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Ask Slashdot: Best Tablet In 2015?
An anonymous reader writes: My 2012 Nexus 7 tablet is showing its age. The battery drains quickly, the storage problem that plagued all the Nexus 7s persists even after rooting and re-imaging, and the CPU/RAM can't keep up with the later Android versions. When it came out, it was fantastic — good specs, solid build quality, Nexus line, and a good size. Is there anything on the market today that stands out as much as the Nexus 7 did? I tend to prefer the smaller tablets over the bigger ones, but I'm not entirely averse to an 8" or 9" device. There seem to be some really nice devices in the $3-400 range, but I'm not sure if there's a huge benefit to those over the ~$200 models. I don't do any serious gaming on my tablet, but I also want the apps I do use to be snappy. Those of you who have bought or used tablets made in the past year or so, what has your experience been? Any brands or models that stand out from the crowd? Any to avoid?
I got a dell tablet from work and rolled my eyes pretty hard, but I have to say it's really nice. Thin, light, well built and speedy. The screen is really bright and they seem to be pretty supportive of rooting and alternative images. The depth camera thing is a total gimmick but overall it's the nicest tablet I've used in recent years. I've seen them run about $300 new and $200 refurb from dell.
After several weeks of looking around... Just got Tab S for 400 EUR (in the Netherlands), and I expect 50 EUR back from Samsung (mail-in rebate).
Like an updated Nexus 7 with a faster Atom quad core, faster Power Rangers graphics, micro SD slot and much better price. Can be found for $119 shipped refurbished on eBay /thread
My situation exactly, I totally sympathize with you, right down to the 2012 Nexus 7 and the exact same problems (minus storage issues). Was (and is) an amazing tablet, but it's becoming rather long in the tooth, and I think I may have to replace it soon, especially with the battery life having dropped dramatically. I'm currently looking at an Asus Zenpad C 7.0 , but I've never used it before, and so I can't make any statements as to the quality. Seems to be similar in spirit to the Nexus 7 (2012). If anybody has any expirience with this tablet, I'd love to hear it! (Or, other reccommendations would be much appreciated too).
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Honestly, save the $100 and get the original iPad Air. The only thing the new Air 2 adds that matters is a thumbprint scanner and a faster CPU.
The Sony tablets are very, very nice, and they have an 8" compact version. They're very lightly skinned, they're water resistant (you can wash off the screen) and they're very light. So light, in fact, that the first time I picked up the Z I thought it was an empty display model. That lightness, more than anything, is what makes it so pleasant to use for me. Can hold it up without effort for long periods when reading for instance.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
If you are into smaller tablets, why not one of the bigger cells or hybrids? I know several people who are happy with their Galaxy Notes. And right now, with my 5.5" Moto X Play, sometimes I don't feel the need to get my tablet.
morcego
The iPad 3 I bought at around the same time is still chugging along fine, maybe you should consider upgrading to one of those?
I had a Nexus 7 with exactly the problems you describe and I had gotten the Nexus 7 for exactly the reasons you mention. I replaced it with a Lenovo Tab 2 A10. Relatively inexpensive, good build quality, faster than the Nexus 7. Put in a micro SD card and have had no problems with it despite daily use for 3 months.
Sure it's old but an excellent upgrade over yours. Relatively fast, high quality screen, while no longer in production, you can find fantastic deals on Amazon. I still use mine and have no plans on changing it.
I have several Android devices in the past and the nexus line had always been the best. Why? Software updates, stability, build quality. Other Android tend to randomly reboot or freeze more often, updates are rare, eventually you end up installing a mod that is not as stable as Google's release.
Actually the biggest thing it adds is double the memory which will:
A) Greatly increase the lifetime of the device.
B) Greatly decrease frustration of when things get killed as you swap around apps.
I had a N7 2012 too, drains fast, charges slowly, overall great piece of shift.
It's not 2012 anymore, any decent tablet will perform faster and better than your old N7.
did you forget to take your meds?
This isn't great advice.
The Air 2 has 2GB of RAM (in contrast to the Air's 1GB); having multiple tabs open in Safari is much nicer. And when iOS 9 hits over the next few weeks, only the Air 2 (and whatever is announced Wednesday) will support split screen multitasking.
