OT - another tablet question

[David.WE.Roberts]

As usual, OT but a good place for advice.

We are considering buying a tablet some time this year. Cut off is end of November when we go on holiday.

Research into current tablets indicates that 10" is the right size; 7" is very definitely too small.

No 3G/4G required.

16GB with add on memory card slot preferred, as you can usually buy 16GB of micro SD card for less than the memory upgrade.

Given an aversion to Apple, the best bet to date seems to be the Sony Xperia Z 10" which most closely meets our needs.

However firstly this still seems to be available only at full price and in very few stores and secondly there may be something better just round the corner.

lists a load of tablets and release dates but apart from the Galaxy S12 (which going by previous Samsung products won't have the expandable memory and possibly not even the external connectivity of the Sony) I can't seem to pick any obvious contenders.

Anyone know of any good stuff coming along?

Cheers

Dave R

[GB]

I'd have a look here.

[Lee]

Understood but have you personally compared an iOS and Android device of similar hardware specs side-by-side? I have a relatively high end Android tablet running 4.2, with a quad core CPU and 32Gb plus an SD card slot but it annoys me because it just doesn't work as well as my iPad at what I use it for.

I guess my point is, just buy a cheap Android tablet because the expensive ones are not going to work all that much better. All very much IMO of course ;)

Lee

[David.WE.Roberts]

Didn't mention that we require a high screen resolution - this is to replace a netbook with a 1024 * 600 screen which is barely adequate so we would like Full HD but minimum around 1200 * 800.

This seems to rule out cheap android tablets.

Cheers

Dave R

[Lee]

Fairy snuff. Worth pointing out though, that more pixels require more processing grunt, so battery life can suffer. Unless the device has a large battery, which then makes it heavier/thicker of course...

Might be worth looking at the Nexus 10, simply becuase of the screen, but it doesn't meet your requirement of an SD card slot. One of the main reasons for me buying an ipad was the poor screens on offer from Android devices as the time.

Lee

[R.G. Bargy]

On 09/08/2013 10:42, David.WE.Roberts wrote: ...

Viagra? Dunno about the dosage to achieve any particular size tho'.

[Lee]

Forgot to add, very high resolutions don't neccessarily make it any easier to use the tablet for reading, surfing etc. So you don't quite end up with what you think you are going to, iyswim. My Android device is HD and consequently a lot of time is spent zooming pages to read tiny text. It would certainly be a good idea to try to borrow or at least try out the device first to see it it suits your style of use.

Unless it's using pixel doubling or similar tricks, like Apple do, but you still end up with less readable text than you first expect and end up scrolling/zooming...

Lee

[whisky-dave]

A friend has a similar experience and eneded up ditching his tablet. The scrolling didn;t always work, unlike his ipod which did. he just annoyed him so much that teh simple tqasks such as browsing kept crashing. The only think it did better was watching flash content which kept freezing anyway. He's saving up for an ipad saying something about crusifying his tablet.

Somteimes you get what you pay for.

[Dave Liquorice]

Depends how you are going to use it. If hand held 10" jobbies are heavy and in landscape don't balance well. I have a 7" Samsung Tab II, comfortably works for my use which is mostly hand held email and an web browsing. It's about a year old so I guess something better is now on the market but the screen is bright and sharp, provided you aren't in full sun but no screens can cope with that situation. I've not had any troubles with crashing, or getting annoyed by zooming/scrolling.

What does annoy me is the touch screen, it's very sensitive and when you have a tremor... Or with my fingers it detects a touch not where I think I'm going to touch and occasionally it'll acknowledge a touch (by highlighting or similar) but not actually do that action and occasionally ignore a touch/swipe completely. I don't think the touch problems are down to my particular machine, I find all touch screens suffer the same problems.

[polygonum]

I don't know if this is the case with non-Apple, but if you don't get

3G/4G then you don't get GPS.

I know you are averse to Apple, but this might be of some interest:

[Jim White]

Nook HD+

[David.WE.Roberts]

Supplementary on Android - I have been thinking that a tablet will do as a Windows (or Linux) laptop replacement.

