Tablets

Note 8 is down to 329 on amazon. Pretty good deal.

Amazon.com: Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 (16GB, White): Computers Accessories

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Good news! The Android 4.4 update on the Nexus 10 also breaks Exchange email accounts. Well done Google! And don't worry about communicating to your customers as to what is broken, why, and when it will be fixed on your flagship devices. We're perfectly happy sitting here in the dark for weeks, waiting for you to get your shit together.

Android 4.4 KitKat Problems Plague Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 5 Users

i mentioned this in the chromecast thread but target is selling kyocera hydro android phones for $10 this week, normally $79 or $149. the great thing is it comes with a power adapter and cable, which is 100% compatible with nexus7 (and probably 4, 5, 8, etc). so for less than the price of an actual nexus charger you get a free android ips color phone.

So I picked up a Dell Venue 8 Pro on the $199 deal from Microsoft and I freakin love it. I know it's cool to hate on Windows 8, but I can do so much more on this thing considering it is basically a full mini PC. I have used Android for years, and still love it, but I am having a ton of fun with this with full installs, playing Skyrim, Arkham Asylum, Mafia2, and Guild Wars 2 all at 30fps. Of course this is with a keyboard folio I picked up on Amazon for $10. Damn thing can even emulate android with genymotion/bluestacks. And you can Chromecast the Chrome browser on it. If Windows can keep this up, they could probably get back into the whole tablet game.

I am currently looking for a tablet to do some reading and just general browsing. Looking to spend 100 - 200, prefer android but open to whatever. Are the Galaxy Tabs worth it for simple browsing and reading?

Stave_sl said:

So I picked up a Dell Venue 8 Pro on the $199 deal from Microsoft and I freakin love it. I know it's cool to hate on Windows 8, but I can do so much more on this thing considering it is basically a full mini PC. I have used Android for years, and still love it, but I am having a ton of fun with this with full installs, playing Skyrim, Arkham Asylum, Mafia2, and Guild Wars 2 all at 30fps. Of course this is with a keyboard folio I picked up on Amazon for $10. Damn thing can even emulate android with genymotion/bluestacks. And you can Chromecast the Chrome browser on it. If Windows can keep this up, they could probably get back into the whole tablet game.

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I haven't looked into the Dell tablets. Could you share some more information, hows the feel, weight, battery life?

Kaita_sl said:

I haven't looked into the Dell tablets. Could you share some more information, hows the feel, weight, battery life?

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Just under 1 pound, great backing kind of a rubberized texture feel, holds great in the hand, feels pretty premium. The screen is about the size of a Nexus 7 with a pretty minimal sized border. It is super thin too. This thing has a 400nit display. I don't know much about what that means but apparently it is a good feature. The screen on this thing when you turn it on full brightness, is amazing. Has a Quad Core Intel 1.8ghz and 2gb ram, comes in 32 and 64 with SD card and USB OTG capable.

Battery life is pretty decent, supposedly 10 hours nonstop of HD video looping. Playing PC games it seems pretty good, but I have yet to run it dead. It does get a bit warm in the upper right hand corner when gaming, but apparently the intel chip in this is rated up to 90c, and runs about 60c when gaming from what I understand. It gets warm but kind of to be expected considering what it is processing. I am still amazed this thing can play GW2 on low settings at 30fps+ even in town. I do hear the optionally purchased capacitive stylus is not that good but apparently it is a software issue and they are working on fixing it, but I don't have this anyways.

I would say this is Windows 8's Nexus 7. You can pick up a 32gb still for just above $200 if you watch for deals which happen fairly often. If you are a heavy keyboard user you may want to look at the T100 but then you're up in the almost $400 price range. The Venue 11 is supposed to be pretty sweet too, apparently you can get them with i5's but then you are up in the $500+ range. Dollar for dollar though this is probably your best bang for your buck right now if you are wanting to get into the Windows 8.1 tablet scene.

lanx_sl said:

can someone give me a quick education on surface? my wife saw someone use it and now she wants one.

aside from all the news of surface sold out

surface
surface rt

surface 2 rt
surface 2
surface 2 pro

just like why should i buy the surface 2 instead of saving lots to get a surface 1 at a deal, and will rt kill me(wife) in useage?

i bought her an ipad2 2 years ago, i guess that'll now be converted into the htpc big screen remote, ha.

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I ended up buying my girlfriend a Surface 2 for christmas. The Surface and Surface RT are the same thing, RT refers to the operating system which is basically Win8 for ARM so you can't install 3rd party or x86/x64 programs. The Surface Pro is a ultrabook/tablet hybrid that uses an intel chip runs a full Win8. The numbering is just the generation, same as iPhones, 2 is the newer one and next year will be the 3.

