Need Help Finding An Android Tablet for my Needs

[EricArcadia]

Need some help trying to find an android tablet that's around 7 to 8 inches for screen size, while being made with very well with good specs, and a SD card slot, which I would be using mostly for reading books and mangas. Besides occasionally viewing some videos and web browsing, while not being too expensive, more so around a budget level entry to a little bit over is the price range I'm looking for. Any suggestions for an android e-reader that would be recommended?

[sausagesandwich]

I bought an Asus memopad (ME176) a few days ago, mainly for ereading. Very pleased so far - about 8 - 10 hours battery life, very fast response, bright screen. UK price is around £100.

[EricArcadia]

Originally Posted by sausagesandwich

I bought an Asus memopad (ME176) a few days ago, mainly for ereading. Very pleased so far - about 8 - 10 hours battery life, very fast response, bright screen. UK price is around £100.

Thank you, it looks like I'll settle with buying the Asus MeMo Pad 8, it's not expensive over here, it's 169.99, so I'll buy that. Thanks for your helpful suggestion very much!

[Ripplinger]

I just bought an Asus MeMO Pad 173X last week since I needed something to read PDFs on. It's well built, has an expansion slot, very responsive, no lag at all so far, great screen (7"), and $99 US. Since it'll only be used for PDFs, I didn't want to spend any more than that on one, and I'm very pleased with it so far.

[thechach]

A gently refurbed Nook HD+ 32gb model has served me well, reflashed to CM11 of course

[Anthem]

Glad you found something.

I was worried about answering this question because the terms laid out are hopelessly contradictory: Budget level pricing but Made Well with Good Specs. The three don't really go together very well most of the time.

[EricArcadia]

Originally Posted by Anthem

Glad you found something.

I was worried about answering this question because the terms laid out are hopelessly contradictory: Budget level pricing but Made Well with Good Specs. The three don't really go together very well most of the time.

Yeah, it seems after looking through there doesn't seem like one can get all those things at that price point, well I'm reconsidering getting the Asus MeMO Pad 8. As I'm a bit stuck between the Asus MeMO Pad 8, or 7 or the LG G Pad 7. Which one is the better deal?

[adarnold]

Hi,
I will assume that you have made up your mind, however, we (wife and I) purchased 2 Kindle Fire HDX 10.9 (Amazon Kindle OS) and could not be happier. However, there are some oddities. Amazon makes their own changes to the Android latest OS, but nothing making it incompatible. No SD card, however it is pretty easy to upload books through email (name@ Kindle.com) or android wireless transfer apps. Good luck in whichever you get.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by EricArcadia

As I'm a bit stuck between the Asus MeMO Pad 8, or 7 or the LG G Pad 7. Which one is the better deal?

Well, there are different models of all of those devices.

Assuming you mean current models there are two MeMO Pad 7's the ME176C and the ME572C. There are two LG G Pad 7, the V400 and the V410, but I think at a quick glance the difference there is that one's got LTE (the v410) & the other doesn't.

Of the two MeMO 7's I'm guessing you're looking at the ME176C since it's going to be the cheaper option (lower rez screen, etc.)?

Both the Asus & LG 7 inchers have a 216 ppi IPS display (the ME572C's is 323 ppi) and since the 8" Asus uses the same rez screen as the 7's it'll have a lower pixel density at 189 ppi. The processors on the Asus might perform slightly better depending on task, but it's probably not much difference (of course someone who follows mobile processors might have more insight).


Normally I personally would go for the best ppi screen I could afford since it's for reading and I've found that for me, not of course for everyone, it really makes a difference especially during longer reading sessions. But both 7 inchers in this case have the same resolution so unless something sticks out in reviews about one display over the other I'd look through the rest of the specs and read a few reviews to see if something jumps out at you as desirable that one has & the other doesn't (or to note any problems reviewers have run across).

Originally Posted by adarnold

Hi,
I will assume that you have made up your mind, however, we (wife and I) purchased 2 Kindle Fire HDX 10.9 (Amazon Kindle OS) and could not be happier. However, there are some oddities. Amazon makes their own changes to the Android latest OS, but nothing making it incompatible. No SD card, however it is pretty easy to upload books through email (name@ Kindle.com) or android wireless transfer apps. Good luck in whichever you get.

I agree the larger HDX is nice (I assume you meant 8.9), I like mine, but I'd hardly put it in the same class price wise as what the OP's looking at. It's higher specs put it at quite a bit more expensive than the others. Also Amazon's tablets are great if you a) can find what you want in their tiny appstore or b) don't mind jumping through hoops (pretty small hoops but it can become annoying) to sideload apps (which doesn't work for everything).

[EricArcadia]

I wouldn't mind getting the Kindle Fire HDX 7, but I don't like how I'll have to root it, which I could fail at, just so I can have a launcher I want and different apps from the playstore.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by EricArcadia

I wouldn't mind getting the Kindle Fire HDX 7, but I don't like how I'll have to root it, which I could fail at, just so I can have a launcher I want and different apps from the playstore.

If you don't like the experience that Amazon provides with their version of Android than you are better off getting a device that does give you what you want.

A good replacement for the Fire HDX would be the current Nexus 7. That way you get vanilla Android (to which you can apply new launchers with reckless abandon) and decent hardware for around the same price but you won't be stuck with a fork of Android that you don't want.

[jersysman]

But, both the Fire and the Nexus the user will be giving up the SD Card. I don't know how important that is.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by jersysman

But, both the Fire and the Nexus the user will be giving up the SD Card. I don't know how important that is.

An SD card is a mixed blessing when working with Android. But that aside, the Fire HDX goes up to 64GB of storage and the Nexus 7 will do 32GB. I'm not saying that these amounts are perfect for everyone, but I'll bet they work for most people.

Also, I make ample use of Cloud features. I don't store ALL of my music on my Fire HDX, most of it is on the cloud or streaming from a service. I only keep the books that I am reading or will be reading shortly on the device itself. All the other books are in the cloud. Same with apps and games. I only keep what I want on the tablet, and everything else can live on whoevers servers. So I tend to have ample space on my tablet because I don't treat it like a desktop computer from 2003 where EVERYTHING must be stored locally.

But that is just me. Everyone has their own method, so you should purchase what will work for you, not what works for me or someone else.

[HarryT]

You should be aware that the latest version of Android (KitKat) has made working with SD cards rather problematic. Security has been beefed-up (which is good) at the cost of imposing quite severe restrictions on how apps can use an SD card (which is not so good). Basically, an app is now only allowed to write to a folder on an SD card that it "owns", which means that using apps like Calibre Companion to manage books on an SD card is rather more difficult than it was with earlier Android releases.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by jersysman

But, both the Fire and the Nexus the user will be giving up the SD Card. I don't know how important that is.

I used to think that an SD card was essential; but now I've come to realize that 32GB is all I need to keep me happy. Both my FHDX 8.9 and Nex 7.2 have 32GB and I don't miss the card one bit.