I am now wondering if the OS and interface are more like a mobile phone on steroids aimed at doing one thing at a time instead of the usual WIMP style of multiple application windows sharing a desk top.

I will be going back to John Lewis for another session of poking at the tablets, but in the mean time, what does the team think about a tablet as a laptop replacement?

A quad processor with high resolution screen should be able to run stock Linux as long as there are drivers for a touch screen interface - so why are they still running Android?

Mainly to tap into the Android Marketplace?

Cheers

Dave R

[polygonum]

Sometimes that is exactly what Windows 8 feels like! A mobile phone interface on, say, a desktop or laptop, is often not a pleasant experience.

Few tablets realistically do multiple things. The Samsung Galaxy Note (at least the big one) does have a split screen mode - but AIUI that has severe limitations. Though you can probably play music and write an email.

Was interested to see an Android monitor the other day:

IMHO a tablet is not a laptop replacement until it has at least a keyboard added. However I can see a time when a mobile phone/small tablet will be able usefully to connect to a large monitor and a keyboard allowing the same processor, memory, software installation, etc. to work in pocket, briefcase, lap or desktop modes.

[David.WE.Roberts]

Adding a bluetooth or wifi keyboard should be fairly easy - IIRC you can connect a Samsung Galaxy phone to a TV or monitor screen, link in a bluetooth keyboard, then wonder why you did this :-)

At least with Windows 8 you can fettle it to look a bit like W7.

I seem to have multi-window capability on my Galaxy S3 phone - just no idea how to invoke or use it.

With regards to connecting to a monitor - the tablets I am looking at have comparable screen resolution to laptops, better than the now apparently obsolete netbooks, so I wasn't expecting to need a larger screen.

The killer for me would be the OS - at the moment I am doing 4 things; usenet using Pan, web browsing with multiple tabs in the browser, email, and Skype conversations.

I would expect any replacement for the netbook to be able to do this.

The attraction of a tablet is portability - no physical keyboard included so all screen.

I would like to combine the things I do on my phone, such as using Google Maps and MapMyRun whilst out walking, with normal Office Automation tasks such as word processing, spreadsheets, email, web browsing.

I don't need 3/4G as I can tether to my phone.

I do need GPS, though.

Cheers

Dave R

[Lee]

Long push on the "back" capacitive "button" and you get a margin on the left from which you can choose from a selection of apps. No split screen, just instant (at least on the phone I'm using to test it) switching between the selected apps. And imo, totally pointless. Another long push turns the "feature" back off.

On a related note, the abomination that is Surface RT has been reduced in price again...

Lee

[Lee]

Shouldn't reply to myself....but as I was being stupid! You need to drag the app from the bar onto the desktop then it does do split screen. For two selected apps.

[polygonum]

Which version of Android introduced this? Or has it always been there?

(My phone is at the repairers so cannot check.)

[Lee]

Introduced with 4.1.2, but afaik it's a TouchWiz (ie Samsung) specific feature.

Lee

[Roger Mills]

It doesn't seem to work on my Nexus 10 - which is made by Samsung - and now running 4.3

[Roger Mills]

I don't know the feasibility of putting a different OS on an Android tablet.

I'm planning to take my Nexus-10 on holiday, in the hope that it will do

*enough* of the things I usually do on a PC to make it unnecessary to take a laptop.

I very much doubt whether it could ever be a permanent replacement for a laptop. There are lots of things I do on my laptop for which I wouldn't know where to start on a tablet! But for holiday use, it's probably ok.

It's certainly ok for web browsing, and reasonable for emails and usenet. I haven't currently got a finance package which is compatible with the very old version of Quicken which I use on a PC.

If creating emails and other documents on it, you really need an external keyboard - and there lies the rub! I've just bought a bluetooth keyboard which won't work with the Nexus-10, even though it's ok with my wife's iPad Mini. Apparently there's something in the Android 4.3 update which is incompatible with bluetooth keyboards - so hopefully the next update will fix it, but it's likely to be too late for my holiday.

Incidentally, I've not found any way of displaying more than one Ap at a time. Anyone know how to create a split screen on a Nexus-10 running Android 4.3?