tablet time

[James]

AYO!

I'm going to buy a tablet. Just wanted to get peoples thoughts and see if anyone has one of the newer ones.

iPAD is not a consideration, I had an ipad1 and was fairly lukewarm to it.

The tab's im considering:

- motorola xoom (its got its issues, but honeycomb will be badass one day)
- acer iconia
- LG G-slate
- HTC flyer (not out quite yet, also its not dual core, and its 7inch, so its low on my list)
- RIM plabook (Ive heard lots of good things about QNX o/s but if my last 4 blackberries (9000/9700/9700/torch) are any indiciation of RIM quality, I question its durability. Also, its 7 inch)

thoughts?

At present, the xoom looks to be the front runner even with its lack of SD support (For now) and proprietary charger

[BaggedGLI]

Re: tablet time

Personally, tablets are in too early of their lifecycle to have anything really great to offer. Ipads are cool, lots of apps and stuff, 2 just came out, wont be long before the 3 is out as they were late in their release of the iPad2.

I would never own anything Acer after having an Acer laptop, just crap.

Past experience with Motorola phones, they are indestructible, hopefully thats been passed on, maybe wait for the 2nd gen?

As far as the whole RIM thing goes between them and Apple, its back and forth, but between the RIM-Jobs battle, I always am a little skewed towards Apple.

[James]

Re: tablet time

the iPAD is super underpowered (exception: processor) 256MB of ram is a joke these days. plus, no SD card slot makes it less affordable than other offerings (600 for a 32gb Xoom, but you can add in a 32gb SD card for cheap instead of hooking up a 64 gb ipad)

Ive always been an early adopter of technology, so if they make a notable difference between a 1st gen and a 2nd, ill buy a 2nd gen...so im not too worried about them coming out with new models 6 months after I bought it.

When push comes to shove, I really want a tablet to be able to replace pen and paper so I can just carry that device around for everything. Reality is they arent even close to there yet, but Ihave used a couple of cool mind-map apps that might work

[R_Ethug]

Re: tablet time

the playbook today i was reading more of it.. its kind of stupid.. well now.. no bes activation! wtf! it ties into your BBY handheld somehow..

xoom looks fancy and yea android 3 is going to be amazing

ipad 2 is good but still nothing great IMO

i'd almost wait 12 months for the refreshes to all hit :/

[James]

Re: tablet time

Im way to impatient to wait. Plus, you could say that every time they release something new haha.

yeah the playbook has BES support but no personal email support (or so Oscar told me and he went to the demo). Theyd be morons to realease it without BES support seeing as their target market is office ho's and CEOs


edit: From what Im hearing, honeycomb O/S only recognizes hardware wifi (ie: needs an SSID). Has anyone used the hotspot sh*t for their iPhone? is it hardware wifi?

[RONDAL]

Re: tablet time

of all the current offerings the ipad2 is still the best and has the most to offer. like it or hate it, apple is leading the charge on this one and everyone else is simply playing catch up

[darkmanCANADA]

Re: tablet time

Playbook should hit my desk sometime today. Whatever tablet you use download Evernote! It has a great OCR engine so if you take a picture of a whiteboard you can copy and paste the text into a document. I use the web client, desktop client and Blackberry client daily.

[aliencurv]

Re: tablet time

I would avoid a proprietary OS when you by a tablet. all of these OS's (ipad's and android blech) are not designed for tablet. tablet is semi laptop without a keyboard remember. so the OS you are most familiar with will be the best option.

the tablet i actually considered buying a few weeks ago is from ASUS. It is 12.1" and has an I5 (a REAL processor!). it runs windows 7. and i don't know if you've noticed, but windows 7 has tablet support built into the OS. that means you don't need some crappy driver or systray app running to "simulate" multi touch, etc.

