Tablets

[Glom]

I don't know. I've been using my new one for half an hour and it's already annoying me. It doesn't  fit in my palm so is uncomfortable to hold. I think i might just prefer to stick to my phone.

Bigger screen is nice n all but the ergonomics aren't quite what i expected.

I should admit that my mood is soured by Vodafone sending me the wrong type of .SIM card  that's now jammed in the SLIM port.

I think I'll just send it back. (I didn't seek out a tablet. It was a cold call from vodafone offering me a deal to add to my phone account and i have a week to reject it)

Sent from my GT-P5100 using Tapatalk HD

NB the predictive text SUCKS!!!

[grmcdorman]

From the model, that's the Galaxy Tab 2 10". We have a variant of that and are very happy with it. Use it alone, or with a Bluetooth keyboard.

• The predictive text can be changed if you select a different keyboard. There are plenty of keyboards in the Google Play store, I use AnySoftKeyboard.
  
• Androids in general, and 10" tablets in particular, play very nice with bluetooth keyboards.
  
• 10" tablets, of any sort, are a bit big for hand-held use. Use with a stand is generally better.
  
• 7" tablets are better for hand-held use. The best 7" tablet is the Nexus 7 (currently).
  

... and as a phone? I wouldn't even use a 7" tablet as a phone, and for wireless data I'd just use my phone as a portable hotspot.

ETA: I hope you didn't put the SIM card in the microSD slot by accident; I think the slots on that device are next to each other. (Our Galaxy Tab 2 doesn't have a SIM card slot.)

[Glom]

No it's definitely in the SIM card slot. The slot is for a normal SIM but they sent me a micro, which is why when l'il ole unsuspecting me went to put it in, it got lost in the chasm.

[Echnaton]

I have a Nexus 7 and love it.  Although mine doesn't have a data plan, it just seemed a bit much to buy a second plan when I have a perfectly good iPhone.  The 7 inch is about the same size as a book so it holds well in my hand and has a proper screen size for single page e-book reading.  Wifi is so common, I can usually find a place to load the Wall Street Journal and the NY times to read while off line.  It is light enough that I don't have to set it down much, minimizing the chance of loss or theft.  The larger ones have their place.  For comic book readers, 7 inches in way to small.  For a PC replacement, larger is better too.  I've seen college students collaborating in writing papers using three tablets for reference and typing while waiting in line at a comicon.  The women was doing the typing, of course, because that just seems to be the way it still works.

[onebigmonkey]

I've just treated myself to a Galaxy TAB 2 10.1" and I'm loving it. I intend it to make my laptop last longer by using it for general browsing, but I confess it isn't going to be the laptop replacement I had thought, much more a compliment to it. It is going to be hard to wean myself off the laptop whenever I want to do some proper typing!

My personal prediction for the future is for laptops to become more specialist, and therefore more expensive, devices as people who only want a computer for  shopping, general browsing and the like get tablets or more useful and powerful smart phones.

I think my tablet suffers a little from the OS and apps still being largely geared towards the phone market, whereas the iPhone and iPad developers have already realised that they are different beasts for different markets.

I can't wait to see how these things develop!

[ka9q]

I still can't understand the appeal of tablets. They're basically laptops missing their keyboards. Where is that an advantage, with the possible exception of a cramped airline seat?

My laptop goes nearly everywhere I do, so given that mine does everything I need (while a tablet cannot) I can't see how also carrying a tablet can help.

And then we get into the whole mess of closed, locked-down programming environments which I find downright offensive.

[Andromeda]

I still can't understand the appeal of tablets. They're basically laptops missing their keyboards. Where is that an advantage, with the possible exception of a cramped airline seat?

The main advantage for me is the fact that my laptop weighs too much for me to carry it around for long.

I also get neck/shoulder cramps staring down at a laptop.

[ka9q]

But if a tablet doesn't do everything you need, you still have to carry the laptop -- and then the tablet is just that much extra weight, right?

I can see that tablets have a place when you just want to read a lot of documents, and it has to be small, light and low power -- as in an airplane coach seat.

I guess a tablet is to reading documents as an iPod or other digital audio player is to playing music. Neither one can do anything a laptop can't do, but on occasion the smaller form factor and lower power consumption is handy.

[Andromeda]

But my tablet does do everything I need.  I browse the net, listen to music, type up documents, make presentations, tweak photos, send emails, read books, send texts, make video calls, put together videos....  Plus it weighs next to nothing.