I don't have a Surface, but this seems about right. I have a Winbook and Windows 10 has made it a sweet experience. However, the screen is somewhat resistive, and the Surface, w/ its pen, would be ideal for using as both a tablet, as well as a laptop when needed.
This isn't great advice.
it could be MOST AWESOME and EXCELLENT advice if the primary use is watching movies
Or wait until the iPad Air 3 comes out, and get one of those. You want as much RAM as possible in these devices. I have a first-gen iPad mini (512 MB of RAM) and you can't even have multiple browser tabs open without it dropping the inactive tabs from the cache so it has to reload when you go to one of the other tabs. It's maddening. The on screen keyboard frequently has delays, and using a Bluetooth keyboard is no better. It is much slower than my Nexus 4 phone.
I like my Android phone but also prefer iOS on a tablet. The newer iPads are better and faster than mine. Now that the full-size iPad is thinner and lighter than it was at the time I got the mini, I think I might go with that instead. We'll see what happens on Tuesday.
Sent from my iPhone
Why limit yourself to iOS though? Get an x86 based tablet. They are about half the price of an iPad, similar quality screen/battery life, probably better connectivity (USB, maybe NFC or wireless charging, SD card slot)... Maybe a tad thicker but who cares, you can run Android, Windows or Linux on the thing. If you don't like one in a couple of years just switch.
Plus no mucking about with iTunes or Apple networking protocols to transfer files to the thing. Tablets are great for media consumption and displaying documents, so the last thing you want is to make the process of getting them on there difficult. You can even just use network shares over wifi easily enough.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Wait a few days for the Apple announcements. You don't have to be an Apple fan necessarily, but at least then you'll know what the actual 2015 range of available tablets will be and be able to make comparisons. At the moment you'll be comparing current gen Android to just-about-last-gen Apple. You'll want to compare current to current.
I have a TF201 (Transformer Prime) and it was abandoned at Jellybean. The community is struggling to produce a stable KitKat rom. But that happens to everything eventually. There's a very good JB ROM, I'm going back to that for now.
So you can count on a couple of OS updates and then abandonment... like everyone else. :p
When it's working properly even my old TF201 is a peach but 1GB is not enough RAM, really.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you want quick updates to the latest version of Android, it's got to be Nexus 7 (2013), Nexus 9 - or you could buy a device supported by Cyanogenmod and install Google Apps on top if required.
If not, just pick the specs important to you - say 1080p screen, at least 32GB flash, 2GB RAM and quad core CPU - and get the best deal available. You should be able to find even a factory refurbished 9 inch tablet for under $200. They are all pretty good.
I'll see your Xoom and raise you a Fujitsu Stylistic 3500 from 2001, with original battery that holds 20 minutes of charge.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
I have a Yoga 3 and it kinda is the best of both worlds. A decent laptop, and a really good table. That runs most of your standard applications. Without as much of the closed architecture that will prevent you from tinkering with it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
With the new Nexus lineup being ready to be announced, I would wait and see if the rumor of a Nexus 8 is true. Otherwise, and what makes me feel the rumor could be true, the Nexus 9 has had quite a few deep discounts lately. While the 9 had some issues after release, the subsequent Android updates seem to have squashed many of the issues. Most review sites now call it one of the better tablets on the market if they reviewed it again after the original release. Personally I have a Dell Venue 8 7840. It is a very solid build. Unfortunately the 5.1 update has brought some big issues for me. Random system restarts, apps crashing due to memory running out, GPS doesn't work with all apps. With 5.0, it was a really strong tablet. 5.1, not so much. The Acer "gaming" tablet is one that interests me, but may not be for everyone.
I made the mistake of getting the wife and I a pair of their crappy Ellipsis 7 tablets. Perfect size but woefully underpowered. I upgraded to the 128GB iPad Mini 2, but my wife doesn't want an IOS tablet... she has a considerable investment in the Google Play store. What are some good choices for recent tablets to replace her Verizon network Elipsis?
I own both the 2012 and 2013 Nexus 7s and they are like night and day. The 2012 is practically useless (sloooow due to the flash problem....) while the 2013 is still going strong and is one of the best Android devices I've owned. You can still get them at a discount (<=150) if you keep your eyes open.
Not sure I'd recommend anything more expensive unless you have a specific need to fill. In fact there's no reason to buy any brand new (as in came out this year) electronic device when you can find the last few year's mid-to-high end models at steep discounts.
