have to pay to connect. (I travel for business and I’ve seen this all over the country).

The way around that is to buy a table that also supports 3G/4G connections to cellular networks. That way, if there is no free wifi available you can still connect to the internet over the cellular networks. The down side, paying a monthly data plan contract with the cellular network.

As for size, really depends upon how you plan to use it. If you’re just browsing and watching videos online you don’t need much. If you are storing photos, music, DVDs, etc., on the tablet - go as big as your budget can afford.

As for brand, you really can’t go wrong with Apple especially with the size of their App Store. Android-based tablets are also good and they have an app ecosystem too. My only complaint about Android-based tablets is the constant “new versions” that come out and many times your tablet manufacturer may not support an upgrade. This can also happen with apps not being compatible. As for the Blackberry option, why? They’ve consistently had horrible smart phones for years. Their stock is in the toilet and they have lost massive market share in their bread-and-butter segment - business users. They may not even be in business in 12 months. I’d stay away from anything Blackberry - ever.

5

As one who has given family members both iPads and Android tablets - and based on the level of experience I infer from your OP, I recommend an iPad.

My hacker brother loves his Android, but is complaining about no OS updates and the paucity of tablet specific Android apps (most are written for smaller screened phones). Mom and wife seem permanently attached to their iPads…

6

Forget Blackberry. The major players right now are Apple, Google (Android) and Amazon. Microsoft is a recent and promising new entry to the field.

Apple is probably the easiest to use, and integrates really well with the Apple iTunes store for purchasing and downloading music, movies, etc. It also has a large selection of apps. But it has some annoying limitations for power users. I sold mine because I just couldn’t get used to the lame on-screen keyboard design, and Apple wouldn’t allow keyboards developed by third parties. Another drawback is that there are only 2 models to choose from, small and large (7.9" and 10"), plus the choice of different memory capacities (you can’t add memory later).

Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google and licensed to many different tablet manufacturers (ASUS, Samsung, SONY, Toshiba, Lenovo, etc). Google also sells their own Nexus line of tablets (choice of 7" and 10" models), and these are probably the best choices for most people, unless you want particular features offered by other brands. (E.g. ASUS Transformer series transform to a laptop form factor by connecting to a keyboard dock.) Since Android is made by Google, it integrates really well with various Google services - Gmail, Google Maps, Picasa, Google Play Music, Google Play Movie, Google+, etc. Android tablets also tend to be more affordable than Apple.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire series is sort of a limited version of the Android tablet - limited in the sense that you can only get apps from the Amazon App Store, which only has a subset of what’s available for a generic Android tablet. It also has features not found on standard Android tablets, like the ability to download or stream video from Amazon Instant Video (including the “free” Amazon Prime videos.) Kindle Fire tablets are more affordable than other comparable tablets - Amazon can keep the tablet price low because they profit from selling music and TV/movie downloads.

The Microsoft Windows-8 tablets just became available a few weeks ago. The selection of apps is very limited, but the basics are covered. The big advantage of Windows-8 tablets is that they can run Microsoft Office. So if you think you’re going to do “real work” on the tablet, Win-8 is a good choice. (Note that there are two versions of Windows-8, standard and RT. They both run Office but only the standard Windows runs existing Windows software.)

Anyway, if you already have an iPod or iPhone and use iTunes, the iPad is probably the best choice. If you’re a regular Amazon customer (esp. if you’re a Prime member), and if Amazon provides most of the content you want to consume on the tablet (e-books, movies, TV, magazines, etc), the Kindle Fire series is probably the best choice. If none of these factors apply, I think the Google Nexus series are the most versatile and still reasonably priced.

7

Go to a store where you can try them out. If there isn’t one nearby, see if a friend has one you can try. Specs and features don’t matter as much as whether or not you find it comfortable and satisfying to use - there’s no point having all the features if it sits in the cupboard because the UI annoys you.

Decide if you’re going to use it on the road or just at home, so you know if a wifi-only version will be sufficient. If you’re not going to fill it up with movie downloads then storage space is probably not a big concern.

8

Definitely try holding them. Before trying one, I would have thought that the 7" models were too small, but now that I’ve tried them, I prefer both the small iPad and the 7" Nexus to my full-size iPad.

In my opinion the iPad and the Google Nexus tablets are the best options. I think there will be plenty of opinions on both sides, but much of it has to do with how you feel about the philosophies of Apple and Google. They’re both better at some things and worse at others.

However, if you’re going for pure budget, the Amazon ones are cheaper (and less terrible than the super-bargain options), and if you have a real need to run legacy Windows stuff, then you may want to wait a few months for the Intel-based Windows ones. I doubt they will actually be good, given the constraints required to run legacy code, but sometimes it’s not how well the bear waltzes, but that it waltzes at all.

9

I think the Kindle Fire HD are as good as Nexus or iPad tablets, hardware-wise. I’m tempted to buy one just to use as a TV/movie viewer.

Intel based Windows-8 tablets are already available from several manufacturers including ASUS, Samsung and Acer. Microsoft’s own Intel-based tablet (Surface Pro) isn’t out yet though, perhaps that’s what you meant.

I have a Samsung Windows-8 tablet (ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T) and it is fantastic. It works well as a tablet, using tablet apps, ad it’s smoother and faster than any Android tablet I’ve owned. It also works perfectly fine for running legacy Windows software. It even does multi-monitor setups fine - I’m typing this on it now, with a 24" monitor hooked up to it as a secondary monitor. Of course, at $1200 it’d better be good… (It’s my main work laptop/tablet, I couldn’t justify that cost for a personal tablet.)

10

The only tablets worth buying are the iPads or the Nexus tablets.

11

Disagree. Transformers are pretty nifty.

12

Neither. ASUS tablet. :smiley:

13

I haven’t used one of those. The original Kindle Fire was crap, in my opinion. Did the new ones get way better?

14

In what way were they “crap”? Admittedly I’ve only tried the new ones in stores, but the build quality, display quality and responsiveness seemed as good as any tablet I’ve owned.

15

They were nice (I’ve owned both the 300T and 700T). But now, the Nexus-10 has a better screen and faster processor than the Transformer 700T, and costs less. And the 700T is slow - the Tegra 3 processor just isn’t up to the task of driving a 1920x1200 screen, it seems.

The 300T is cheaper than the Nexus-10, but only by $50, and it has 1/4 the resolution (1280x800 vs. 2560x1600). The only remaining advantage of the ASUS Transformer is the transforming feature (i.e. removable keyboard dock).

16

Which tablets have you owned?

Here’s David Pogue’s review, which I think is pretty close to my impressions: It was laggy and underpowered and frustrating to use.

17

I’ve owned the 1st generation iPad, the 1st generation ASUS Transformer, the 1st generation Samsung Galaxy Tab, the HTC Flyer, the ASUS Tansformer 300T (for a short while - returned because of a screen defect), the Galaxy Tab 7.7 and the ASUS Transformer 700T. But only one or two at a time - I currently only have the Tab 7.7.

As I said, I have not owned the Kindle Fire HD, only played with it in stores. It seemed very smooth and responsive, and screen quality seemed very good. They are a little thicker and heavier than the competition (the 8.9" model weighs as much as 10" models from other brands), but that was the only obvious downside I noticed.