None at all. The military runs its own space program. The last time the military was interested in cooperation with NASA was when the shuttles were build. However, the military bras saw how expensive, unreliable, and pointless were the shuttles and lost all interest even before the first shuttle flew. (Those things had basically no military, civilian, or scientific application that could possibly justify their cost. The NASA built them anyways)
The way I see it, subscribing to netflix is very much like adding say HBO family of channels to your cable. You get a limited selection of content (when I search for a show I want to see on Netflix, I succeed about one time out of every eight-nine attempts) on both, and both give you a streaming app for the web browser or tablet. Big deal. Nothing special. And Netflix doesn't provide any content related to day to day news or say sports.
I am calling BS on your claim. I have a Uverse "cable" too, and we pay $220 ish too, but this price includes a landline phone service, 40Mbps internet, and a selection of pretty much ALL news and sports channels out there, as well as all or almost all movie channels, and one foreign language channel we specifically pay 15 bucks a month to receive.
In my experience, while Netflix is cheap it doesn't have a whole lot of stuff on its streaming channel. Subscribing to Neflix is pretty much like subscribing to say HBO and Cinemax, in the sense that you get a few movies available on demand. Big deal. The Netflix selection of movies is pretty poor. My search on netflix succeeds about one time out of eight-nine attempts.
Would rather see the economy go down in flames rather than watch a democrat re-elected into the white house. (check)
Reduce taxes on the rich(check)
This sounds like the laundry list of a typical partisan republican nut (not only those in the senate). I assume the list continues with items like "unabated military spending", "the destruction of the Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare", "disbanding all unions", etc.
For those who haven't taken politics 101 in the high school, this is a good time to look up at the responsibilities of the American Vice President. (Hint, this is not the person who takes over president's duties when the president goes on vacation or a work trip).
The American vice president is technically legally allowed to retired into his Florida mansion immediately after his ticket wins the White House election, and then chill all day at the beach until one of two highly unlikely events happens. First, he is the first in line to succeed the president should anything happen to him or if the president resigns or is removed from the office. Second, the VP can break the legislative battles in the senate when the vote is split exactly 50-50, which you can imagine doesn't happen very frequently. In between of such highly unlikely events, the VP isn't supposed to do much. If he decides to chill all day at the beach, he can't be fired or sacked for having such a carefree life unless he somehow broke the law, because VP is an elected office.
So what good is the VP for? The VP is primarily a marketing figure. The Vice President has to be the side-kick of the presidential candidate during the election campaign. The VP candidate is always selected based on his ability to attract the electoral vote, rather than his ability to cast that precious tie-breaking senate vote (and usually, nobody chooses him based on the ability to lead the country because normally someone who is running for the presidential seat doesn't plan to die or retire soon).
For example, the Democrats often have a "south problem", because the American South isn't usually inclined to vote for a Democrats. So one type of electoral strategy is to have at least one southerner on the electoral ticket. Clinton had Al Gore (both were southerners) and Kerry selected John Edwards (a North Carolinian).
That's a great observation. We still have separation of powers between the branches of government at the federal and the state level (as well as between federal and state governments). The president will not accomplish "much". However, quite shockingly the Bush junior did drag the USA into the disastrous Iraq invasion, and he did manage to increase the defense spending from under 300 billions a year, to about 1 trillion a year the year he left the office. At the same time Obama did also accomplish quite a bit in the office. (some of that is positive, like The Affordable Care Act, which is why republicans hate it so much).
You confuse chaos with "change". Obama promised change, but except for the Affordable Care Act, we haven't gotten much else changed. The middle class is eroding, the racial tensions remain, and the American militarism continues unabated. We thank Bush for the disaster that was the Iraq invasion, but we can also thank Obama's administration for throwing more fuel into the middle-east and thus at least partially becoming responsible for the chaos that now goes on in Iraq, Syria, and Libya as well as for the rise of ISIS.