Personally I think the 2 is worth the money because of the extra power, the 1080p screen, and USB 3.0. But your mileage may vary. I also opted for the 32GB model because we have a NAS, passport drives, and you can put up to a 64GB microSD card in it for more storage. Unless this will be her main "computer" the 64GB model isn't really worth the extra money.

lanx_sl said:

can someone give me a quick education on surface? my wife saw someone use it and now she wants one.

aside from all the news of surface sold out

surface
surface rt

surface 2 rt
surface 2
surface 2 pro

just like why should i buy the surface 2 instead of saving lots to get a surface 1 at a deal, and will rt kill me(wife) in useage?

i bought her an ipad2 2 years ago, i guess that'll now be converted into the htpc big screen remote, ha.

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I don't know a whole lot about Surface, but I can tell you this, avoid RT like the plague.

RT's suck because you basically cant use any apps but the ones that microsoft allows.

Although you can jail break them supposedly to make them load regular windows programs.

Also the RT's cant use the pen stylus they are stuck with the ipad type capacative stylus.
That's enough to never touch an rt right there imo.

Probably the best thing to find out is what she saw them doing that interested her. Don't want to get an RT device and discover she was looking to run x86 desktop software (e.g. Photoshop)

lanx_sl said:

i really don't know why she wants it, currently she carries around an ipad2 (personal) so she can watch hulu/netflix when she travels games/blah blah. along with mandatory carry of a work ipad3 and a 6lb dell laptop.

looks like i'mma gonna avoid RT like everyone suggests, and it seems that the "pro" is the regular win8 kind.

heck i was just gonna buy her an ipad mini cuz she said one was nice, i'm like ok... whatever (she's already destroyed a kindle, similar size). really thought she'd just be all apple, she hates using my galaxy3. (but we have win7 home computers, just cuz i won't have apple computers in my house)

too bad i don't see any surface deals, either the 1 or the new 2. (pro)

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If you are after is a tablet, then the Surface is a very nice machine, and worth the money, there is no reason to "avoid it like the plague". Like I said, I did a bunch of research and ended up buying the Surface 2 over the iPad Air. I haven't used it much beyond setting it up(christmas gift), but I liked what I saw so far. If she wants a replacement for her iPad the only worry is any apps she can't live without that aren't available for windows. If she wants a laptop/tablet hybrid that is another thing altogether.

The original surface (RT) was on sale for $200 on black Friday.. but sold out quickly. In my opinion, the surface is much better than the ipad, at a lower cost.

This guy made a couple of cool surface videos. These videos illustrate Microsoft's biggest problem (and Apple's greatest strength)... marketing. If I had known that the Surface had all these features, I would have gotten one a long time ago. Sadly, MS decided to market it by having kids dance around clicking the keyboard in and out.

Why I love my Microsoft Surface RT - YouTube

Microsoft is spending something like $500 million on marketing the Surface this holiday season

So I went out and splurged on a Nexus 7 for myself. I really like it. Great screen and battery life as well. My only complaint stems from an sketchy unresponsive screen. This happens randomly (like once every 10 hours or so) but the screen will only register some of the swipes and taps. It takes like 2 to 3 taps for it to register. If I reset the tablet then everything goes back to normal. Anyone here experienced anything similar to that?

Got a Surface Pro 2 w/ 8GB RAM a couple weeks ago. Been using it pretty much non-stop over the holidays. I gotta say its pretty fucking sweet, but I think that's because I'm pretty much the ideal user for this particular piece of hardware. Most of my computer usage falls in 3 categories: Windows only 3D CAD software, the Adobe product line and gaming. Having a tablet that can do all of these handily basically makes the Surface my dream machine.

Having a portable tablet so I can go to client meetings and present our work directly in the CAD program we are working in is a godsend. The performance, while obviously not as good as a workstation, is more than adequate to do these types of demos and making simple modifications to our 3D models on the spot.

For the Adobe stuff (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc), I've long been a user of Wacom tablets for drawing, and having one built right into the screen is phenomenal. I can easily do sketches and take notes on the go, the pressure sensitivity and accuracy seems comparable to the Intuos tablet I use normally, but with the added benefit of being as portable as a regular pen + paper sketchbook.

Finally gaming, obviously no one is going to argue that this is a replacement for a gaming PC/laptop, but being able to run most of my Steam library adequately on a tablet is awesome. My gf and I took the train to visit my parents over the holiday and had a great time playing hot seat Civilization for most of the trip, if you didn't know any better you have assumed the game was optimized for touch screens. Taking turns and just passing the screen back and forth between each other was actually a superior way of playing for that particular title.

All in all highly recommended, the only gripes and some quirks with running full desktop apps on a touch screen, and some applications that don't have very good support for UI scaling, easily worth that trade off though for the mobility.