Quote:
Originally Posted by emai7s2
Hi mgmueller,
I love reading your comments but feel a bit guilty that I am benefiting from all the money you have put into your gizmo collection over the past few years.
I take another approach - I try to limit myself to about 1 new gizmo per year. Rather than buying the latest and greatest, I try to get what I consider the best of last generation technology. These gizmos generally have all the bugs worked out, are reliable, and are available at a fraction of the price of the newest generation.
Towards the end of the year, I expect there to be a veritable flood of updated and new machines - Nokia WP7 smartphones, iPad 3, iOS5, Android 4.0, new TouchPad hardware, Android compatibility for the Playbook, and so on. That will make all the current 'must have' products relatively obsolete.
Assuming it's now December 2011 and all the updates I just mentioned have actually occurred, what do you think will be the 'Best of last generation technology ...' in 2011? In other words, something that will continue to work well and doesn't really need to be updated.
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Lots of my friends still have their iPad1s. And actually I've re-discovered mine as well. With the Incipio NGP cover, iPad1 is extremely convenient to hold and kind of my "don't really care, handle it as I please" unit.
So, from this experience, I'd clearly say, lifetime of your average tablet easily is about 18 months. Meaning: Would you buy, let's say, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1(v) or iPad2 now, you couldn't make any huge mistakes.
My recommendation simply would be: "Go with the big ones, not some exotic gadgets". For example, I really love my BlackBerry PlayBook. And as 1 of my top 3 tablets, I can live with the limited supply of apps. But I'd be highly frustrated, would it be my only tablet.
I'd always go with a "major player". Chances are, you'll still get apps or spares or add-ons for these in 1 or 2 years...
Right now, my personal favorites:
eBook readers:
I'm not buying dedicated readers anymore. But if I'd have to choose, I'd consider one of the PocketBooks. I love my PocketBook 360.
Of course you never can go wrong with Kindle.
Tablet:
Although I'm a huge Apple sceptic, even I have to admit: You can't go wrong with iPad2. Or wait for iPad3, if you're not in a hurry.
I admire the progress, Google is making. They still are kind of "underdogs", compared to Apple. But considering Google's muscles, any Honeycomb tablet of one of the bigger manufacturers will be fine for at least 18 months. Most seem to agree: Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the Honeycomb flagship for now. But Motorola Xoom is extremely close as well...