I don't see how Trump's policies will result in "chaos". The crux of Trump's policies is to bring security and prosperity to American workers. That means properly defending the US borders instead of spending billions of dollars on military adventures abroad. Reviewing highly unequal trade agreements with the likes of China, by which we must import pretty much everything from China without any obstacles (and while transferring truly valuable technology to them), while not being able to export almost anything in return. The Chinese for example will still buy our civilian aircraft, but they will not allow importing US made vehicles or items like chicken feet, both of which can be produced in USA at competitive prices.
People are tired of the elite ruling, making decisions based on cronyism and who lines their pockets. Trump isn't afraid to call them out.
I would love to believe that, but at the same time I am highly suspicious that bringing a corporate tycoon will not fix any problems with cronyism. The American corporate culture is highly corrupt. It's the culture that has given us the corporate scandals like the Enron, Madoff's pyramid, and the Long Term Capital Management. Trump himself is not out of the woods with regards to his "Trump University" business.
Trump never said that we should end all immigration. All he promised was to end the illegal migration into the USA by building the "wall" and banning the Muslims from entering the country. After winning the republican nomination, he backtracked on the second issue and said that only refugees from Syria and other trouble spots will not be allowed because we don't have an easy way to judge whether they have terrorist link. But now every leftie in the world (not just the US) as well as much of the news media has painted him as an isolationist racist who will halt all trade and end all exports and imports.
But in reality, Trump's trade plans are very simple. In the environment we already have, the government trade policies put the international corporations first, and the workers are just the scum to be exploited by them in every part of the world, be it USA, Mexico, or Asia. Trump wants to end this, and wants the trade to benefit everyone, and specially the American people, instead of just the faceless international corporations.
In the light of the Hillary Clinton's secretive and illegal record of putting her work mail on private servers, including top secret government communications, it's even doubly cynical to be accusing Trump of "reckless disregard for our legal and political institutions".
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S/S2 series are pretty decent. I have no complaints about the build quality or design. They use a beautiful AMOLED screen which alone makes me overlook other shortcomings. The button is there, but that doesn't annoy me. The only problem with the Galaxy Tab S tablets is that Samsung puts in them effectively smartphone-grade SoC instead of tablet-grade SoC like in some other Google, Nvidia, or Apple tablets. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 is weeks away from being released. It will be interesting to see if Samsung learned anything from its past mistakes.
2) Of course the industry does not want consumers to have much storage on the mobile devices. They want you to backup your files to the cloud. They want you to pay for the streaming services, for connectivity, and for cloud storage. Finally, having too much storage for "media consumption" is begging for media obtained through P2P sharing, which is not what the industry really wants you to do. Having said that, having a bit of extra storage is not a big issue of Android tablets. Just get one with sd card slot. Nvidia Shield, Samsung Tab A/S2, etc.
Surface Pro is both, a bad tablet and a bad notebook. The keyboard bends like it is made from recycled cardboard and plastics, and the screen is too big, too thick, and too heavy to be used for traditional tablet applications. It sucks as a laptop, because the screen won't stand on the laps without extending the hinge, and it's still too unstable. Windows still remains a garbage tablet OS. And the most shockingly, the damn thing costs at least 1200USD (with the keyboard).
For the same money, I'd rather get a 2-in-1 convertible with a proper keyboard, like a Lenovo yoga, and a 200USD Android tablet to cover all possible usage scenarios.
You're exaggerating things a bit. Samsung Galaxy Tab A with 9.7 inch screen and sd card slot sells for under 300USD. Their flagship Galaxy Tab S2 sells for under 400USD. All android tablets start below 400USD. The 500USD tablet you're talking about is probably Apple Air, but that's far from "entry level". Apple's internals are the best right now.
Also what happened to the affordable ($300) 10.1" tablets?
Tablets are already priced fairly.
One thing you gotta realize is that the tablet manufacturers operate on very thin profit margins. People basically want a tablet that has internals that are at least as good as those of a flagship 500-800USD smartphone but with a great looking BIG screen. But you see, the market for the 600-800USD smartphones is largely driven by telecoms which either offer installment plans, lease plans, or heavily discounted smartphones to people who stick to longish contract plans. Since people will buy pretty much anything as long as you give them credit, that model results in very decent profit margins for the hardware manufacturers and the telecoms.