My Xoom gets considerably more use than my Nexus 7. I take it on biz trips now instead of a laptop. The Xoom keyboard (can't get any more) is a solid piece of gear.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
If you're paying $3 for a tablet, then you're buying an Etch A Sketch.
or maybe an excedrin
I have a Nexus 9, and I'd say that even though the performance isn't bad it could be better. But maybe it's because I'm used to the performance of my desktop.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I was going to respond with advice to wait for the new announcements from Apple and Microsoft, but when the post mentioned the price range I realized these announcements will be irrelevant. Since they are asking about $200-$400 tablets, the title should have been "Best Bargain Tablet in 2015" to reduce confusion.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Best Buy sells a $60 atom tablet with Windows 8 on cowboom.com. I have a similar next book tablet. This is essentially a stripped down PC. I've been able to boot into the bios, and it would likely run Linux if you were willing to work for it. The CPU is 64-bit capable, but OS is 32-bit as there is only 1gb of ram which is non-expandable. All win32 apps seem to work well. This is surely better than an iOS device.
I have a Nexus 7 2012. It's only good as an ereader right now. Even the Kindle app struggles. I did some window shopping at Best Buy recently and the Amazon Kindle HD tablets looked very nice. Good looking screen, supposedly it will work well with the Kindle app and Prime video. Does anyone know if Google apps like Youtube are able to be installed on them? If it can't do basic Google apps then the purchase is a non-starter.
The post is obviously asking for bargain tablets to purchase, so they aren't too interested in top of the line specs. The iPad Air 1 is $100 less than the Air 2, and you can get more than a 16 GB hard drive for just $50 as opposed to $100 for the Air 2 (although the Air 2 goes to 64 GB instead of 32 GB).
I'm not saying the Air 1 is necessarily the way to go, but based on the information from the post I see no reason to recommend the Air 2 instead.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
My second generation Nexus 7 (the one in the blue box and with the HD screen) has none of the listed issues. Of course, I do wish it accepted MicroSD cards (or any for that matter) but otherwise it's great.
Because people are expecting the iPad Air 3 to be out in a few days (Sep 9th), not years. If it's a matter of waiting half a week to get a better spec machine, it's relevant to the discussion... Talk of the iPad Air 9, not so much.
The next Apple mobile devices should be announced Wednesday, not exactly a long wait.
However, some rumors claim Apple will be focusing their efforts on a new 'iPad Pro' and the Air will see little improvement this cycle.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Waiting for my 64GB Jolla to arrive. Any day now..hopefully.
Plus no mucking about with iTunes or Apple networking protocols to transfer files to the thing.
The only time that I've run iTunes in the past 2 years that I got my current iPad was when I bought a new iPad and I wanted to transfer my stuff from the old one. I read books (PDF) on it, comics, watch media... . The same for my iPhone.
The whole iTunes thing may be an argument a couple of years ago but it is certainly not an argument today.
Maybe because the Air 3 is being launched in 49 hours it's good advice to wait and consider it?
Grow a brain before you post, okay?
So say I have a Windows PC with some media files on it. A couple of MKV movies I ripped, some PDF datahseets, some FLAC and MP3 music. How do I get those onto an iPad without installing any Apple crapware?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
So say I have a Windows PC with some media files on it. [...] How do I get those onto an iPad without installing any Apple crapware?
Start up IIS or install apache and point your iPad browser at the PC.
Hands down the best. anything smaller is a toy.
Yes even my Surface pro is sad compared to that wonderful sized screen.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The first question you should ask is, "Do I need a tablet, really, or do I just want a tablet?". I've found few legitimate uses for a tablet computer versus a laptop or even a traditional desktop computer.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
In other words, Apple alone can't do it for you. You either have to limit yourself to an app or give up exclusive ownership of your files. Square peg round hole. USB is the solution for that and it works elsewhere, so there is nothing to see here.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
It's in the title.
It started back in Team Fortress Classic
I'm pretty happy with the HP Stream 7, which can be had for $80 or sometimes less. Win10 on it is fine. Win8.x wasn't as much of a pain as people would lead you to believe. The OSK is crap, though (even with the hidden full keyboard), so I threw a bluetooth keyboard and mouse at it.
http://www.amazon.com/Jelly-Co...
http://www.amazon.com/Microsof...
