Apple ipads (again)

[Man at B&Q]

That's a clear benefit, not a problem.

MBQ

[charles]

I haven't tried it since I don't have an iPad, but what about a wireless (WiFi) printer?

[Steve Firth]

No that's bollocks Dave. Printing is supported in all iOS devices. Even my phone does it.

[Lee]

And does it have a resolution of 2048x1536? Ppi is only one factor, the more important factor to me is the actual resolution which in the case of the iPad allows for better font smoothing and a better web experience with a bit less scrolling. A big part of my usage of the iPad is web browsing and the display of web pages is just so much better that any of the Android tablets I've tried. I'm not even going to get into the debate about how poor the Android browser is (though Chrome is a little better) or even worse Firefox mobile - even on my quad-core Galaxy S3 the browser is so slow it's painful compared to Safari on the iPad on the same wifi connection.

On paper most of the specs of my Android pad are better than the ipad, faster CPU, faster GPU and more memory, it's the OS that's letting it down and that doesn't look to be improving that much either - I have "Jelly Bean" on my pad and it doesn't improve the things I want it to improve. Yes there are major advantages in Android over Ios/Apple, but it depends what you want to do with your device and and the moment the those advantages are being outweighed by the Apple device simply doing what I need it to do, better.

Lee

[Lee]

Again, depends what you want it for, it's a nice and perfectly serviceable device. On paper the specs are exactly the same as my slightly larger screened Asus pad, but to me neither of them feel quite as smooth or refined as The Competition for the tasks I want them to do.

[MarkG]

It's a benefit to those smart enough to understand it, but a problem for= =

the idiots that don't. Androids are not created equal, and you pays yo= ur =

money and takes your choice. You want a keyboard, there is an Android g= ot =

you, you want one that's waterproof and drop-proof, there's one for you,= =

you want to pay =A370, there's one for you. You want to pay =A3450, ther= e's =

one for you too..

The great thing in, the CHOICE (something Apple owners don't have), and = =

even better, is that your =A370 purchase of a ZTE BLade (or whatever), m= eans =

when when your requirements change, your next phone just works, sign in,= =

all your contacts, calendar and apps come with you.

It's laughable how misguided Apple fanboys are, the only things they kno= w =

about Android are what Steve Jobs told them.

[Lee]

Better qualify that before someone jumps on it, iPad reports browsing resolution at 768*1024 which is scaled up to fit the display allowing for various trickery to make the image look smooth. I find I almost never have to zoom the display to read anything. Unless it's stupidly tiny text. My Phone reports 720*1280 when browsing, but at that resolution you can't clearly see small text on the screen without zooming, unless your eyes are much better than mine ;) which results in more scrolling. Similar on the Android pad, although it's a bigger screen the text isn't as clear as the iPad and I find I need to zoom some pages, though obviously not as much as the phone.

Again this is about me, although I don't need reading glasses others may have better vision and may find the other devices more readable than me without needing to zoom as much.

[Lee]

Fragmentation is a problem for mobile gaming though, if you want something better than Angry Birds or Cut the rope ;) Apps are frequently written to the lowest common denominator - and why wouldn't you - to maximise appeal/sales.

What about us that own both ios and Android devices and can think for ourselves, are we still fanbois for preferring a device that can do

*some* things better?

Lee

[John Williamson]

I have what is described by the makers as an Android Home Tablet. It's made by Archos, and I can't buy or download apps from the normal Android app store, I'm locked in to Archos's own store. About all it's useful for is a spot of surfing, but it won't play Flash (Not supported, even via a couple of transcoding sites I've found), so any BBC programmes and a ot of newspaper websites are out of bounds...

It won't play .mpeg or .vob movie files, only XVid and DVix. It can be used to play Angry Bids (just about), but the screen display is the wrong size. Too big for the phone version, too small for the tablet version, so you're shooting blind. All the music players available for it (Even Winamp) refuse to sort mp3 tracks by filename, but insist on sorting by the Metadata tags, which is a real PITA when all the other music players I use sort by filename. And so on.

I mention this so that people are aware that not all Android devices "Just work" and may not be compatible with other Android devices or common standards.

The iPad Retina display is the 2048 x 1536 definition quoted by Apple, but downscaled in the OS by quite a large factor, using smoothing to make it look better while retaining the invisibility of the individual pixels. For some reason, they don't make a fuss about this.

[Jules Richardson]

No, it's about getting a job done according to various metrics such as cost, performance, longevity etc. and if it doesn't do what you need or something else does it better then don't buy it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Could you give details? As I said it wasn't mine - but my pal was fairly certain.

[Dave Liquorice]

FSVO "printing", from what I have heard you are restricted to a small range of printers that Apple deem acceptable.

Also iPads are 10" devices, which is quite big to comfortably hold in one hand. I've a Samsung Tab II 7.0, just the right size for the hand, will fit into a large pocket. Only 4G of available storeage but that is more than ample for my needs of email/web browsing and equipment manuals.

3G or not 3G? That is a question. But as some one else said that is why you have mobile tethering and WiFi hotspots. If you have a 3G tablet and 3G phone that's two lots of dosh to the mobile operators. GPRS is slow but OK for email (with a proper client, not web mail...).

[polygonum]

But the issue is often that contracts (or PAYG) do not allow tethering. Those that do tend to be the expensive packages - O2 allow but their cost per MB is high.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Everyone says lowest common denominator when they actually mean highest common factor,.

Which if you take all the ranges of taste and intelligence and express them as a range from 0 to 100, will get no higher than one, ever.

[Lee]

ISWYM. Though in the case of certain mobile games I think I'll stick with "lcd" as it's quite apt ;)

Lee

[Man at B&Q]

surf' on an Itouch.

arry Perfectly suited to email and web browsing. I can link it via bluetoot= h to my phone if I need to go on line whilst out and about. Response to tou= ch screen inputs is equal to the Ipad. It shares a usb type charger lead wi= th one of my phones, with the Kindle, and many other items. Nothing proprie= tory here. Bloody Ipad wont charge with an Iphone charger I have. I can con= nect a card reader to it if I need it.

And it's all changing again on the next generation. Replace all your docks/cables. But you bought Apple, you can afford it.

MBQ

[Nige Danton]

deliberate obsolescence which annoys me most - perfectly good hardware unable to do anything because Apple don't support older hardware for very long.

That's a wild exaggeration. I've had the original iPad since it was first launched and it does everything I want of it.

[Bill Taylor]

You were right. There is no easy way to print from an ipad. You either need one of a very small number of airprint (TM) enabled printers or a computer of some sort with an interface programme to print to the PCs printer. Even then it seems that the control over printer output is very limited. Neither of which fit my definition of easy.

[Nige Danton]

and under one.

Agreed. There have been only 2 or 3 Apps that I have needed and required payment and those that did were trivial cost. I read usenet on my iPad with NewsTap, and it's free.

[Steve Firth]

So "print" "OK" is not easy in your book? How do you cope with zips and buttons?