On the other hand, hardly any tablets are subsidized by the telecoms. In addition to that, most people don't view a tablet as a "must have" computing device, which results in a quite weak demand. As a result, the prices are already as low as it gets, specially on the Android market. While I can't think of a decent 300USD tablet with a big screen (you're welcome to check out used ones on ebay), there are a few quasi-decent 9-10.5 inch tablets on the market that will cost you less than 400USD. First is the Samsung Galaxy Tab S1/S2 series. If you need just a wifi model with the minimal storage, then those are normally sold under 400USD. They have many tradeoffs and shortcomings, but they do come with a beautiful 10 inch AMOLED screen and sd card slot. Another decent big tablet is the Nexus 9. While it does not use AMOLED screen or sd card, it does have better internals than the Galaxy Tab tablets.
If you lowered your requirement for the screen size down to 8-ish inch size, then there are actually plenty of tablets for under 300USD. Arguably, the best 8-inch tablet on the Android landscape is the Nvidia Shield K1 tablet. Even though it's almost two year old, it's SoC outperforms Samsung's flagship tablets, and the K1 costs only 200USD. Granted, it was noted that the K1 screen is not as accurate as the Samsung screens, if you care a lot about accuracy of colors on your photos.
That's a great though. Pretty much everyone these days has a notebook of some kind and a smartphone. These two are a must have for almost anybody out there. Now tablets are trying to squeeze in between those two devices. For most people, tablet is their third computing device, if not fourth. Since a tablet does not a must have device for most of people's computing needs, the demand is low, and the profit margins are thin. The tablet market is shockingly slow. A lot of tablet products are effectively on a two year long development cycle. Sometimes the vendors squeeze in a refreshed model after one year, but those are mostly cosmetically changed models, primarily for marketing purpose. I do find my tablets to be pretty useful. I laptop or a convertible can often be clumsy for using in the bed, on a sofa, or for watching videos while working out on a cardio machine in a gym. Tablets work fine for those purposes.
You are correct to note that Surface products are not exactly tablets, but more like notebooks with detachable keyboards. 2in1 products, but quite lousy or traditional tablet applications.
So our ipads mostly get used to watch Netflix while cooking dinner, playing music, checking news, and not much more. Much of the promise is ruined by a lack of mouse and keyboard.
So it seems like you're already using tablet as intended. Tablets are great for media consumption device, for browsing the web, social networks, or watching videos when you're on a living room sofa, on a bed, on a flight, or in the kitchen. Once you have an urge to use a keyboard, make yourself a favor and get a laptop. As the experience with the surface pro shows, once you make a tablet with a keyboard, big enough to replace a laptop, it becomes a lousy laptop and a lousy tablet, although some people do love those things.
And who said that hybrids are a good value? I don't believe that even a much cheaper Prius is a good value, considering that it's a compact car with a comfort, ride quality, and equipment levels of a Toyota Corolla but sold for at least 5-6K USD more. You need to drive that tin can for like 300,000 miles to finally make up for the price difference in saved fuel costs. The same reasoning applies to mid-size hybrids. At the time when a well equipped Honda Accord EX (without Navi or Leather seats) is sold for 25K, the Hybrid version sold for +35K is superfluous and not a very good value. Even a well equipped Accord EX-L with Navi is sold under 30K.
Honestly, if you spend more than 30 grand on a new car, you're already rolling in a lot of superfluous or unused features. My family members always end up buying well-equipped (not best equipped) midsize sedans like Toyota Camry and Honda Accord in the low 20Ks, and usually under the sticker price. And in fact, Camry and Accord have gotten too fat to even be called mid-sized. So if you want to save more money, go for a 20K compact car, like a Corolla, Focus, or Civic, etc. This still have four doors and five seats. Plenty for an average family, specially with younger children.
I am surprised you found no uses for your tablet. I own one of the larger tablets with a 10 inch screen, and for me it's basically a portable TV screen that I can use for:
1. Watching live and on-demand content of all ATT Uverse channels, and also Netflix, Amazon, youtube, etc from any room where there is no TV, from hotels, and from my gym as I am working out on a cardio, spinner bike, etc.