Runs Steam fine, much of my 2D game library works well. People have reported success getting it to boot Linux. Its main limitation is the 1GB of RAM which limits multitasking, but for that price, you buy one tablet for each app you want to run and line them up on your desk and walls and laugh maniacally.
The nice thing about the proliferation of smartphones and tablet is that, unlike old power-hungry PCs, they're still pretty useful after you retire them to a life as a digital photo frame or weather station or garage door opener or baby monitor or whatever.
The Air1 is old tech and new iPads and a new iOS are going to be announced in a few days. Recommending the Air1 is just plain wrong.
No, people in your situation use the cellphone form factor this way: http://nypost.com/2014/02/16/p...
Software is supposed to improve with time. Newer software should run better on the same hardware, only slowing down if new functions are added. And "browse the web" is a pretty well-defined task.
Microsoft has somewhat reached that plateau. Windows 10 doesnât have greater hardware requirements than Windows 7.
I guess if you're running software made by the company who produced the hardware that would be different. They want to sell you the new stuff on a regular basis. There isn't a good 'fix' forthe problem, though. Android hardware vendors do the same thing in reverse: instead of pushing new software updates to make their hardware prematurely obsolete, they simply don't put out new software for it.
This probably won't change anytime soon, so 'everything just sucks.' We can learn how to avoid the entities that emit a louder sucking sound, though.
The Air1 is old tech and new iPads and a new iOS are going to be announced in a few days. Recommending the Air1 is just plain wrong.
All $200-$400 tablets are old tech.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
https://jolla.com/tablet/ and it should be able to also run Android apps.
My Nexus 7 is practically useless now. I am considering upcoming Galaxy s2. or maybe have just one device/phablet like Note or such. But my Galaxy S4 is still going strong so can't justify that expense.
No one is doing any serious gaming on a tablet.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Dell has a bunch of them.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Why do Apple devices have so little memory? 3GB is fairly standard for a low cost Android device these days. Doesn't seem to have a negative effect on battery life etc. How come Apple have stuck with so little for so long, when as you point out there are major performance and usability gains to be had by adding some inexpensive hardware?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
If you're sure that you want a 7" Android tablet in the $200 range, the 2013 version of the Nexus 7 is probably your best bet.
You would think that something better would have come out by now, but there really isn't anything in that size and price range that is noticeably better.
If you wait until the end of the month, Google is expected to release some new Nexus models. Perhaps they will finally have a 7" tablet upgrade in the mix.
Get an x86 based tablet. [...] you can run [...] Linux on the thing.
Which x86-based tablet in 7-8" and 9-11" size classes works well with Linux when paired to a Bluetooth keyboard? I've looked into it but found plenty of reports about Wi-Fi not working, Bluetooth not working, backlight adjustment not working, and most critically, suspend not working.
The easiest way is via Dropbox, or Google Drive, Box.net, or OneDrive
Which costs 2 GB of your ISP's monthly cap for each 1 GB that you transfer.
USB is the solution
Then why does Apple refuse to implement publicly documented USB device classes?
I cart around 25GB of music and 20GB of video with me, and there are very few tablets on the market that can handle that.
You can blame the SD Card Association for making Microsoft's patented exFAT file system a requirement for devices that support microSD cards bigger than 32 GB.
The OS has nothing to do with the hardware.
It does if the hardware locks you into using the operating system that came with it, be it through a cryptographically secured bootloader or through an undocumented chipset.
A few years in tablet - hardware is a long time considering how big leaps there have been in screen quality and processing power and you still have those things even if you use an outdated OS
But how useful are "screen quality and processing power" if the device's manufacturer refuses to issue updates to correct security vulnerabilities in a device's operating system and refuses to cooperate with hobbyists making replacement operating system images?
Then use free apps instead of non-free apps. A free app can be updated to use the new API of the network service while still using the old API of the operating system. F-Droid is the best known repository of free apps for Android.
The good old Exodus tablet running Moses 1.0
(and be quick, the upcoming Yoga 3 isn't remotely as good).
I've been buying those for the past year or so, in 8" and 10" format. Not good at gaming, but excellent for everything else. Their weird shape allows for a bigger battery, better speakers, integrated stand, and they even fit the hand better.
