Recommend a mid-priced Android tablet

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

This is my current tablet: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TR05L9Y/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

“Lenovo TAB2 A10-10.1” Tablet (ARM Cortex A53 Quad-Core, FHD IPS, 2GB SDRAM, 16GB SSD"

Upgraded to Android 6.0

I bought this about two years back, paid about $150 on sale. A friend recommended it, and it’s served me pretty well. I feel like it’s a bit slow for my use, which is play music and surf at the same time (Spotify & Firefox) . I opened a thread here several weeks back, and got some help on that front. Sped things up a bit, still find it much slower than surfing on my desktop. Even just surfing alone feels sluggish.

Been stuck in bed for three months, and my poor tablet has been running nearly 24/7 all that time. Playing music, rain/train videos on YouTube to help me sleep, surfing like a fiend, watching movies on friend’s Plex servers, etc. Might watch some Netflix soon…anything to carry my mind away from this room.

So you see this thing has been working overtime, and according to the doctors I’ve got a few more months before I rejoin society at large. My tablets battery life is down to less than half what it was when I bought it. It gets rather warm/hot at times, and every so often the screen flickers with another image I can’t make out, but seems to have nothing to do with what I’m doing at the time.

I thought I should line up a candidate or two for my next tablet, in case this one dies on me. My phone isn’t great for doing a lot of… Anything, really. I don’t want to be researching anything in detail with that, so here I am.

I’m looking for something in the ten inch range, and of equal speed/power or better, and I’d like to keep it around or under $200. I could try to pick up another one of these, but I might as well see if I can spend my money on a tablet suited for 2018 rather than 2016. I know desktop stuff. I don’t know mobile stuff. I have no clue about arm chips, what have you.

Looking for something a little more modern in storage and power than what I have, or something about the same. I’m hoping to line up a couple candidates, one more reasonable in price($150 or less, like th s was) and another a BIT more expensive that will have more speed, if I’m willing/able to bump up my budget.

Thanks, I appreciate any suggestions you may have.

#2

I started traveling again for business (and some personal adventures) about three months ago. Like you, I wanted an improved device that would be good at pretty much everything and VERY good at playing media. I decided on the Fire HD 10. It was right at $150 with a temporary discount (I’m Prime) but with NO special offers (hate 'em).

I love it. The picture is gorgeous.

Pros: It accepts micro SD cards now and I keep a 64GB in it for videos, with a spare 32GB loaded with music. It connects to my laptops very quickly as a drive. Battery life is very good…6-7 hours playing HD movies and using earphones. It’s responsive and overall quality is great. A big plus is that there’s a gazillion cases and accessories for it.

Cons: It’s tricky to do some things in the Amazon version of Android. You can easily side-load Google Play and other apps, but it’s strangely reluctant to let you control things like apps updating automatically. They also removed the MiraCast feature from the most recent generation. Plus, the Silk browser is kind of annoying.

Overall, I’d give it 4 stars out of 5.

#3

There is an updated version from last year.

I use Lenovo tablets because there seems to be a big jump between them and the next tier, especially in the 10" arena. Feels like once you jump out of the $160 range of the Lenovo, you’re into the near-$300 range of Samsung, Asus, Google, etc

#4

Since the OP is looking for recommendations, let’s move this to IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

#5

I am very happy with my Kindle Fire. I have the 8 inch but kind of wish now I bought the 10 inch.

#6

If you decide for the “a bit more expensive” option, I’d say you’re a perfect candidate for leaving the “mobile” duties to your phone and stepping the tablet up to a Surface Go. Sounds like you deserve and will get good use out of it, particularly if you’ve got more bed-riding to look forward to.

#7

If you do decide on a Fire, I recommend that you go ahead and get one with “special offers,” based on comments like the one I quoted below (although I think that particular comment refers to Kindle e-readers rather than Fire tablets), and the fact that I think if you find out that they bother you, you can always pay later to remove them.

