Do you have a tablet? Would I like it? Should I wait to buy one? Please Post.

[Gadget_girl]

I thought choosing an e-reader was tough. Getting a tablet looks like its going to be more difficult. I'd prefer to wait a while for the tablet market to settle a bit, just to see what rises to the top, Perhaps until this Christmas or even January. I prefer second or third generation devices, but the tablet market is very young & I don't see this happening soon. So, on the off chance that I need to purchase one this summer, I'd like to see what the prevailing preferences are for the following criteria.

Availability: Available at The Source in Canada. (because I'm in a small town in Canada) We have a gift card from there, and I would ideally like to purchase this there.

Comics: cbz/cbr, ease of page turning, pinch to zoom, These will be sideloaded, like most other files. Loves my comics, would love to be able to read them without taking up extra room in the car.

Battery life: The more the better.

USB Port: Handy, as I carry multiple jump drives in my pocket with occasionally used files.

SD Card reader: So I can show my mother-in-law the photos I took without having to find things like camera cords, or outputs. Or batteries.

e-reading: Useability of the app and ease of turning pages. With my Sony reader, I simply gesture with the edge of my thumb, about 1/2" or so, and the page turns. Something where I don't have to drag all the way across the screen. I have my Sony reader though, so this isn't much of an issue.

Free lo-cost apps & games: So my son can play with it. I don't really want him buying a bunch of $30 games on it, but I'd like him to be able to kill a few hours.

Movies / TV shows: as with apps and games, a 7" - 10" screen isn't the best for watching things on, but better than my mp3 player.

Music: What are the quality of speakers on these things? Could I use it for background music in my office?

Wireless range & signal strength. I have an aspire one up at my Cabin. My neighbor has wireless internet that she has said we can use when we are there. But the Aspire One 150, while seeing the connection, at 1 bar of signal strength, does not connect to the network (or connection has limited or no connectivity) Would the wireless signal be more or less sensitive using this as a baseline? NOTE: No 3G network exists in that area, this is not an option.

I'm having trouble sorting through all the forum posts and all the reviews online. So I'm asking for info from people who have one, would it work for me? Tell me what tablet you use, and what your experience is with it. Would it be better to wait until the Christmas season?

[Adoby]

I have a Motorola wifi Xoom. I bought it early and am very pleased with it. Now there are other models that are cheaper, but have similar specs. So most of what I say below applies to the newer models as well.

I charge at most once a day. Depends on how much I use it. Watching movies seems to take a lot of juice.

It is great with comics. I use the app PV (Perfect Viewer) for that.Cbr/cbz is fine.

No possibility to use USB or SD-card. Not at the moment at least. In a few months I expect that to change. The Android OS Honeycomb doesn't currently support it, but some makers have their own fixes for that. Not my Motorola. It has the standard Honeycomb, without any "frills".

Instead I have a wifi network at home, with a Synology NAS. It has a media-station app that means that I can look at videos, photoalbums and listen to music, stored on the NAS, by streaming over the wifi. Since I almost only use it at home, I really don't need more storage options than that. I had to recode some of my videos, too high resolution/bitrate and it starts skipping frames. But mostly it works fine, as long as I keep to movies below 2GB in size. I suspect it is a limitation both regarding my wifi network and what the Xoom manages to play.

But it is still great to use to watch movies/tv-shows. Very nice picture. Headphones are a must. The speakers are far too small to be able to enjoy music or a movie.

In order to extend a wifi network you can get at wifi repeater. It recieves on one channel and retransmits on another. Works great. You just have to position the repeater so it is close enough to the neighbours network and your tablet. But since you free to position it at the best position, it should work fine. I use this to extend my network without having to draw cables. I can now use my wifi network in my garden as well as in a nearby building I am renovating to use as a mini-spa. Or plan to have a bathtub in, at least ...

The repeater I use is a Zylex WAP3205. It was a bit tricky to configure, but it works fine. Not cheap, but it is also possible to configure for other uses in a wifi network.

I don't play many games, but there seem to be a lot available. Not sure about free games.

The reviews for the Toshiba Thrive seems nice. It has working USB. I suspect you could also attach full USB-drives for a lot more storage. Perhaps via a powered USB-hub? I believe that would suit you fine. Not as "slim" as the Xoom, but perhaps better in other ways.

Oh, and it is very good as a ebook reader. You can use a lot of different reader apps. I use Manato. Daytime outdoors it is unusable. But then I use my Opus instead. At night the Xoom is great with the night theme with white letters on black.

