Tablets

So I'm thinking it might be true, small will be the new big. The next bunch of Motorola smartphones, possibly at Google's urging but in any case with their compliance, will NOT be dinner plates. Apparently the Droid Razr M is about right, according to whoever is the dude at Motorola (and let's just ignore the fact it was Steve Jobs who first said no one'd want a phone bigger than whatever the iphone was) and it seems to me I might agree. My Galaxy S3 is great, I use it every day, but mostly as a media device, mostly for reading. And it is the tiniest bit unwieldy as a telephoning phone. I'm wondering if for all this daily media stuff I might not get myself a tablet instead.

If a tablet just replaced my normal smartphoning, I'd use it to read news feeds (and sometimes copy articles to documents), surf websites (including google for word definitions and fact checking), and read ebooks. Do tablets do other stuff?

I'm thinking maybe a 32Gb Nexus 7 (with wifi, certainly, and I possibly won't care if it has 3G or not). Presumably one would have to find a suitably international after-market firmware too.


So what kind of tablets are everyone using?

We have an iPad 2 and then an off-brand Android tablet (that only works when plugged into a power source, lol).

Basically, my iPad and my iPhone can do pretty much the exact same things (save making phone calls), except it is much nicer watching movies and surfing websites on the iPad. Certain games, if you like such things, also offer much smoother play on the iPad. Likewise, certain apps just feel better on the iPad. Typing is much easier, so anything that involves writing works better on a tablet.

I use 3 G all the time on the phone, but hardly ever on the iPad. Basically it is too big for me to take it out when the subway is at maximum capacity on my morning and afternoon commute, so I don't usually even bother bringing it with me. The iPad comes in really handy, however, on long trips -- train, plane (where they won't let you play on your phone, but they have no problem with tablets, which they seem to consider to be computers), car, etc. You just need to make sure you have the media you'll need loaded up in advance -- and 3G isn't fast enough to stream movies or anything like that anyhow.

They are also, no kidding, a parent's best friend. Our iPad is like the nanny I could never afford, lol. It can keep the kids entertained for hours with wholesome educational apps. My 5 year old has learned about 100 Chinese characters with an iPad learning program. The cell phone screen is too small for kids to really manipulate effectively (they can play fruit ninja and angry birds, but nothing complex) but the iPad is just the right size.

It can also be a cool teaching tool. I know teachers who hook the iPad up to the screen in class and use interactive learning apps. I haven't done it so far because I don't have the adapter, but I might get one for next semester. Don't think you can do that with a phone.

I'm going to get a 7" android, several of which are on the market well under $100 now. This is just for a big Eurotrip, as I've found my Macbook too heavy and cumbersome. I only need emails, access to accounts and TOURIST INFO in places where my ten words of Italian/turkish etc. don't do the trick. So cheap.

watch out with the cheap tablets... you really get what you pay for!
we got a  lepad in the office as a test machine for some android apps and that thing was frustratingly slow. After a few weeks, we realized that the money we saved on the price was wasted on waiting for things to load. dropped the damn thing and got a samsung instead which was pretty much as expensive as an iPad. At least, it ran properly

watch out with the cheap tablets... you really get what you pay for!

Caveat Emptor naturally. It will essentially be a toy/throwaway, and my very tech savvy 14 year old can do the market research!

How are these things for ebook reading? They're backlit, obviously, but the only e-readers I've ever used have been my phones so I don't know if it'd be problem. I can read for hours at a time on the phone, but I wonder if that's not because they're small screens. (I don't know why I think that, but I do know I rarely last more than 5 minutes reading ebooks on a PC monitor.)

Go with e-ink for serious reading. Using a phone your eyes are able to flick away from the screen but on monitors and tablets not so much. It tires you easily. Web browsing is no problem but if you want to read a novel for 4 hours at a time, get e-ink.

As for tablets, I use an iPad 2. Still feel no need for upgrading. Gave my old laptop away as I do all my heavy lifting on a desktop and everything else on the iPad, except for reading novels. I use a Kobo Mini for that. Fits in my back pocket, very light, page turning is fast and the battery seems to last forever.

Same as Stil, I use an e-reader for all my real reading (that is, not webpages and quickie magazine articles). I use the most basic Kindle, $69 dollars I think. I also use my desktop for all of my serious computing, phone for commuting, and iPad when I want to sit in bed and watch a movie or play a game. I never used my laptop so I let my husband have it.

Hmm, well, limited functionality then. The small screen of the smartphone is not ideal for websurfing, but for everything else it works fine. I might not be able to justify the price of a tablet.

Then again, the Nexus 7 is cheap enough.

To 7" or 10", that is the question.

If you're really looking for something to read on, why not buy an actual e-reader?

I read tons and the Kindle is quite possibly my favorite thing that I own out of all my gadgets (although I am quite fond of my new iPhone). It is cheap, easy on the eyes, and lightweight. I can fit it in my pocket. It holds more books than my bookshelves. The books themselves are also cheap, thanks to Chinese piracy. 

If you're surfing the web out and about, you'll probably use your phone. If you're doing it at home, you'll probably use your actual computer. I use my tablet to surf the web when the kids or my husband is on my desktop, or when I don't feel like sitting at my desk. It is a fun toy, but I don't use it every single day like I do my phone and my e-reader.

I find these days when reading novels there'll be things I want to check, like meanings of words or the nature of objects or sometimes events or places that get referenced. Like, a while back I wanted to know what an M4 carbine looked like since the main dude in the story had one. And then another book had a passing reference made to Katyn Forest and I wanted to know what that was. Plus sometimes it's interesting to find maps--like when I was reading Generation Kill I wanted to know where the places where and Google Maps was interesting for that. Google actually woks better on my phone than it does on the PC (which is entirely weird since the phone and the PC go through the same connection...). Was hoping a tablet would do all that...

:c

Well, a tablet would do that pretty well. There are some pretty cool fact-finding apps (do they have them for Android? Stuff like the Wikipedia app and Wolfram Alpha?). E-readers do usually come with built in dictionaries and some of them can surf the web, but in a very rudimentary fashion, but they of course are rather limited by nature.

I like to look stuff up when I'm reading too but usually I'll just wait till I'm near my desktop. I really really love e-ink so it is worth it to me to sacrifice that convenience.