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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.
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.
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.
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.
we don't buy sony here.
I thought everyone knew that.
sony is on the 'do not buy from' list.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
This. I replaced my 2012 Nexus 7 with a Z3 Tablet Compact around Christmas time. I replaced the Sony launcher and keyboard with the Google ones, but otherwise didn't have to do much to it. And Sony have delivered a few OS updates since I've had it, they seem to be pretty decent with that these days. Due to the smaller bezel, it is barely bigger in length and width than the Nexus 7 despite the larger screen, and the screen is way better. I bought the official Style cover, and the Sony inside that cover is barely thicker than the Nexus 7 with no cover; without the cover, the Sony is amazingly thin and light. And it has a microsd slot.
Oh no... it's the future.
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.
It's also one of the few tablets around to have a microSD slot. That's rare. 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.
we don't buy sony here.
I thought everyone knew that.
sony is on the 'do not buy from' list.
Bad behavior, like Memory Stick, should be punished. Good behavior, like their rootable phones and tablets, should be rewarded. This will motivate them to make more good things, and less shit things.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
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.
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.
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.