[jgray]

My only experience with the current batch of Android tablets has been hands on at the local Best Buy and reading reviews. I bought the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

The current Android tablets running Honeycomb (v3.0, v3.1) have very much the same internal hardware. The differences are the LCD screen, how the guts are packaged (the shell) and peripheral slots. Each manufacturer also adds some additional apps that may be different from the other guys.

Be aware that the HP and Blackberry tablets do not run Android, but their own OS. Of course, if you want an iPad, this is also true.

The primary reasons I chose the Galaxy Tab over the other tablets were: thin; light; excellent display that is viewable over a wide angle. Reviews that I have seen confirm that the GT has a better screen than the other 10 inch Android tablets. Some have said that it is even better than the iPad screen. Not having used an iPad, I can't say myself.

Now for the drawbacks. Because the GT is so thin, there is no USB, HDMI or SD slot built in. You have to buy an adapter that plugs into the 30-pin connector on the bottom for each of these functions. The tablets that have these ports built in are substantially thicker and heavier. Because of the lack of an SD card slot, I bought the 32 GB GT.

The USB and SD adapters are $20 each. I plan on buying just the USB adapter and using an SD-to-USB adapter for reading SD cards. Still two things to carry if you need them in the field.

The lack of ports is somewhat of a nuisance, but I guess it depends on how often you need those ports. For me, I would rather have the light weight and thinness, which makes it much more pleasant to carry and hold the GT vs other tablets.

For comparison, I had a Nook Color (7 inch) for a while. Although the GT is larger (10 inch), it is thinner than the Nook and only weighs 4 oz more than the Nook. I especially like the larger screen for reading PDF files. With margin cropping, I can comfortably read a full page PDF. And if I squint, I can read it without margin cropping.

For reading, I currently use Aldiko Premium and ezPDF. I may buy Mantano if it keeps improving. BTW, ezPDF has recently added some very nice annotation features.

For getting files onto my GT, I use Dropbox. I have only plugged the GT into my PC via sync cable once. Using Dropbox is much easier. In fact, Dropbox minimizes my need for a USB or SD port. You get 2 GB with a free Dropbox account and more with refferals. I'm up to 3.75 GB of free storage so far. BTW, you can stream music and video directly from Dropbox. You don't have to download the files to your tablet.

Oh, the quoted 9.5 hours of use in the specs is accurate, according to my experience. I generally charge every other day.

Joe

[jgray]

Adoby's reply reminded me of a few more reasons I like my GT

The GT 10.1 will play 1080p video (it downscales it of course). If you want to play videos on any Honeycomb tablet, your best bet is MP4 with Baseline Profile. Other formats are supported, but some (like AVI) are not. This is because Honeycomb doesn't support all formats. Some third-party video players may have additional codecs that will play more formats. I haven't looked yet.

As for sound, the GT has surprisingly good sound. The speakers are on each side, near the top edge. They tend to shoot the sound sideways a bit, but if the tablet is positioned in front of a hard surface, more sound bounces forward. As a test, I stuck a PostIt note to the back of my GT, behind each speaker (think big ears). This directed much more sound forward. Even without this, the sound is very good. The reason they didn't aim the speakers forward is because this would have required holes in the glass front. Not a good idea.

The GT does stereo, but also has SRS, which is a simulated surround sound. With 5.1 surround movies, it makes a difference.

Joe

[Ken Maltby]

The OP makes me think of the Toshiba Thrive, it is a Honeycomb 3.1 device with USB and SD as well as a user replaceable battery. I have an ASUS Eee Pad Transformer
that I like very much so far, but the Toshiba's new offering has those features, (which
I would also prefer) so If I were getting one now I would have to consider it a better match to my preferences.

That is if you are sure you want to go this route, I am not so sure that a "mobile OS"
tablet is for everyone. I wanted to give it a try, but I am wondering if a more traditional OS would not offer a wider range of options, as it would run traditional programs, not
just especially tailored "apps". Only time will tell.

Luck;
Ken

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

The OP makes me think of the Toshiba Thrive, ....



Ken

Thread here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=141807
Great review at the first link by Lisa at Mobiltech.

[ddavtian]

Originally Posted by Gadget_girl

Availability: Available at The Source in Canada. (because I'm in a small town in Canada) We have a gift card from there, and I would ideally like to purchase this there.

It will be easier to answer if you mention what's available in this store.

I have Xoom and Galaxy Tab, few eink devices, plus 1st gen iPad (for my son, not for me), can compare the ones you're interested.

No possibility to use USB or SD-card

3.1 update in US allows to use USB on Xoom, I have not used it. Instead, I use dropbox, even when next to my computer. It's just easier to drop a file to dropbox and share between tablets, computers and phones.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by ddavtian

...

3.1 update in US allows to use USB on Xoom,...

