Tablets - iPad, Galaxy Tab, Playbook, XOOM & More

[Telgip33]

I just picked one up with docking station for $479, and it is the 32gb version

[Mazrim]

Man, I wish I had $400 to burn right now. That's a great deal.

[henry07]

anyone know how to convert movie files (avi, mkv) and put them on the playbook?

[PIMking]

we got our 64gb iPad 2 for $540/per a couple of weeks agoo

[J Diddy]

I don't really need a tablet I just want one. I also want to wait a few more generations before I bite.

After saying all that I passed up that MemoryExpress Asus Transformer deal and now I am regretting it. I touched one for the first time on the weekend and I got that (this is awesome!!!!) feeling I had when I first touched the Gen1 iPod or the iPod Touch. That is definitely a slick tablet and I will bite if the price drops again.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by J Diddy

I don't really need a tablet I just want one. I also want to wait a few more generations before I bite.

After saying all that I passed up that MemoryExpress Asus Transformer deal and now I am regretting it. I touched one for the first time on the weekend and I got that (this is awesome!!!!) feeling I had when I first touched the Gen1 iPod or the iPod Touch. That is definitely a slick tablet and I will bite if the price drops again.

Yeah it really is a great device and that is without Skype and Netflix working on it at this time without rooting. Once they get that figured out the machine will be a beast.

The price was a one day error on Memory Express, I talked to the manager of the NE store and I guess somebody on the web team screwed up an update and the price dropped.

Luckily I was able to pick up mine at the cheaper price on a the price correction.

[chemgear]

Wow, RIM (and the playbook) are getting absolutely killed.

http://business.financialpost.com/20...hares-down-11/

Perhaps more alarming for RIM were the sales figures for the company’s new PlayBook tablet. Consensus Wall Street estimates suggested RIM would report sales of about 560,000 PlayBooks, however, RIM sold only 200,000 units in the quarter.
That's about what, a 50-1 ratio to iPads in the same time period? Ouch. At least the transformer is doing a bit better for what it's worth.

[Acey]

Didn't really see the appeal of a tablet till I bought my 10.1. Absolutely love this thing. And then I love picking up my Galaxy S2 and it's the same fast as hell, lightweight Samsung awesomeness, just on a smaller screen.

It's World War 3 with battery life on my Android phones, but I'm floored by how good the battery life is on the Tab. Close to 2.5 days with moderate usage.

[chemgear]

Playbooks are now discounted. Not surprising given how bad RIM is getting hit these days:

http://business.financialpost.com/20...ral-retailers/

[fundmark19]

Poor RIM if only they knew how to make cutting edge technology and not outdated junk

[chemgear]

Playbook is now completely dead/scrapped? (maybe just resell them as a "fire" tablet?)

http://business.financialpost.com/20...-the-playbook/

“We believe RIM has stopped production of its PlayBook and is actively considering exiting the tablet market,” Collins Stewart semiconductor analyst John Vihn wrote in a note.

[OilKiller]

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/09/2...-the-playbook/

RIM Denies It Killed the PlayBook
And another denial link:

http://www.bgr.com/2011/09/29/rim-ca...-pure-fiction/

[chemgear]

^ Hehe, I guess if they won't kill it, the market will/has?

[chemgear]

Looks like they cut the Playbook price as well:

http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/29/tech...m?iid=HP_River



But here is a REALLY interesting article about amazon's browser on their tablet - I had not noticed this in their original presentation/reveal.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/09/...bury-the-lead/

"What this means," explained posterous' Chris Espinosa in a widely quoted commentary posted Wednesday afternoon, "is that Amazon will capture and control every Web transaction performed by Fire users. Every page they see, every link they follow, every click they make, every ad they see is going to be intermediated by one of the largest server farms on the planet. People who cringe at the data-mining implications of the Facebook Timeline ought to be just floored by the magnitude of Amazon's opportunity here. Amazon now has what every storefront lusts for: the knowledge of what other stores your customers are shopping in and what prices they're being offered there. What's more, Amazon is getting this not by expensive, proactive scraping the Web, like Google has to do; they're getting it passively by offering a simple caching service, and letting Fire users do the hard work of crawling the Web. In essence the Fire user base is Amazon's Mechanical Turk, scraping the Web for free and providing Amazon with the most valuable cache of user behavior in existence."

[Ashartus]

Originally Posted by chemgear

Every page they see, every link they follow, every click they make, every ad they see...

Anyone else hear the Police in their heads while reading this?

I'm not particularly surprised; this sort of information is a valuable commodity to a company like Amazon. Privacy is getting harder and harder to maintain.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Ashartus

Anyone else hear the Police in their heads while reading this?

I'm not particularly surprised; this sort of information is a valuable commodity to a company like Amazon. Privacy is getting harder and harder to maintain.

Of greater note, and something that the quote above didn't hit on, is that this particular implementation also performs this proxying for secure sites, including banking, online health and benefits, investments, etc.

It's also quite interesting that, as I understand it, part of the acceleration that the Silk system performs is to compile javascript on pages to machine executable code for native execution on the Fire. So their browser sandboxing had better be exceptionally good, because we're talking about taking ordinary HTML pages and converting them to the Kindle equivalent of ActiveX controls on the fly. I can't wait to see what kind of exploits come out of THAT.

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

compile javascript on pages to machine executable code for native execution on the Fire.

Uh, yikes.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

Uh, yikes.

Yeah! It seems like it compiles right down to ARM executable code. It boggles my mind that they would do this.

There are indications here that you can turn the split-browsing off and use Silk as a normal Webkit based browser, but wanna guess how it'll be configured be default?

http://www.christianpost.com/news/am...d-video-56738/

[Slava]

Originally Posted by fundmark19

Poor RIM if only they knew how to make cutting edge technology and not outdated junk

The Playbook is so good though! I basically think this is another VHS/Beta issue. The playbook is a better tablet than the iPad...but their marketing is just not as good. I figure there is no way that RIM can take on Apple in this space, which is a shame. I guess it will be up to the droid manufacturers to do that.

I don't think that the tablet will be killed though. OS2 is supposed to be released in a few weeks and that will open up the droid emulator as well as a few other features.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Slava

The Playbook is so good though! I basically think this is another VHS/Beta issue. The playbook is a better tablet than the iPad...but their marketing is just not as good. I figure there is no way that RIM can take on Apple in this space, which is a shame. I guess it will be up to the droid manufacturers to do that.

I don't think that the tablet will be killed though. OS2 is supposed to be released in a few weeks and that will open up the droid emulator as well as a few other features.