2. Watching any shows I have downloaded directly onto the device (I have tons) or ripped from a DVD in the gym, on a flight, in a hotel, and wherever I feel like.
3. Portable PC that's used strictly for web browsing, and other media consumption on a sofa, in my bed or in a cafe, basically whenever I don't really need a laptop keyboard.
I would say yes. I have a 802.11ac wireless network using a 3-stream router (AC1200) and a bunch of AC900 clients (2-stream 802.11ac) using 80MHz wide channel, and I am seeing wireless transfer file speeds of about 20MB/second if both computers are in the same living room with the access point. So that's already faster than 100Mbps Ethernet.
If I go to the second floor, then depending on time of the day, the windows file transfers can drop down to 5-10MB/second (I suppose it's thanks to interference from neighbors). So yes, 802.11ac at the right distances can give you performance better than 100Mbps ethernet, but the sad thing is that 100Mbps is very slow this day and age. I often move 10-20GB files between machines, and these speeds don't always cut it. Sadly, 802.11ac is still far behind what you can get from a wired gigabit ethernet.
You gotta be kidding. I have a 1200Mbps (AC1200, three streams) 802.11ac wireless network, and the fastest file transfer I have seen between two computers in the same living room was about 20MB/second using Windows file transfer (the PCs has 2-stream AC900 802.11ac cards). As soon as I leave the room, the file transfer speed gets down to about 100Mbps ethernet. Your gigabit Ethernet will still be faster than any wi-fi implementations for years to come.
That shouldn't be a problem. Simply turn off the wi-fi radios on the router, but leave DHCP and other services on (usually, there is no way to turn off those anyways), then setup your new wi-fi router as strictly an access point rather than a router. There is like a million tutorials out there. E.g.
Indeed, for most PC/tablet users who don't crunch numbers, don't game, and don't encode media files, the number one CPU hog is with web browser. Some of that problem can be mitigated by installing an adblocker, and configuring the flash and silverlight plugins to "always ask to activate". Noscript can improve speed further, but it's actually a big pain to use on daily basis.
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None at all. The military runs its own space program. The last time the military was interested in cooperation with NASA was when the shuttles were build. However, the military bras saw how expensive, unreliable, and pointless were the shuttles and lost all interest even before the first shuttle flew. (Those things had basically no military, civilian, or scientific application that could possibly justify their cost. The NASA built them anyways)
So you now don't get any news or sports channels, how great.
The way I see it, subscribing to netflix is very much like adding say HBO family of channels to your cable. You get a limited selection of content (when I search for a show I want to see on Netflix, I succeed about one time out of every eight-nine attempts) on both, and both give you a streaming app for the web browser or tablet. Big deal. Nothing special. And Netflix doesn't provide any content related to day to day news or say sports.
Meanwhile my cable bill is $220. per month.
I am calling BS on your claim. I have a Uverse "cable" too, and we pay $220 ish too, but this price includes a landline phone service, 40Mbps internet, and a selection of pretty much ALL news and sports channels out there, as well as all or almost all movie channels, and one foreign language channel we specifically pay 15 bucks a month to receive.
In my experience, while Netflix is cheap it doesn't have a whole lot of stuff on its streaming channel. Subscribing to Neflix is pretty much like subscribing to say HBO and Cinemax, in the sense that you get a few movies available on demand. Big deal. The Netflix selection of movies is pretty poor. My search on netflix succeeds about one time out of eight-nine attempts.
This sounds like the laundry list of a typical partisan republican nut (not only those in the senate). I assume the list continues with items like "unabated military spending", "the destruction of the Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare", "disbanding all unions", etc.
For those who haven't taken politics 101 in the high school, this is a good time to look up at the responsibilities of the American Vice President. (Hint, this is not the person who takes over president's duties when the president goes on vacation or a work trip).
The American vice president is technically legally allowed to retired into his Florida mansion immediately after his ticket wins the White House election, and then chill all day at the beach until one of two highly unlikely events happens. First, he is the first in line to succeed the president should anything happen to him or if the president resigns or is removed from the office. Second, the VP can break the legislative battles in the senate when the vote is split exactly 50-50, which you can imagine doesn't happen very frequently. In between of such highly unlikely events, the VP isn't supposed to do much. If he decides to chill all day at the beach, he can't be fired or sacked for having such a carefree life unless he somehow broke the law, because VP is an elected office.