Not that I know of.

http://www.androidguys.com/2011/06/2...om-sd-support/

[Gadget_girl]

Thanks I look forward to reading additional replies.

Adoby: Thanks for the terrific post, I will definitely look into a Wifi repeater.

Ken & Kenny C: I will check out that review, thanks for the info

jgray: You've given lots of good information. I haven't seen the 10.1" Galaxy Tab yet, but it's high on my list of contenders.

ddtavian: I'd appreciate any comparisons you can give. I've had about 5 minutes with a blackberry playbook. The Source here tells me they will be getting a bunch of tablets for fall, & setting up a dedicated display for them, but they couldn't say just yet which models they will have. Based on past history, I would assume that they will have the Galaxy Tab (they already have the 7" model) the Playbook, possibly the Asus model, & the Acer model (as they sell other acer netbooks & laptops). All they've said is that they'll have a bunch in.

Thanks to everybody who has posted so far. It's been very helpful in being able to set my expectations for the performance of a device. As USB & SD capability appear to be scarce in the tablet world, and unless this changes, I'll have to change my expectations and look into work around offerings. I've heard of dropbox, but I have no idea at all what it is or how it works, so that will be one of the things I look into.

[ddavtian]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Not that I know of.

http://www.androidguys.com/2011/06/2...om-sd-support/

That article talks about no SD support. My reply was regarding USB support. USB host functionality was added in 3.1. New update, 3.2 is being pushed out to wifi only xooms in US since yesterday (I have the 3G version), it now supports SD.

[ddavtian]

I read previous comments, good coverage of Android tablets )
I may not be able to add more, I'm biased, Android user for almost 2 years, no single Apple product for me. I did buy iPad for my son, have used it occasionally.

I got the xoom on launch day, no regrets. It does have few bugs, it's heavier than iPad 2 or Samsung 10.1 but it doesn't bother me. I often read books/documents in pdf format, xoom size and aspect ratio work well in portrait mode. It's also good device to watch movies on the go. I use annotations, write directly on the book (with a finger or a stylus).
For non-technical books I usually use older Samsung Tab, 7". It just got gingerbread, now rooted. Smaller size, fits into pocket, easier to carry. I have Nook reader on both for magazine subscriptions, prefer that to Zinio (which is available for honeycomb only).

I'm not a gamer, have very few games on android, plus few more on iPad. None of them were more than $5. Most expensive app was LogMeIn, $30, and then MLB atBat, $15 for each OS. I have to say, baseball app is amazing on iPad, very jealous of that. It looks horrible on android tablets, doesn't support live video. Of course, more apps for iPad, but I don't care for that. All I need is available for android.

I did play with Playbook for 10 minutes, nice hardware, nice software. But not for me, not looking forward buying the same apps for a new OS.

[chokra]

I have a pocket edge i want to sell, i am sure you will love it, let me know.

[Gadget_girl]

Thanks for the offer chokra, but I'll pass. I don't think it will work as well for my intended uses.

ddtavian, I noticed you bought and iPad for your son. That's also what my son wants. Based on the useability, which would you consider to be more intuitive / easy to use for young teens? It's nice to see that most of the apps aren't very expensive. I've gotten tired over the years of $10 - $20+ computer games for my son, and his latest unfulfilled wishlist included several subscription games at more than $6 / month. So chances are pretty good that he'd be able to talk me into a game with a one time fee of under $5.

I'm keeping my eyes open and reading as much as I can about the new contenders to the market.

[MetaMs]

I've had my Acer Iconia A500 for two months now. I love it. There was a minor glitch with the update from 3.0 to 3.1, but all was resolved with a call to Acer support. The A500 has a micro SD card, full USB port, mini USB, and hdmi output. I have tried all of them except the mini USB and all work perfectly.

I read on the Kindle app (had a Kindle which I sold when I got the A500), and also on the app supplied by Acer, Lumiread. Lumi is pretty darn good. I can even specify Dropbox as one of my library folders so my epub books are available on any device and adding a new one is as easy as dropping it into my Dropbox folder. I have OCR scanned several of my old books, so this feature is very handy.

I do just about everything on my tablet that I did on my netbook. Can't think of anything missing. I've recently installed the Swype keyboard and that makes this tablet ROCK.

Can't think of anything else...but just ask if you have a question.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by Gadget_girl

As USB & SD capability appear to be scarce in the tablet world, and unless this changes, I'll have to change my expectations and look into work around offerings. I've heard of dropbox, but I have no idea at all what it is or how it works, so that will be one of the things I look into.

Dropbox like syncing is how we'll access most of our data in the future -- no USB or SD cards needed.