They even look nice, and are reasonably updated (not Nexus-level though). They're regularly on sale, probably right now due to EOL.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
The iPad Air 9 isn't likely to be available in the next month or so.
If you want something that stands out of the crowd, then you might want to take a look at the Jolla Tablet http://jolla.com/tablet/. It won the Best tablet award at this years Mobile World Congress. I've been using a Jolla smartphone and really like it. It doesn't spy on me, I can get root from the settings, it has a command line shell + SSH built in and it runs Linux.
Jolla's Sailfish OS is based on the Maemo/Meego line. They've built a really nice user interface on top of it and it's partly open source. The UI is based on swiping gestures, so it takes a few minutes to learn to use it, but after that it's really swift and nice. They also have an Android VM, so you can run Andoroid apps on it if you want. No Google Play store though, but I believe you can enable it yourself if you want. If you want apps outside the official store, you can add additional repositories to the phone.
Jolla also listens to its users. You can log in at http://together.jolla.com/ to leave bug reports, feature ideas and ask advice from the community and Jolla sailors. The OS gets regular updates which add features and squish bugs, so my phone is actually a lot better now than when I bought it. The specs are more modest than the current Android flagship models, but the OS is much lighter so doesn't need that much processing power to run well. The price tag is pretty nice too.
Have a look, try it out. They're just about to start shipping.
Only dumb birds land downwind.
I don't have a Surface Pro, but I bought this "ASUS Transformer Book" thing which is basically a tablet with an attached keyboard that I got for around $250 on Newegg. It runs full Win 8.1 and has expandable memory via SD card. Android tablets have a lot of issues right now in that they simply can't do what a Windows tablet can.
Best example I can give of this is watching a Twitch stream.
If I wanted to watch Twitch on my 2013 Nexus 7 without ads, I first had to install the horrible Twitch app, then side-load Adblock Plus (as an app) onto the tablet and set up my internet connection to run through Adblock as a proxy. The problem is that running Adblock as a proxy breaks a bunch of other stuff and so it has to constantly be switched on or off to use different things. Watching it in-browser simply didn't work because the tablet can't handle the desktop version of Twitch.
With this thing, I just installed Firefox and loaded ABP into it, then go right to Twitch and start watching. It still has a little trouble viewing things at "source" quality (video desyncs with audio) but at "high" it works just fine.
If someone sticks a dick up your ass you should care about it. Sony fuck me once, only once.
I had that storage problem.
Assuming you're running one of the new builds of Android with TRIM support
* Root the device /dev/zero to a temp file
* Open a shell using adb
* Fill the remaining space in each file system ( system / cache / userdata ) by using dd to copy
* Delete the temp file
http://www.it-psycho.de/2012/1...
This trims all the remaining free space and gets rid of the block fragmentation that the storage controller caused before TRIM was available on Android.
I found this improved my laggy 2012 Nexus 7 from "intolerably slow" (taking 5-10 seconds to wake up from a screen unlock swipe) to "not bad" (screen unlock works OK, apps load quickly, still not the fastest tablet on the block but entirely adequate).
I think it helps the battery consumption as well - it's not constantly wiping blocks just to write logs etc.
I also see the multiple tab open thing on a old iPad 3, but I have to ask myself, what the hell do they need 1 GIGA byte of RAM to cache a webpage for???!!
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
The guy said he didn't want to have to spend $300-400 for a new tablet (much less the $600 that a top-end iPad Air 3 will cost.
Read the summary before you post, okay?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Xoom all the way especially the 3G version Put a decent 4.4 android on it,xposed installer, a few tweaks and you're good to go. Mine still keeps a charge for almost 2 days and it's the perfect replacement for my laptop when I'm on the run :p
Where do you get such a cheap etch-a-sketch?? My daughter's birthday is coming up!
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
On the other hand the Retina Mini 2 is excellent. It's incredibly snappy - I was frankly amazed when I looked back at all the Android phones I've used. The only downside is that Apple really screws you over with their walled garden. Security is nice, but it's irritating that none of the storage is truly accessible, you can't download arbitrary things like MP3 files from the browser and if you want anything useful like a Gameboy emulator you need to jailbreak. I love it and I hate it at the same time.
Oh no, now I have this image of someone attempting serious gaming on a tablet in my head.