So what good is the VP for? The VP is primarily a marketing figure. The Vice President has to be the side-kick of the presidential candidate during the election campaign. The VP candidate is always selected based on his ability to attract the electoral vote, rather than his ability to cast that precious tie-breaking senate vote (and usually, nobody chooses him based on the ability to lead the country because normally someone who is running for the presidential seat doesn't plan to die or retire soon).
For example, the Democrats often have a "south problem", because the American South isn't usually inclined to vote for a Democrats. So one type of electoral strategy is to have at least one southerner on the electoral ticket. Clinton had Al Gore (both were southerners) and Kerry selected John Edwards (a North Carolinian).
That's a great observation. We still have separation of powers between the branches of government at the federal and the state level (as well as between federal and state governments). The president will not accomplish "much". However, quite shockingly the Bush junior did drag the USA into the disastrous Iraq invasion, and he did manage to increase the defense spending from under 300 billions a year, to about 1 trillion a year the year he left the office. At the same time Obama did also accomplish quite a bit in the office. (some of that is positive, like The Affordable Care Act, which is why republicans hate it so much).
You confuse chaos with "change". Obama promised change, but except for the Affordable Care Act, we haven't gotten much else changed. The middle class is eroding, the racial tensions remain, and the American militarism continues unabated. We thank Bush for the disaster that was the Iraq invasion, but we can also thank Obama's administration for throwing more fuel into the middle-east and thus at least partially becoming responsible for the chaos that now goes on in Iraq, Syria, and Libya as well as for the rise of ISIS.
I don't see how Trump's policies will result in "chaos". The crux of Trump's policies is to bring security and prosperity to American workers. That means properly defending the US borders instead of spending billions of dollars on military adventures abroad. Reviewing highly unequal trade agreements with the likes of China, by which we must import pretty much everything from China without any obstacles (and while transferring truly valuable technology to them), while not being able to export almost anything in return. The Chinese for example will still buy our civilian aircraft, but they will not allow importing US made vehicles or items like chicken feet, both of which can be produced in USA at competitive prices.
People are tired of the elite ruling, making decisions based on cronyism and who lines their pockets. Trump isn't afraid to call them out.
I would love to believe that, but at the same time I am highly suspicious that bringing a corporate tycoon will not fix any problems with cronyism. The American corporate culture is highly corrupt. It's the culture that has given us the corporate scandals like the Enron, Madoff's pyramid, and the Long Term Capital Management. Trump himself is not out of the woods with regards to his "Trump University" business.
Trump never said that we should end all immigration. All he promised was to end the illegal migration into the USA by building the "wall" and banning the Muslims from entering the country. After winning the republican nomination, he backtracked on the second issue and said that only refugees from Syria and other trouble spots will not be allowed because we don't have an easy way to judge whether they have terrorist link. But now every leftie in the world (not just the US) as well as much of the news media has painted him as an isolationist racist who will halt all trade and end all exports and imports.
But in reality, Trump's trade plans are very simple. In the environment we already have, the government trade policies put the international corporations first, and the workers are just the scum to be exploited by them in every part of the world, be it USA, Mexico, or Asia. Trump wants to end this, and wants the trade to benefit everyone, and specially the American people, instead of just the faceless international corporations.
In the light of the Hillary Clinton's secretive and illegal record of putting her work mail on private servers, including top secret government communications, it's even doubly cynical to be accusing Trump of "reckless disregard for our legal and political institutions".
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S/S2 series are pretty decent. I have no complaints about the build quality or design. They use a beautiful AMOLED screen which alone makes me overlook other shortcomings. The button is there, but that doesn't annoy me. The only problem with the Galaxy Tab S tablets is that Samsung puts in them effectively smartphone-grade SoC instead of tablet-grade SoC like in some other Google, Nvidia, or Apple tablets. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 is weeks away from being released. It will be interesting to see if Samsung learned anything from its past mistakes.
