Tablets? (Not talkin 'bout graphics tablets)
polycounter lvl 5
I'm not very well educated on tablets these days, there's so many tablets out there, and I get a real sore back sitting at my computer just reading or watching stuff.
I'm interested in buying a tablet and I dno, you guys might know what's good and what's not because I don't have a clue.
I was looking at the Google Nexus 7 and that looks pretty neat and affordable, I'm willing to lay down a bit of dosh for a decent one as long as I get nice usage out of it.
I'm wondering if it's worth even getting one in the first place, and if so, what kind of tablet is best for me?
I'll do a bit more researching in the mean time, but I'd love to know what you guys think.
I'm interested in buying a tablet and I dno, you guys might know what's good and what's not because I don't have a clue.
I was looking at the Google Nexus 7 and that looks pretty neat and affordable, I'm willing to lay down a bit of dosh for a decent one as long as I get nice usage out of it.
I'm wondering if it's worth even getting one in the first place, and if so, what kind of tablet is best for me?
I'll do a bit more researching in the mean time, but I'd love to know what you guys think.
Replies
Personally I find the 7 inch screens to small. I have a 10" asus transformer pad and that gives me enough screen real-estate.
You'll want to shop somewhere where you can test how the screen holds up in sunlight because eventually you will end up browsing the web in your garden/balcony. My asus is completely unreadable in sunlight, even when shaded its washed out.
Most tablets are good enough.
love it. its huge and the keyboard works real nice too.
I use mine mainly for work and write quite a bit with the stylus.
Its also pretty good at converting my handwriting into text which is handy.
Theres an autodesk drawing app that comes with it.. havent played around with it though..
What kinda work can you do on the Samsung Note Pro? Is it worth the higher price than most tablets?
Thats a good point about the screen glare, I'd wanna use it out on the go as much as I can considering the prices of most the decent ones out there.
I've got an ipad Air since I bought the first gen ipad, and we've got iphones so we're invested in that app eco system. I bought my parents a Nexus 7 and they liked it, but recently they bought themselves an ipad air after using someone elses. They prefer it to the nexus, but have never given me a reason why.
If you're talking art, the best app is SKetch Book Pro. It's not as good for painting as Photoshop, but when you really start customizing the tools it becomes a great little solution for getting ideas down.
+1 for the Samsung Notes. I love my 10.1. The nice thing about the stylus (aside from fitting into the tablet so you wont lose it) is that it has an actual nib, not a ball of conductive foam like most third party accessories.
Someone may have mentioned it, but whatever you buy, consider buying the wifi model. They're more costly up front but you save by a wide margin in the long run because you don't need a data plan for it.
I really like my Nexus7, as others have stated. My wife has the Nexus 10, and I REALLY like it too, but since I take mine to work every day, I prefer the smaller form factor. If I used it only at home, then I would get the Nexus 10 also. I bought my wife's Nexus 10 on woot rather cheaply, a while back. Make sure you look around for deals, before buying.
That being said, I recently upgraded my phone to the Samsung Galaxy S5, and I'm really liking some of the Samsung features. On a tablet, I can see some of these features being really useful.
I just don't like some of Samsung's UI 'features'. Mainly, I think their folders are ugly, and slightly more complicated to create, than the Android default folders. One other annoying thing is, when you open something, and tell it to always open, using that app, it gives you a stupid notification about how to undo the 'default app'. EVERY time, without a method to disable it.
That, and it appears that the split screen feature only works with apps that support it, unless I've missed something.
All of these I consider minor, but worth mentioning.
taking notes during work and meetings.. mostly.. the new notepad functions let you intergrate all sorts of stuff into your notes and save them on evernote or samsungs own cloud system.
But also, they don't get the same performance improvements, that other android devices get, because Amazon uses older versions of Android.
That and I'm not a fan of the carousel interface.
I know people who love them, but personally, I'd avoid them
It's a good product, I've just never been much of a tablet guy :P
I've only fiddled around with a few android tablets so I don't have experience to compare them but I have noticed a lot of small to medium app developers prioritize iOS development over Android.
iOS development isn't without issues, the iPad 3 is the black sheep, it has double the screen resolution of the iPad 2 but not double the power. Games that would run fine on the iPad 2 could cause the iPad 3 to chug.
I have to admit there was a cool wifi signal tester for android, I forgot that I had a galaxy tab sitting on a shelf for the last few months, I'll have to re-check it out.
I've heard that alot as well. It is alot cheaper to buy an android devkit than it is to buy an Apple one, and also get it on the app store.
Call it consumer control on apples end, but I've never liked iOS, I've had an iPhone 3GS before and I jailbroke that as soon as I knew how, after that I realized how restricted and controlling their iOS system was, and android was doing all the stuff I could do with a jailbroken iPhone without voiding the warranty or worse.
iPad's are a great piece of tech and all, but it's too....'simple' for me.
Though since I upgraded to a slightly larger phone with Android 4, i use the nexus very little. It's become a bit of a pain to have to charge the thing all the time. I used to play games on it, but these days I have so much trouble finding anything worth my time in the vast ocean of shitty apps...
But hey if you like to play the typical kind of games then that's not an issue (most people don't seem to mind judging by the popularity).
Also; don't buy Amazon Kindle tablets unless you want to get locked into their ecosystem; they have their own store and all, and you'll have to do some hackery to get out of that (not worth your time imo).
Valid points, and I would agree, when it comes to larger companies. Justin mentioned small/medium level devs, who typically are choosing for themselves, and just trying to get something going. I've seen startups sink $100k into developing an app, then sweat it out, waiting for Apple's long approval process... only to get denied (with suggested improvements).
I think most large companies will develop for iOS first, because their upper management doesn't understand the market properly (failing to realize there are now more Android users, than iOS users). Many times it's because their management uses iOS devices, and that's what they want.
But yeah, I've seen the studies, showing iOS users were more willing to spend money on apps. It felt like another one of those 'android users are poor' kind of surveys. I don't doubt that iOS users pay for more apps, but is it because they are willing/wealthy? Or is it because Apple doesn't like 'free' apps. At one point, Apple was pushing devs to charge 99¢? Or the lack of 'free' options? I would agree that there are definitely more iOS users with disposable incomes, mainly because they are willing to drop money on an iPhone, so they can have that 'status' symbol. I think 'most' people buy iPhones purely for that reason. I'm not saying all, because I do know people who have provided me valid reasons why they like iOS. Many can not though.
I never heard of that before, the studio I'm at now has 7 free to play (all of them) on iOS and Android, the prices are the same between the two ecosystems.
It's an old thing now (back in the early days). As far as I know, they don't do that anymore.
So it comes down to this, I either buy a Surface Pro 3, which in my mind is cheaper and more powerful than the Cintiq Companion, which leads me to losing the wacom tech, but I heard Surface Pro 3 has a pretty good pen functionality to suit my needs.
Or just a brand new laptop, I don't think tablets alone can really justify the price and usability in comparison to something like a surface pro can.
So help me out guys, what's the better/cheaper option? Maybe I should just cancel the whole plan altogether.