Seconded. The Nvidia Shield is a fantastic tablet. Effective Stylus, upgrades are current, SD slot, excellent performance. I had mine for about six months when the battery recall came out. Sent in the old and I got a brand new one with minimum hassle. I had the Nexus 7 2012 and 2013 prior and they were great tablets as well. The Nvidia just oozes quality of construction and high performance. I say that despite some misgivings over some recent failed video cards as well.
surface 4. granted that microsoft do not play an xbox360 and crappy the device....
Stay your pitchforks a moment: My desktop is a Lin/Win box, my laptop is a MacBook Pro that dual boots Mac/Lin, my phones are a Galaxy S5 and a iPhone 5c, I have a kindle, a verizon droid tablet (which I forgot I had), an ipad, heck my TV is a Samsung smart with a hacked evolve that can boot mint (because, seriously, if you're going to use cssh you really need to do it on a 4K UHD display ;)
I picked up the surface because - well, because of a 30 day return option. I wanted to rip the heck out of it. So I upgraded it straight to 10 (10 wasn't officially supported on it when I did, I wasn't about to give the thing a chance at success)
About 20 days in I realized I had pretty much migrated everything off of drop box onto One/Sky drive, and my Drive usage had become more organized and well deliniated against that usage.
A little later on I realized that I haven't had a single one of my esoteric usb/bluetooth devices /not/ work with the Surface. Somewhere about 10-14 days in, I stopped even trying to use them on my/my wifes other devices, I'd just automatically reach for the surface.
Truth be told, it was "Fresh Paint" that distracted me enough to get suckered in. It helped me discover the remarkable versatility of the devices form factor and the combination of the kick stand and the foldable keyboard and the magnetic attachment points for the power/keyboard.
I've used the surface now everywhere that any of my other devices used to go and places none of them would: Balanced on the dash of the car, on the tiny ledge by my shower.
I can't begin to do it justice trying to describe the versatility, I will just say that it was a huge part of enamoring me to the device.
It has the best wifi/bluetooth of any of my devices and it is fast at connecting; it talks to all of my devices, and windows 10 comes with an app for setting up a small handful of windows features against iphone/ipad/droid phones.
Battery life is pretty good, and unless you're trying to play an mmo at ultra-high-graphics it's very easy to switch to a battery saving mode to squeeze a few more hours of facebooking/solitaire out of it. The only problem is it's so good that when the battery does get low, you get a bit 10ish ("I don't want to go") #1stworldproblems.
Time for the cons:
The weight is just a few grams heavy, and although it's not, with the keyboard attached it feels heavier than the (17in) MacBook Pro. It does sometimes feel a little large and unwieldy, but yesterday I realized that's because I'm using it now where I would previously have used my phone. I wouldn't give up an inch of the form factor, tbh.
It has it's own, unique, special power connector, and doesn't seem to be capable of USB charging.
The little Windows insignia/button on the device is poorly placed. Instead of putting it near the camera, for example, it's on the right hand side roughly exactly where you would put your hand to hold the device a large part of the time. Good news: you can disable it.
Start-up time from off and sleep feel a little sluggish. They didn't at first, and I don't think they've gotten slower, I think I am just really eager to interact with the device now when I am turning it on.
If anything, the biggest drawback is the storage capacity. I have the Pro i5/256 and I have 167Gb left, mostly because I'm being very selective about what I install.
Some of the default Windows 10 apps for things I'm not very keen on. But hey, if you want default apps, go get an apple. Specifically, Groove Music. W.T.L.F, and I'm still very undecided on the photos app. I must confess that I had a Windows 7 Phone phone for a while, so I've experienced the original, pure, "Metro" experience, and I can imagine how the photos app would have been as a pure metro app and I like that idea - but using the photos app you can almost smell the blood that must have been spilled in the clashes between the mobile and desktop teams...
Lastly - and this is really Windows 10 r
-- A change is as good as a reboot.
I guess the faster SoC and processor, plus the 1 GB of RAM in the mini 2 make a big difference. I feel like I don't need a retina display on my next tablet, but they pretty much all have it now.
Sent from my iPhone
Just as useful as they always were.