Best buy carries the ASUS and you can demo one there. go check it out! It's very sleak! I may still buy one! Another benefit to the ASUS is the wireless keyboard. you can still use it as a full-on laptop. you can install games, excel, all your windows apps, vag-com, etc.... it doubles as a tablet AND a laptop.

best choice out there IMO

[stefan]

Re: tablet time

CBC had a review that touches on some Playbook goods and bads.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/st...w.html?ref=rss

[James]

Re: tablet time

I would avoid a proprietary OS when you by a tablet. all of these OS's (ipad's and android blech) are not designed for tablet

Honeycomb was designed with tablets in mind (thats why the new ones dont have any buttons except for on/off and volume rockers - all done on the multi touch)

I dont disagree with what you're saying, but if I wanted a portable that was running windows 7, id go with one of those samsung 9 series (its a laptop, yeah, but tis slimmer than a macbook air and weighs next to nothing)


Rondall, ipad is only the best because of iTunes. As soon as android devs start taking tabs into consideration, android will start to ruin the tablet market (imo). That will ,however, take some time. Its been a mega slow start

[bart]

Re: tablet time

i am not an apple person, i have a n1, but ipad2 is the best there is right now, twice as fast as the xoom and much much nicer hardware, so if you want a good tablet buy ipad2 if you want so-so but anything else

[aliencurv]

Re: tablet time

Honeycomb was designed with tablets in mind (thats why the new ones dont have any buttons except for on/off and volume rockers - all done on the multi touch)

I dont disagree with what you're saying, but if I wanted a portable that was running windows 7, id go with one of those samsung 9 series (its a laptop, yeah, but tis slimmer than a macbook air and weighs next to nothing)


Rondall, ipad is only the best because of iTunes. As soon as android devs start taking tabs into consideration, android will start to ruin the tablet market (imo). That will ,however, take some time. Its been a mega slow start

sorry, let me try again. i'll try to be a more specific. with a proprietary OS (any version of andriod included), has limited software selection. also, with android your market place contains many poor quality applications and knock-off's of office suite software. you will be limited in the selection of software, as well as video processing for movies. additionally, the familiar interface of windows will be replaced with a limitted OS made for a phone.

you can't disagree with what i'm saying because they are facts. if you accept those facts, then go with an limitting android tablet

i sure would prefer the ASUS tablet over anything else. give it a test, it's pretty wicked.

[Kor]

Re: tablet time

I would second the opinion of "wait".

For all the people saying iPad 2 has nice hardware - the screen resolution just sucks (for example). And the bezel around the outside edge is huge. Next generation of devices will have better resolution, edge-to-edge displays that you can also use in poor light or direct sunlight, with less eye strain. This will make them way more useful. I think that the video hardware in these tablets also has a ways to go, and the OS'es all feel bad to me, Honeycomb and iOS both feel like they are ported from the phones.

[RONDAL]

Re: tablet time

of course if you wait the NEXT thing will be better. i always find it funny when people say "wait" when it comes to technology (especially) because just given the nature of it its going to evolve quickly.

it all comes down to needs. not everyone NEEDS to be able to control every single aspect of a device. sometimes, for many users having options LIMITED and it just WORKS out of the box is what is needed.

For example;
I'm currently trying to figure out a way to rid my life of volumes of 3" binders for court hearings, and put together something so that executives who will take the stand can easily read case briefs. These documents are often 100's of pages, and while they dont need to read every single one of them, they need to be together as they often reference each other.
In the past, be it lawyers or my departments will put together binders for both ourselves and executives to review, and because these issues are usually over and above normal day to day work, this stuff doesnt get reviewed in the office, but at home, on planes, on vacation etc. No one wants to be hauling around a single 3" binder full of paper, let alone 3 or 4.

Cue a tablet.

Right now i'm working with our IT guys experimenting with an Ipad2. All of our documents we file are in digital pdf form with the gov't, so its already digital.
Using both the MS oneNOTE app (available from the US app store) which wirelessly syncs to your desktop/outlook onenote and PDF reader, we have developed a very easy way to consume information, mark it up with highlights and tabs, fully searchable via OCR, and all small enough that it fits in a portfolio with a legal pad and a pen.

I dont want or NEED these guys to be able to adjust every feature of the device. Many senior executives are exactly that...senior, and while they know their way around MS Office suite of tools thats about it.


Another great example of matching tablet to NEEDS is the Kindle.
People want a cheap device to read books digitally. PERIOD.
The kindle is great. Its small, light, battery lasts for years, and you can do one things and one thing only with it....read books. Its so easy my mom can use it, and she calls me once a week to figure out how to turn on her home theatre or add a song in itunes.

I completely agree with you DJ that some devices are "limiting". But its only a limit if you NEED to use it for a certain requirement. Otherwise its simply a fancy bell/whistle that adds complexity, eats battery, and escalates price.

[bart]

Re: tablet time

i keep waiting for the holodeck...