2) Of course the industry does not want consumers to have much storage on the mobile devices. They want you to backup your files to the cloud. They want you to pay for the streaming services, for connectivity, and for cloud storage. Finally, having too much storage for "media consumption" is begging for media obtained through P2P sharing, which is not what the industry really wants you to do. Having said that, having a bit of extra storage is not a big issue of Android tablets. Just get one with sd card slot. Nvidia Shield, Samsung Tab A/S2, etc.
Surface Pro is both, a bad tablet and a bad notebook. The keyboard bends like it is made from recycled cardboard and plastics, and the screen is too big, too thick, and too heavy to be used for traditional tablet applications. It sucks as a laptop, because the screen won't stand on the laps without extending the hinge, and it's still too unstable. Windows still remains a garbage tablet OS. And the most shockingly, the damn thing costs at least 1200USD (with the keyboard).
For the same money, I'd rather get a 2-in-1 convertible with a proper keyboard, like a Lenovo yoga, and a 200USD Android tablet to cover all possible usage scenarios.
You're exaggerating things a bit. Samsung Galaxy Tab A with 9.7 inch screen and sd card slot sells for under 300USD. Their flagship Galaxy Tab S2 sells for under 400USD. All android tablets start below 400USD. The 500USD tablet you're talking about is probably Apple Air, but that's far from "entry level". Apple's internals are the best right now.
Also what happened to the affordable ($300) 10.1" tablets?
Tablets are already priced fairly.
One thing you gotta realize is that the tablet manufacturers operate on very thin profit margins. People basically want a tablet that has internals that are at least as good as those of a flagship 500-800USD smartphone but with a great looking BIG screen. But you see, the market for the 600-800USD smartphones is largely driven by telecoms which either offer installment plans, lease plans, or heavily discounted smartphones to people who stick to longish contract plans. Since people will buy pretty much anything as long as you give them credit, that model results in very decent profit margins for the hardware manufacturers and the telecoms.
On the other hand, hardly any tablets are subsidized by the telecoms. In addition to that, most people don't view a tablet as a "must have" computing device, which results in a quite weak demand. As a result, the prices are already as low as it gets, specially on the Android market. While I can't think of a decent 300USD tablet with a big screen (you're welcome to check out used ones on ebay), there are a few quasi-decent 9-10.5 inch tablets on the market that will cost you less than 400USD. First is the Samsung Galaxy Tab S1/S2 series. If you need just a wifi model with the minimal storage, then those are normally sold under 400USD. They have many tradeoffs and shortcomings, but they do come with a beautiful 10 inch AMOLED screen and sd card slot. Another decent big tablet is the Nexus 9. While it does not use AMOLED screen or sd card, it does have better internals than the Galaxy Tab tablets.
If you lowered your requirement for the screen size down to 8-ish inch size, then there are actually plenty of tablets for under 300USD. Arguably, the best 8-inch tablet on the Android landscape is the Nvidia Shield K1 tablet. Even though it's almost two year old, it's SoC outperforms Samsung's flagship tablets, and the K1 costs only 200USD. Granted, it was noted that the K1 screen is not as accurate as the Samsung screens, if you care a lot about accuracy of colors on your photos.
That's a great though. Pretty much everyone these days has a notebook of some kind and a smartphone. These two are a must have for almost anybody out there. Now tablets are trying to squeeze in between those two devices. For most people, tablet is their third computing device, if not fourth. Since a tablet does not a must have device for most of people's computing needs, the demand is low, and the profit margins are thin. The tablet market is shockingly slow. A lot of tablet products are effectively on a two year long development cycle. Sometimes the vendors squeeze in a refreshed model after one year, but those are mostly cosmetically changed models, primarily for marketing purpose. I do find my tablets to be pretty useful. I laptop or a convertible can often be clumsy for using in the bed, on a sofa, or for watching videos while working out on a cardio machine in a gym. Tablets work fine for those purposes.
You are correct to note that Surface products are not exactly tablets, but more like notebooks with detachable keyboards. 2in1 products, but quite lousy or traditional tablet applications.