That depends on a philosophical choice of how you define more or less useful. If a device's operating system is discovered to have a security vulnerability that is subsequently exploited, does the operating system become less useful? Or has it always been less useful because the vulnerability has always existed even when it was undiscovered and unexploited?
Having an outdated OS does not magically reduce the screen's quality or anything over time.
True, a high-quality screen displaying a ransom message is still just as high quality as it always was, but it's not as useful as it always was.
I'm quite interested to see what Apple is planning with the iPad Pro, but I would be surprised if it is more than just hardware bumps. Bigger screen, perhaps better specs, but no improvements to the OS that would make it particularly more useful in a professional environment than the current line of iPads.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
The only problem I've had with my Xoom is that the most recent version of the Kindle app on Google Play hangs on startup; I found a reference searching the Net that the Amazon appstore had the previous version of the app, and uninstalled the Google Play version to install the Amazon version, and everything came back; I just have to remember not to accidentally update it through Google Play.
* 5 years ago, this category of product didn't even exist.
* 3 years ago, you bought something that was "fantastic".
* Now, it's crap and you absolutely need a newer version.
* 3 years from now, you'll come back to Slashdot to whine that you have a crappy 2015 tablet.
* 10 years from now, you'll ask yourself where all the lithium and rare earth went.
"Looking for how to fix Nexus 7 lag? Is your Google Nexus 7 lagging after Kit Kat update? Is your Nexus 7 exhibiting lag after an update in general? Then read on! In this post you’ll see how to speed things up a bit with a short and simple trick to speed up your Nexus 7." ref
Why do Apple devices have so little memory?
Because they don't run Java, so they don't have to deal with all that garbage collection crap that massively bloats memory requirements.
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I have the original Nexus 7, and a Nexus 10, and I just got a Nexus 9.
I like to buy things when they are no longer new and the price drops. I got a Nexus 9 with 32 GB of storage and with LTE cellular data, for $365. Last November I should have had to pay $600 fit the same device.
It is smaller and lighter than the Nexus 10 so I like it better for carrying around, yet the screen works for reading O'Reilly books. The 3:2 screen ratio works better for reading books with tables than the 16:9 screen on the Nexus 7, but the tablet isn't really much bigger. And it's fast... it's a pleasure to surf the web on the thing.
I didn't get the key folio case; I got the inexpensive, thin, and light case. I have a Perixx Bluetooth keyboard for typing.
I am completely happy with my Nexus 9 and II recommend it.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Even if you do get a bad one, they swap you a whole new tablet for free.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
the Fujitsu would probably run Android, there again it is only a 500 Celeron single core with 256MB RAM and 30GB hard drive...
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
I use my tablet for basic document and spreadsheet editing and for email, but most of the time I don't use it for "productive" work. Why is that a requirement? For web and media browsing is great. And did you really just say playing video games counts as productive work?
A laptop is not in any way the best tablet because it has a keyboard that gets in the way, is heavier, runs hotter, and is just less convenient for the kinds of things I use a tablet for. That's why my old lightweight laptop has been collecting dust since I got my tablet.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Great little tablet. Not a lot of storage but has a micro SD card slot. Far less bloatware than Samsung and no weird keyboard. Touch is ok, not as good as Nexus, but at $130 it's a bargain, especially for tablets which I consider disposable devices.
I use it mostly for: Audible, Kindle, listening to music (from sd card or songza) and web browsing (with Firefox, which so far seems the only tablet browser that supports ad-blockers without having to do weird proxy configs). Decent performance.
I also have a Yoga Pro convertible and lately I've noticed that I tend to pick the tablet more often than the Yoga Pro.
lucm, indeed.
Removable storage? That would be nice.
Remote File Manager Free does a great job of this, but it's not quite as free as the name suggests. Windows file shares are only supported through an in-app paid upgrade, but of course this is only a few dollars, and it works really well.
You can either stream movies, or download them and save them for watching later.
I have a Coby 10" tablet from 2-3 years ago, picked because $DAYJOB's program of "You've worked here N mod 5 == 0 years, pick a gift" had it as a choice. It's not bad, but there's been almost zero support for upgrades, and scarcely even any documentation on the vendor's website. It's now running 4.0.4, and I think it might have originally come with 4.0.1, but there's nothing since then. And it's Wifi-only, so it's not like there's a mobile phone provider to blame for the lack of upgrades (oh - avoid HTC also :-), but this has a much higher level of vendor abandonment than I've seen from anybody; at least HTC kept the documentation online for a while.
