MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Looking for a CHEAP tablet and could use some advice. . .

GlenBarrington · 03-20-2013, 09:44 AM

I live in the USA if that matters, and use a Motorola Droid Bionic smart phone.

My son-in-law is an Apple guy and swears by his iPad. I'd like to explore an Android tablet as an eReader and general media consumption device. (netflix, Pandora, news videos, etc.)

Possibly, I might do some writing on it if the hardware and software seems reasonably competent and a real keyboard as an accessory is available, but that isn't a deal breaker on something like this.

Portability is important to me but as I age, so is legibility. I'm not currently having any trouble reading on my Bionic, but diagrams and maps are pretty useless on it. Will a 10 inch screen be significantly better than a 7 inch screen? Are 7" screens truely more portable than a 10" screen?

I might store around 100 or so books and maybe a few hundred songs on a device. I don't mind 'managing' my media to fit my short term future moods. For video, I am far more likely to stream via wifi than to download and store, it seems to me, I could probably get by with 8 - 16 gig of RAM. Can anyone see any faults in my logic on this? I don't see me adding such a device to my Verizon account until I feel that I have experienced a strong need to do so more than once!

I'm mostly a photographer. Is there much difference image display quality between most devices? I don't care about on board cameras, those "camera on a chip with plastic lens" devices all sort of stink for serious photography anyway. I am OK with a non color calibrated device since as near as I can tell from preliminary research, none exist!

Since the photo utilities that are currently available aren't much more than toys (even from the main photo software publishers), I doubt it will function photographically for me as anything much more than a viewer, but I want as good a photo viewing experience as possible.

Are there any CHEAP devices that I might find suitable? I'm willing to let you define the term cheap, but I am thinking more of a cost between $60 - 150 US. Anything I should avoid at any cost? Any features that might tempt me to extend my budget?

How important is the absolute newest version of the Andoid OS for general media consumption if I'm connecting only with wi-fi?

Any advice you can offer would be appreciated.

03-20-2013, 09:44 AM	#1
GlenBarrington Cheese Whiz Posts: 1,986 Karma: 11677147 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Springfield, Illinois Device: Kindle PW, Samsung Tab A 10.1(2019), Pixel 6a.	Looking for a CHEAP tablet and could use some advice. . . I live in the USA if that matters, and use a Motorola Droid Bionic smart phone. My son-in-law is an Apple guy and swears by his iPad. I'd like to explore an Android tablet as an eReader and general media consumption device. (netflix, Pandora, news videos, etc.) Possibly, I might do some writing on it if the hardware and software seems reasonably competent and a real keyboard as an accessory is available, but that isn't a deal breaker on something like this. Portability is important to me but as I age, so is legibility. I'm not currently having any trouble reading on my Bionic, but diagrams and maps are pretty useless on it. Will a 10 inch screen be significantly better than a 7 inch screen? Are 7" screens truely more portable than a 10" screen? I might store around 100 or so books and maybe a few hundred songs on a device. I don't mind 'managing' my media to fit my short term future moods. For video, I am far more likely to stream via wifi than to download and store, it seems to me, I could probably get by with 8 - 16 gig of RAM. Can anyone see any faults in my logic on this? I don't see me adding such a device to my Verizon account until I feel that I have experienced a strong need to do so more than once! I'm mostly a photographer. Is there much difference image display quality between most devices? I don't care about on board cameras, those "camera on a chip with plastic lens" devices all sort of stink for serious photography anyway. I am OK with a non color calibrated device since as near as I can tell from preliminary research, none exist! Since the photo utilities that are currently available aren't much more than toys (even from the main photo software publishers), I doubt it will function photographically for me as anything much more than a viewer, but I want as good a photo viewing experience as possible. Are there any CHEAP devices that I might find suitable? I'm willing to let you define the term cheap, but I am thinking more of a cost between $60 - 150 US. Anything I should avoid at any cost? Any features that might tempt me to extend my budget? How important is the absolute newest version of the Andoid OS for general media consumption if I'm connecting only with wi-fi? Any advice you can offer would be appreciated. Last edited by GlenBarrington; 03-20-2013 at 09:58 AM.