So our ipads mostly get used to watch Netflix while cooking dinner, playing music, checking news, and not much more. Much of the promise is ruined by a lack of mouse and keyboard.
So it seems like you're already using tablet as intended. Tablets are great for media consumption device, for browsing the web, social networks, or watching videos when you're on a living room sofa, on a bed, on a flight, or in the kitchen. Once you have an urge to use a keyboard, make yourself a favor and get a laptop. As the experience with the surface pro shows, once you make a tablet with a keyboard, big enough to replace a laptop, it becomes a lousy laptop and a lousy tablet, although some people do love those things.
And who said that hybrids are a good value? I don't believe that even a much cheaper Prius is a good value, considering that it's a compact car with a comfort, ride quality, and equipment levels of a Toyota Corolla but sold for at least 5-6K USD more. You need to drive that tin can for like 300,000 miles to finally make up for the price difference in saved fuel costs. The same reasoning applies to mid-size hybrids. At the time when a well equipped Honda Accord EX (without Navi or Leather seats) is sold for 25K, the Hybrid version sold for +35K is superfluous and not a very good value. Even a well equipped Accord EX-L with Navi is sold under 30K.
Honestly, if you spend more than 30 grand on a new car, you're already rolling in a lot of superfluous or unused features. My family members always end up buying well-equipped (not best equipped) midsize sedans like Toyota Camry and Honda Accord in the low 20Ks, and usually under the sticker price. And in fact, Camry and Accord have gotten too fat to even be called mid-sized. So if you want to save more money, go for a 20K compact car, like a Corolla, Focus, or Civic, etc. This still have four doors and five seats. Plenty for an average family, specially with younger children.
Then there is something Samsung knows but Dell doesn't. Samsung introduces multiple tablet models every year.
I am surprised you found no uses for your tablet. I own one of the larger tablets with a 10 inch screen, and for me it's basically a portable TV screen that I can use for:
1. Watching live and on-demand content of all ATT Uverse channels, and also Netflix, Amazon, youtube, etc from any room where there is no TV, from hotels, and from my gym as I am working out on a cardio, spinner bike, etc.
2. Watching any shows I have downloaded directly onto the device (I have tons) or ripped from a DVD in the gym, on a flight, in a hotel, and wherever I feel like.
3. Portable PC that's used strictly for web browsing, and other media consumption on a sofa, in my bed or in a cafe, basically whenever I don't really need a laptop keyboard.
I would say yes. I have a 802.11ac wireless network using a 3-stream router (AC1200) and a bunch of AC900 clients (2-stream 802.11ac) using 80MHz wide channel, and I am seeing wireless transfer file speeds of about 20MB/second if both computers are in the same living room with the access point. So that's already faster than 100Mbps Ethernet.
If I go to the second floor, then depending on time of the day, the windows file transfers can drop down to 5-10MB/second (I suppose it's thanks to interference from neighbors). So yes, 802.11ac at the right distances can give you performance better than 100Mbps ethernet, but the sad thing is that 100Mbps is very slow this day and age. I often move 10-20GB files between machines, and these speeds don't always cut it. Sadly, 802.11ac is still far behind what you can get from a wired gigabit ethernet.
You gotta be kidding. I have a 1200Mbps (AC1200, three streams) 802.11ac wireless network, and the fastest file transfer I have seen between two computers in the same living room was about 20MB/second using Windows file transfer (the PCs has 2-stream AC900 802.11ac cards). As soon as I leave the room, the file transfer speed gets down to about 100Mbps ethernet. Your gigabit Ethernet will still be faster than any wi-fi implementations for years to come.
That shouldn't be a problem. Simply turn off the wi-fi radios on the router, but leave DHCP and other services on (usually, there is no way to turn off those anyways), then setup your new wi-fi router as strictly an access point rather than a router. There is like a million tutorials out there. E.g.
http://www.speedguide.net/arti...
Indeed, for most PC/tablet users who don't crunch numbers, don't game, and don't encode media files, the number one CPU hog is with web browser. Some of that problem can be mitigated by installing an adblocker, and configuring the flash and silverlight plugins to "always ask to activate". Noscript can improve speed further, but it's actually a big pain to use on daily basis.