#8

The “special offers” Fires are much more irritating than the older Kindles. I’ve had both. For the extra cost of $20, it’s worth it not to see the targeted advertising when I’m using it. (It goes away when you wake it up, but it also adds some ads here and there.) YMMV.

#9

For a couple more days (I think until 9/2/18) Costco has the Ssmsung Tab A, 10.1" for $180 plus they’ll give you a free SsnDisk 32Gb micro-SD card.

I just bought one for my lovely wife and she is very enamored of it.

#10

It’s also $199 from Amazon if you don’t have access to Costco (with no extra SD card)

The tablet itself compares favorably to the 2017 Lenovo Tab 4: better hardware but runs an older version of Android (Marshmallow vs Nougat).

#11

Sorry about the wrong forum. I did a search and found some other “recommend me” threads in GQ, so I thought I was good.

upgrade to a surface pro? From $150 to $399? You and I have VERY different ideas as to what constitutes a BIT more expensive. If I were to spend $400, I’d buy a used laptop to play some old Source/Steam games with. Still thinking about that.

My first tablet was a Kindle Fire 7" (non HD). I’m not going back to the Amazon sphere. I did not enjoy the experience, even though I’m a Prime member and shop there a lot. In fact I have my Fire here with me, and have found it to be a pain in the ass compared to the Android, which in itself is a pain in the ass. Plex, Spotify and even surfing sucks on it. When I get back home I’m gonna root the Fire and be rid of that aggrevation. I’ll find some use for it after that.
So, I’m looking to spend about $200, no Kindle Fire (my bad for not mentioning that). Dunno if I’m reading things right, but it seems like there wasn’t much of an improvement made in the upgraded Lenovo model in the past 2 years, if any.

Looks like the Samsung Tab A is a good candidate to replace my 2016 Lenovo Tab 4 (what Stupid names). Wonder how much of a speed/power improvement it is over my current tablet, and if I can upgrade the OS on the Samsung. Wonder what the real world difference between the quad core and octacore is. As a Ryzen desktop owner, I love me some cores. . . I’ll have to go read the links now.

Appreciate the responses, hope anyone with further suggestions or ideas will chime in.

#12

Go with the Samsung. Reading up on comparisons, the new Lenovo Tab actually has worse screen resolution and pixel density than the one you have now.

#13

Thanks, didn’t catch that. I saw the newer Lenovo had worse res than the Samsung, but I missed that it was worse than my current one. Owch, that would have hurt.

#14

I’ve got an Asus Zenpad that I’m happy with, It’s the 10" so it’s closer to $300, but they have an 8" one at Amazon for only 126. I got a big memory card for mine (128) so I can load it up with a crapload of movies and music.

I too hated the Fire. I gave mine away to my sister.

#15

Thanks, I put the 10" on my list in case it drops some. One’s too much and one has too little. No Goldilocks model. :slight_smile:

#16

what about win10 tablets ? they seem to be the same price and there doesn’t seem to be much different than a pc ,

#17

Are they the same price? I wonder how crippled they are, not being full Windows. At least Android is more or less Android.

#18

Windows Surface tablets are for people whose solution to a problem is to throw money at it. There are tables that are at least as good and better by major makers for far less.

The OP context: “mid-priced” indicates that this isn’t about throw-money-at-it solutions.

Some people want a reasonably priced solution so their remaining money can be used for other purposes.

#19

OH, I LOVE throwing money at problems. It’s. A solution that I seldom get to use, but when I do, it often succeeds.

Pity it’s not an option here.

#20

IMHO you are better off with an Android tablet than Windows. Windows tablets are still mini-PCs, more suitable for productivity than media consumption. And decent Windows tablets are expensive, and cheap ones are slow.

I think the Samsung Tab A is a reasonable choice; I’ve been happy with the Samsung tablets I’ve owned (currently Tab S3).