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

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Russic

For me the biggest bonus is having a tv screen portable enough to bring with me. Whether I'm eating breakfast, riding the train or going to bed a little early I've always got something I can prop up and be entertained.

The ease of getting in and out is something that's easy to overlook when you don't have one. Every morning I watch the mobile 3 minute version of the national over breakfast.

Vacation packing is now hilarious. One pocket of my bag is all I really need to bring movies, magazines, books and music.

Speaking of vacation I anticipate it coming in very handy for our next drive out to the okanagan with our kid. It's something that can be secured to the back of a headrest to display thomas, Caillou, the wiggles or whatever god-forsaken garbage keeps your kid from breathing fire. When they get a little older and start asking "are we there yet?" you can make them fire open the gps and let them see where they are. I'm sure that won't stop them from asking but a man can dream.

You can do any of these things on a laptop ... but do you? There's something about the tablet that causes you to do the things you always could but didn't. That's the key of the device imo. I'm not sure if it's the comfort of it, the size or the speed (or a combo of all 3 plus others), but it seems to do the trick.

Do you have a headrest holder for your iPad or do you just MacGyver something?

[Slava]

Will any of these work with a stylus? I just ask because a tablet that could allow clients to sign a PDF on the screen would make an enormous difference for me business-wise. AFAIK the iPad is using heat or something for the touch screen, and I just assume the others are the same?

I would buy a tablet right away if that could be solved though (and I could get my compliance department to accept this signature as original....which seems possible)

[kermitology]

Capacitive screens aren't very good at using stylus input. You have to do some software jiggery to make things work well enough to negate the side of your hand on the screen, plus the stylus' that are out there aren't the greatest.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by Russic

You can do any of these things on a laptop ... but do you? There's something about the tablet that causes you to do the things you always could but didn't. That's the key of the device imo. I'm not sure if it's the comfort of it, the size or the speed (or a combo of all 3 plus others), but it seems to do the trick.

I've yet to own a tablet, but my next computer purchase will be a tablet. I doubt I will ever buy another laptop.

The thing with laptops is, it is portable, but I'd argue it's not that convenient. If I'm travelling for business or going to school, carrying a laptop to do reports and surf the net in your hotel room is no biggie. But when you're on a plane or bus, or if you're lounging on your couch, having a laptop is somewhat cumbersome.

In addition, because it doesn't use flash memory, it takes time for your laptop to fire up before you can do anything. With tablets, you hit a button, and bam, your device is on and you can start right away.

[FanIn80]

Looks like Samsung might be headed back to the drawing board with their upcoming 10" Galaxy tablet...

Lee Don-joo, executive vice president of Samsung's mobile division, said that Apple has presented new challenges for the South Korean company with a thinner mobile gadget that is priced the same as its predecessor.

"We will have to improve the parts that are inadequate," Lee told Yonhap News Agency.

The 7-inch Galaxy Tab was priced at nearly US$900 without a two-year contract from mobile operators, while the price of the iPad 2 starts at $499, with the most expensive model costing $829. Samsung did not announce the pricing details for the 10.1-inch tablet.

"The 10-inch (tablet) was to be priced higher than the 7-inch (tablet) but we will have to think that over," Lee added.

I still don't know why more people aren't talking about the Asus tablets, though. They're easily the best ones available right now.

[KTrain]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

I still don't know why more people aren't talking about the Asus tablets, though. They're easily the best ones available right now.

I can't tell if you're kidding so I'll assume you're being serious.

It has the power for sure but they look like keyboardless laptops to me. Is it a separate operating system or is it the full Windows 7?

It weighs more than twice what an iPad or iPad 2 does. So it really wouldn't be good as an eReader unless it was sitting on your desk.

Those exhaust ports on the back tell me that thing is going to overheat if resting on your bed or legs. Same with any none custom case.

The (up to) 3 hour battery life is pretty impressive though...

Does it come in a 3G model?

$1200 is nothing to sneeze at either. You can get two 32 gig iPad 2's for that price.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by KTrain

I can't tell if you're kidding so I'll assume you're being serious.

It has the power for sure but they look like keyboardless laptops to me. Is it a separate operating system or is it the full Windows 7?

It weighs more than twice what an iPad or iPad 2 does. So it really wouldn't be good as an eReader unless it was sitting on your desk.

Those exhaust ports on the back tell me that thing is going to overheat if resting on your bed or legs. Same with any none custom case.

The (up to) 3 hour battery life is pretty impressive though...

Does it come in a 3G model?

$1200 is nothing to sneeze at either. You can get two 32 gig iPad 2's for that price.

I'm not kidding at all. It's actually a complete laptop in tablet form. Not a laptop with a swivel lid, it's a tablet running full Windows 7 Home Premium (I would replace this with Linux) and has full laptop specs and ports (including an i5 processor, 4GB RAM, HDMI, USB, SD, etc etc).

I've played with one a lot. It has a 64GB SSD, responds to touch or stylus (which is included). Yes, it more expensive than an iPad, but it's actually a legitimate laptop running a full OS.

Edit: Oh, and a 12" LED screen. Also it's Asus (not to be confused with Acer). Asus actually makes pretty good stuff.



I'm not saying it's for everyone, although I'm certainly more interested in it than I ever was in an iPad. Mostly, though, I can't believe nobody talks about it with the way people go on about Flash and USB.

