My tablet experiances compared, Andriod, iOS, Windows RT

[TheAnimus]

So at the moment I've been rocking a Nexus 7, an iPad 2, and a Surface RT.

I don't like any of them, I have a Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook which is the shizzel, but lets talk about the tablets anyway.

Nexus 7. Its form factor is hard to not love. The iPad mini won't fit in a suit pocket, can't slip in a back pocket of jeans, can't fit in the lining of my smallest slr bag. It's great for that. But. It's really ****. The amount of apps that just don't work, are clearly designed with no thought in mind for the device, or worse yet confusing fragmentation in the store. Fruit Ninja for instance, how many damned versions are there, is it the HD or the XL?

Then we get on to simple issue of updates. Oh my how they kill it. I hadn't used it for a month, I had 35 updates pending, but I'd run out of local space, well actually I had almost 0.7gb, but that wasn't enough. Did it tell me that? Did it bollocks, it just ground to a complete halt.

So you delete some videos you've got on the device and it starts it update. Only for your desktop widgets not to work anymore. Then it changes around the shell interface, notifications and settings have jiggled, nothing has told me this, explained this, shown me the changes, It really is an awful beta product dressed up as production ready.

In terms of apps, compatability and the like its difficult, its poor. Web browsing is quite good, and I like the intituative "i'm going to zoom in actually because there are 2+ hyperlinks really close to where you tapped".

iPad. Odd one, it's size means its not slip in pocket, even if you get the mini. Watching videos on it is like trying to smuggle propaganda in to North Korea, your reminded constantly you should only be watching the propaganda available from their channels (iTunes). What if I've got a simple webcast I want to watch? Why can't I just copy it across without needing a computer?

This to me is the start of the collapse of the value of the iPad. If all you do is check facebook, type nothing more than a tweet, and only consume from within the apple ecosystem its fine. Try and use it for anything else, the world falls appart. There are some advantages thou to this, thanks to its munging and compressing of my photos, its very fast when viewing them, and makes a great picture frame, just a very glossy shiny one, with finger marks all over it. As for the folding cover / rest, I've yet to once find a situation a use for it where it isn't almost, but not quite, completely and utterly useless.

It does however have some of the best apps for fringe things. One for me is SkyDemon which is incredibly awesome for private pilots. In fact this one app is the only reason I still have the iPad. The main problem I have with the iPad is you can't do anything, its like been a second class citizen, constantly being told "oh nonono, thats not for you".

But then we have the worst bit about the iPad, how it truely reminds you its a secondary device. And update. What's that you say, you want iOS 5? Hope you've got a real computer near by. Oh and all your apps will probably disapear. Oh and any data on it, hope you where using the cloud!

I see the popularity of the iPad in the same way I do estenders and the collapse of the roman empire.

The Surface RT. If the iPad is a limited product, who wins over simpletons with its charm, the Surface RT is the kid at school that could never fit in with the in crowd. It tries, so hard, to lie about who it is. It cakes on layers of makup. It starts with such hip first impressions you are amazed, but then when something needs to be done, stumbles back, unvailing that its not a dumb ass, and it requires some inteligent conversation. Which would be fine on its own, it just wants to go from Simon Cowel to Shostakovich, which is incredibly jaring.

This is the complaing with the surface RT, take updates for instance. There are about 3 differen't places to look for and at them. What the hell. I love the fact it like the Nexus requires no PC to be fully used, but come on guys, you can do better than that.

It does thou completely win in the lifestyle catagory. Want to watch Top Gear on iPlayer, yup you can, its still not been activated on the iPad 'app' yet, but no worry, IE to the rescue, the flash based player works flawlessly, and with the screen split mode you can have skype on the right.

In terms of getting videos on, it wins hands down, built in file browser, joining a homegroup if you have one, or just copy to the microSD. Excellent.

The idea of the integrated keyboard in the cover is actually very good when your used to it. Sure you can't touch type in the dark easily, because the home keys are very hard to feel rather than press. But it does show its most useful functionality, you can use it as a lighweight PC, need to send a proper email, not a problem. You can also just plug in a USB keyboard if you've got any lieing about, no special perphirals needed. Because you know, office. This is the main killer thing for me, and puts it leagues above the other tablets, that and the whole Flash thing. Because despite all the things people say, its still not dead, HTML5 still hasn't offered the low cost ease of development.

The problem is the App store itself is kinda barren. There are already a few examples of incredibly elegent apps, such as Sky Scanner, but on the whole, there isn't much there. Which is also the problem.

The same way on the desktop eBay make you use their HTML, because its 'good enough', because the browser is fast enough and with flash good enough, no one feels compelled to make apps.

Because of the dire peformance of most mobile networks, the idea of making a nice native app, which holds your hand through all the asyncronous network calls is getting to the point of being essential. All 'top tear' websites have an app. Yet why make one for the Surface?

Ultiamtely all of these devices have flaws. I love the form factor of the nexus, its great for when you want something more than an an eReader, I love the esoteric apps of the iPad. But it's the surface that is the real all rounder.

The problem is, why buy a surface, over an ultrabook? For me it was the battery life, and the fact I wanted a companion device when I was using the ultrabook for coding on. But for someone who isn't needing to dual weild, I can't see why they would choose it.

[Bluecube]

You can update all iDevices over a wireless connection now with no computer required. Sounds as if you have an old version of iOS that doesn't allow that.