Tablet PC Buying Questions

[DaFanMan]

Hey Guy's,

My daughter is going to get me a tablet pc for Christmas and I am totally out of the loop on them so I have a few questions if you dont mind.

First a list of the specs I "think" I want based on some quick research of them.

I am fairly sure I want a 10.1 inch screen for my vision issues the bigger the better.

I want the dual camera's

Wifi

touch screen

And I think I want one with a min of 16 gb ram (I think I have this terminology correct)

Usb connection

Beyond that I am clueless.. so now my questions:

Is there a big difference between Android versions and if so what?

How much processor speed is needed to run a tablet?

How much ram is needed to run a tablet?

Anyway, this is where I am at on tablet research as of now, my primary intrest in having one is for internet (I want to be able to use wireless internet for remote diagnostics and repair), browsing, photo bucket, ect..

Also would use it to take some pictues when on fishing trips, and misc other events (I would not expect them to be the quality of my Nikon DSLR)

The other qualifyer is I want to spend no more than $350.00 as my daughter is a recent college grad, living at home and just getting started earning as an adult.

Any recommendations for that price range, your personal opinions of your tablet and how it works for you would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Laterz,
dafanman

[Activate: AMD]

hrm, your budget kind of winds up making a few decisions for you. The thing is, the Acer Iconia is really the lowest-end Android tablet with Honeycomb worth considering. I believe there are cheaper, but even the Iconia has mixed reviews and thats 380$. The Transformer is $400 and probably the better choice between the 2. Overall the tablets are specced very similarly, mostly with dual cores around 1ghz

An interesting contender might be the new kindle fire at $200, but thats kind of a different animal

[zetachi]

another issue you raise is wireless internet. If you just get the wifi version than you need available wifi to get internet access. Here is a link to all the available tablets, price etc

Link to Black Friday deals

[drkCrix]

I have the Transformer + Dock/Keyboard and I love it, 16GB + 16GB SDCard + Frequent updates etc... (in the last update Asus included its own App back up utility similar to Titanium Backup)

One more thing to mention is that Google has said that this will be the first tablet to be updated to ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich or Google OS 4.0)

I honestly can't say anything bad about the unit

Here is what I found when i was shopping for mine

Ipad 2 (ehh Apple nuff said :P )
Samsung Tab 10.1 ( Ipad 2 running android IMO no wonder Apple sued them)
Motorola Xoom ( Nice tablet frequent updates, no real negatives)
Toshiba Folio 100 ( Thicker and heavier then all the other tablets, does have a user replaceable battery and comes with its own shock casing)
Acer Iconna Tab ( Felt cheap in my hands, at the time of purchase it still was without the 3.2.1 update and no word on when it was comming)
Asus EEE Pad Transformer w/Dock ( Nice solid feel, Styling different then the other tabs frequent updates, dock contains seperate battery for longer usage time, no real negatives)

In the end it came down to best bang for the buck and that went to the Asus bundle as it was cheaper (at the time) then the 16GB Xoom.

[DaFanMan]

Thank you gentlemen for your responses, I will look into all of those

[DaFanMan]

Does anyone have any imput on the Archos 10.1 Tablet?

Laterz,
dafanman

[Johnnyblazzwa]

archos 10(101) isn't supposed to be that bad but stay away from arnova made by archos, essentially a big mp3/video player

[DaFanMan]

Thanks Johnnyblazzwa:

I think I have narrowed my choices down to:

Motorola X Zoon 32gb

Toshiba Thrive 16gb ( I like the idea of user replaceable battery on this one)

Lenovo K1 Idea pad 32gb

Viewsonic G tablet 16gb

Comments on these 4 gentlemen??