[KTrain]

Fair enough. I think it's a decent first step towards full laptop power in tablet form but I think the less than three hour battery life makes it totally useless to most users.

It couldn't be used by industry without staff having to exchange it for a charged one or plugging it in for an hour before trying to use it again.

I wouldn't get it if I were you. Like I said, if the design decision was to add those ports because of overheating it isn't a well built machine.

[psicodude]

Originally Posted by Slava

Will any of these work with a stylus? I just ask because a tablet that could allow clients to sign a PDF on the screen would make an enormous difference for me business-wise. AFAIK the iPad is using heat or something for the touch screen, and I just assume the others are the same?

I would buy a tablet right away if that could be solved though (and I could get my compliance department to accept this signature as original....which seems possible)

I had a pre-production model demo of the soon-to-be-released Lenovo tablet this week, and it will handle both finger and stylus touch. They expect to announce it officially later this month and ship by the summer.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by KTrain

Fair enough. I think it's a decent first step towards full laptop power in tablet form but I think the less than three hour battery life makes it totally useless to most users.

It couldn't be used by industry without staff having to exchange it for a charged one or plugging it in for an hour before trying to use it again.

I wouldn't get it if I were you. Like I said, if the design decision was to add those ports because of overheating it isn't a well built machine.

I still haven't really convinced myself that I even need a tablet, so the Asus one is just something to talk about for me. If I were in the market, though, it would be the only one I've seen that I would actually consider buying. When I say "seen," I actually mean on a shelf in a store, not in the vaporsphere where most other tablets are right now.

The low battery life is a good point, but almost every Windows device on the planet has a lousy battery life. One of the reasons for putting Linux on it (in addition to all the other benefits of a *nix OS), is for better battery life.

I'd love to put Mac OS on it, but that invariably leads to micromanaging hacked system files - which defeats the point of using OS X in the first place.

[Igottago]

I'll be picking up an Ipad 2 without hesitation. In my mind apple just has it down when it comes to making simple, practical, functional device that does what it needs to do, and does it well. And they also have the operating system, integration with their other devices, and access to content.

Its funny that the initial reaction to the Ipad was very mixed;
But now you see every other company trying to replicate a similar product, and not necessarily having the best results.

[QuadCityImages]

I've been thinking about where the whole smartphone/tablet mobile internet thing is going for me personally a lot lately, and could probably write a small book about it, but I'm just going to address the whole "Android virus" thing.

Its BS. It makes the way the press overhyped the iPhone 4 deathgrip look like factual reporting. The recent news of the 50 apps pulled out of the Android Market was all over the internet, despite the fact that only a few thousand people downloaded each of the apps, out of many millions of Android users. Heck, the developers of the malware may have increased those numbers through trickery to make them look more legit anyway. I know a LOT of people with Android phones, and I've never heard of anyone getting any kind of malware on the phones. I'm guessing none of you know anyone that its happened to either.

Most of the malware isn't found in the Market, but on the web. For most phones, installing apps from outside the Market involves going into the phone's settings and enabling the ability to do that, which most average users aren't going to do. At the end of the day, all of these viruses were installed by the user, not spread on their own over networks like a true worm.

So yeah, Android viruses are not (yet, at least) a real issue.

[KTrain]

The Playbook is getting Android apps. Probably the smartest thing RIM has done recently.

http://www.androidcentral.com/blackb...-press-release

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by KTrain

The Playbook is getting Android apps. Probably the smartest thing RIM has done recently.

http://www.androidcentral.com/blackb...-press-release

It's a gamble, to be sure. If it does a decent job of running Android apps, nobody will develop Playbook apps, and then it's essentially another Android tablet. If it does a crummy job of running Android apps, the competition running native Android looks more appealing.

They also talk about a high degree of "API compatibility"...that's worrisome - you really, really don't want developers having to deal with subtle differences and bugs at the API level - just look at the mixed results you get using WINE to emulate the Windows API on Linux. Granted, I assume the Android API is far more open, but it still seems like a big task.

[OilKiller]

Originally Posted by KTrain

The Playbook is getting Android apps. Probably the smartest thing RIM has done recently.

http://www.androidcentral.com/blackb...-press-release

Yup, just read that. I was thinking about getting an Android based tablet in the near future, but may look at the Playbook now because of this. Opens up a HUGE amount of apps available for it.

[Hack&Lube]

I'm liking the look of Asus's new EEE Transformer.



Now if only we can get confirmation that we can install other OS's onto it, it would be perfect. Dettach the display and close it up and it's an easy to use Android tablet. Transform it into a laptop and it's a proper Windows/Linux system. That would be perfect.

[Russic]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Do you have a headrest holder for your iPad or do you just MacGyver something?

My kid isn't able to focus on kids shows just yet, but we might try it this summer. Griffin has a headrest holder that I might pick up. I think it's around $40.

[MickMcGeough]

I think the new Galaxy Tab's are looking very promising too:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/22/s...nner-than-the/

[SoulOfTheFlame]

I want a tab primary just for occasionally watching movies on and mainly for reading pdf ebooks.

Is it worth getting an ipad 2 for that?

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by SoulOfTheFlame

I want a tab primary just for occasionally watching movies on and mainly for reading pdf ebooks.

Is it worth getting an ipad 2 for that?

If that's all you're using it for I'd save a few bills and get a first-gen iPad, but that's just me. The iPad 2 basically just gets you more horsepower, which you don't need for movies/ebooks.