For it's day, it wasn't bad for a low-end tablet. 10" screen, something like 1024x800 or 1024x768, SD card slot so I could add storage (subject to Android's clunkiness about that.) It did replace my Kindle 3 for most ebook reading (the Kindle was still the winner for taking on airplanes or reading on the train, because of size, but for home or work, the bigger screen and backlight were a win.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I've found the last ~5 years of using Android products to be really frustrating - Google supports new versions of Android on any Google hardware that has enough horsepower, but most other vendors give you at most a couple of minor upgrades, if you're lucky; I seem to have missed the 15 minutes that my HTC Aria could be upgraded from 2.1 to 2.2 before it dropped Google Play support, no-name Coby tablet stopped at 4.0.4, Samsung doesn't seem to plan to take my S4mini phone to 5.0, and it may stay stuck at 4.4.2, and in general the vendors customize the interface so that you can only get upgrades from them, which the carriers don't push them to deliver on because both sides want to ship new shiny hardware, not support slightly older hardware.
Apple will of course provide software support and upgrades for anything that can handle them, but Google devices are about the only Android gear that you can expect the same level of support, unless you want to move over to Cyanogen.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
All jokes aside, there are plenty of tasks out there for which the Surface Pro 3 or other full-size tablets are oo big. We have built a web app for in-class marking in tertiary software engineering lab classes, and a 7 or 8 inch tablet is the perfect device for carrying around with you and entering marks. A 5 inch phone is too fiddly to press on radiobuttons and can't fit readable descriptions for more than a couple of marking criteria on the page; a full-size tablet requires you to put it down on a desk to use and gets heavy to carry round - and the Pro 3, I suspect, would be particularly bad.
I might get a Pro 3 or its successor one day, but it will be an adjunct rather than a replacement for my own Nexus 7.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Although LG have come up with newer models, my trusty old LG G Pad 8.3 is still my "go to" tablet for when on the move. 1900x1200 resolution (none of this 4:3 nonsense seen in recent tablets) and an SD card slot are nice bonuses, though watch out for colour calibration issues and a somewhat darker display than other tablets.
I *strongly* recommend that you put CyanogenMod on the G Pad 8.3 - it's an officially supported device and CM lets you tweak the colour calibration too in the Settings. I just wish LG would come up with a decent successor to it - all their later models just don't do it for me.
When it comes to Android, there's only three solutions to getting decent updates: a Nexus device, a device that ships with Cyanogen OS or a (preferably official) CyanogenMod custom ROM install.
I think his point is that it is ridiculous that you have to install apps on your device to do basic things, like COPY STUFF TO IT.
I hate printers.
Ubuntu + KDE = Kubuntu, Ubuntu + Xfce = Xubuntu. I run most of my laptops with Xubuntu, as it is much lighter weight resource-wise than full Ubuntu.
They've still come up short from time to time. My first-gen iPad has such a ridiculously small amount of RAM (256 MB) that it's pretty much impossible to keep more than a small handful of browser tabs open. I picked up a Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 maybe a year later, and it's been far more usable...still use it nearly daily, with whichever version of CyanogenMod is based on Android 4.4.4.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
You might want to look into AdAway. It merges adblock lists into /etc/hosts (or wherever Android stores its hosts file). It blocks ads in Chrome (or whatever browser you're using) and in apps without issue. It's been much less of a hassle to use than Adblock Plus.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Apparently it will be able to have multiple apps running side by side....kinda like Windows 1.0
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
All the more reason to wait until the Air 3 gains some traction in the market, lowering resale cost of both the 1 and 2.
Perhaps. But it isn't a general purpose computer, and the app works really well, and what constitutes 'basic stuff' is going to differ from person to person. You or I might consider opening a command prompt and copying files around to be 'basic stuff', and in a very real sense this is considerably more basic that running the built-in web browser. For another person, such an activity would be frighteningly complicated.
It's worth remembering that the same is true on any OS. If you want to copy files around, you must use software to do it. The issue is whether or not the software in question is shipped with the OS, or is a third party add-on. Can't say I lose much sleep over it either way.
LOL. worried about being considered nerdy on slashdot. That is like a fish worrying about being wet.
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