Thanks,

Laterz,
dafanman

[Johnnyblazzwa]

i'd be tempted by the toshiba price point(299 shipped in the us ) and the fact that they make solid computers. thats my uneducated opinion cause i really don't know what hardware any of these devices are running. i own a toshiba tablet pc so i may be biased.

also i hear the new samsung tablet is essentially a ipad without the parasite apple os(android). might be worth checking out if in your price range

personally i'm waiting for either another shot at a 100$ hp touchpad or a playbook if blackberry ever discounts them to the 200$ range

[DaFanMan]

Johnny,

Thanks again for your imput.

I am going to go with the Toshiba Thrive

Laterz,
dafanman

[Activate: AMD]

personally i'm waiting for either another shot at a 100$ hp touchpad

just barely worth it at $100. The lack of apps completely strangles the device. You can make some tweaks to improve performance and usability, something that was a major issue out of the box, but the lack of quality tablet apps is torture. CM9 (ICS) can't be ported to it soon enough!


Good luck with your choice DaFanMan!

[Johnnyblazzwa]

just barely worth it at $100. The lack of apps completely strangles the device. You can make some tweaks to improve performance and usability, something that was a major issue out of the box, but the lack of quality tablet apps is torture. CM9 (ICS) can't be ported to it soon enough!


Good luck with your choice DaFanMan!

yeah i'm not too picky because i already have a windows tablet that i'm happy with and really don't need another tablet. touchpad just has great batt life vs my libretto and paying a 100 dollars for it means i'm not going to be scared to throw it around or take it outdoors. 100 bucks gets you an mp3 player so i can deal with no apps as long as it surfs

[DaFanMan]

Thanks Activate: AMD,

As this will be my first tablet and ive now had a chance to really lock down on some reviews I feel like it will be a good first tablet for me.. If they ever get NTFS file system working on it so much the better, otherwise I will get an additional external hd and format it.

I will repost my impressions of the tablet once ive had it an used it for abit.

One quick question: as i understand it , rooting is much like modding a bios?
If one roots their tablet is there a way it can be unrooted back to the way it was delivered in the event of having to send in for warranty service?

Thanks guys for all of your input.

Laterz,
dafanman

[Activate: AMD]

yeah i'm not too picky because i already have a windows tablet that i'm happy with and really don't need another tablet. touchpad just has great batt life vs my libretto and paying a 100 dollars for it means i'm not going to be scared to throw it around or take it outdoors. 100 bucks gets you an mp3 player so i can deal with no apps as long as it surfs

Yea, I bought mine mainly for the hardware, hoping someone would eventually port android to it. The thing is, aside from the lack of apps, the way the OS handles multitasking and other things is really really nice.. its kind of a shame really

Thanks Activate: AMD,

As this will be my first tablet and ive now had a chance to really lock down on some reviews I feel like it will be a good first tablet for me.. If they ever get NTFS file system working on it so much the better, otherwise I will get an additional external hd and format it.

I will repost my impressions of the tablet once ive had it an used it for abit.

One quick question: as i understand it , rooting is much like modding a bios?
If one roots their tablet is there a way it can be unrooted back to the way it was delivered in the event of having to send in for warranty service?

Thanks guys for all of your input.

Laterz,
dafanman

Rooting is kind of like a modded bios to some extent, but its more of a software hack then a firmware hack: it basically gives you admin access to your device so you can put things on there that the phone normally doesn't allow you to. Unfortunately you can't do the equvalent of just hot-flashing your bios chip in another board and putting it back in yours if you ever need to send it in for warranty service. Un-rooting is kind of ambiguous.. It might depend on your device. If you can find the specific info you need on the Thrive, then you might try looking for info about how to un-root cell phones. The specifics might change, but you should be able to get a decent idea about the process. As it is, tablets are basically just phone SoC's powering oversized screens.

[Johnnyblazzwa]

just a heads up, blackberry playbooks are now on sale 200 bucks for the cheapest 16g. Probably not as good as the thrive but very well could be the better value. note its a 7 inch tablet(with similar res) albeit the touch capabilities extend off the screen. Very well might get one