[Echnaton]

I guess a tablet is to reading documents as an iPod or other digital audio player is to playing music. Neither one can do anything a laptop can't do, but on occasion the smaller form factor and lower power consumption is handy.

Relative benefits of a tablet include the weight, the battery life, and the lower fragility that make it far more portable.  The trade off is greater difficulty doing some things and the inability to do others.  From my tablet, I can log into my work or home network to remotely operate a computer. Great when the clueless staff has a problem and I am out of the office.  I can proof read changes my boss makes to my reports and have the secretary correct his errors.  The tablet is easy to hide in my truck's console rather than having to put my computer bag in the covered bed of the truck, lest I come back to a broken window.  It has happened twice.  The list goes on and substitutes for the loss of functionality for some tasks.  The tablet won't do anything more than my iPhone, but the big screen makes it more usable.  With one of those a massive Samsung "phablets,"  you might skip the tablet.  At the  at a comparatively small price (relative to an iPhone or laptop) of $250, it was not a great leap to give it a try and I find it fits comfortably into my mobile computing needs.

BTW, I picked up an iPhone 5 last night.  It is head and shoulders above the 4s. 

[Echnaton]

And then we get into the whole mess of closed, locked-down programming environments which I find downright offensive.

I used to also.  But I have found an app for everything I have wanted to do on my iPhone or Nexus 7 and for a bunch of thing I never through of.  For example, there is an app that lets me access my network attached storage device to pull files or steam movies over the internet.  I like the cheap App model of delivering software.  It has many advantages over the hodgepodge program model we have with Windows.  I have yet to find an app that crashed my phone or interacted with my phone to break the functionality of another app.  But then, I am not a software engineer who can devise a solution to meet unique needs.   I no longer have the desire to dig in to operating systems to learn the vast array of settings and how they might tweek my computing.  That was necessary in the Windows 3.1 for Workgroups days and helpful in Windows 7.  I am pretty much a "want it to just work" guy today.  Then again, it is not difficult to jail break iOS or Android and have your way with it.

[Trebor]

I still can't understand the appeal of tablets. They're basically laptops missing their keyboards. Where is that an advantage, with the possible exception of a cramped airline seat?

I use an Asus Transformer which has a detachable keyboard, with a full sized USB. So I can use a proper mouse as well.
Makes a decent little netbook with a huge battery life.

For me the main use of the tablet end is as an E-book and PDF reader. For that I find it invaluable.
(And also as an extra instrument display for my flight simulator)

And then we get into the whole mess of closed, locked-down programming environments which I find downright offensive.

Yes, this annoys me no end.

[cjameshuff]

And then we get into the whole mess of closed, locked-down programming environments which I find downright offensive.

The primary reason I never got into programming for the iDevices was the control freak approach Apple picked up from the cell phone companies. And the primary reason I'm finally moving away from the Mac is this culture taking over their personal computers as well. They've historically encouraged users to control their computers, with plug-and-play hardware, the original use of the "more approachable" Pascal as a programming language and later the Cocoa environment, things like AppleScript and HyperCard, free development environments, and recently a great deal of activity in open source and use and promotion of standards. Now, they're quickly moving to lock things down as tight as they can, with only Apple-approved software being installed from the App Store.

And on a related subject, "Windows 8 certified" ARM hardware is required by Microsoft to be locked down so the user can only install Windows. The certification requirements specifically do not allow the options to disable or reconfigure UEFI secure boot so other operating systems can be installed, despite requiring that these be allowed on x86 systems. There's no technical reason for the difference, they just took a chance to grab more control...imposing the same restriction on x86 at present would likely lead to a major backlash.

[grmcdorman]

I have to say that developing for Android devices is nowhere near the controlled experience it is for Apple devices. Heck, you can actually have applications communicate with each other!

Not to mention that the simulator is much closer to the Android devices than the iPhone/iPad simulator is.

[cjameshuff]

I have to say that developing for Android devices is nowhere near the controlled experience it is for Apple devices. Heck, you can actually have applications communicate with each other!

I got a Nook Tablet for Christmas specifically for the purpose of playing around with Android. This was right when B&N decided to lock it down and keep people from installing their own versions of Android or apps from outside the B&N store on it, when previously it'd just boot from a SD card. Their efforts to keep people from doing what they want with their own hardware haven't been entirely successful, but I haven't gotten around to rooting the thing.