Which Tablet

[Bunjiweb]

I played with the full range of Elonex tablets at GSL 2011 and they all seemed terribly built, poorly implemented with crappy out-dated versions of Android.....which is why they are so cheap.

[[GSV]Trig]

Its not a case of the money, I want to get one and it do the job I want it to do, not get one because its a bit cheaper than something else, hell if it came down to the 64Gb 3G iPad2 then thats the one I'd get...

[scaryjim]

I played with the full range of Elonex tablets at GSL 2011 and they all seemed terribly built, poorly implemented with crappy out-dated versions of Android.....which is why they are so cheap.

I wouldn't go so far as terribly built - I've had some branded laptops that weren't much better in build quality. The implementation's reasonable as well, beyond a couple of niggling bits. And the etouch has at least been updated to Froyo - not the latest and greatest, sure, but perfectly functional.

But yeah, you get what you pay for: I wasn't suggesting Trig buys an Elonex eTouch, I was giving feedback on living day to day with an Android tablet - something I'm managing quite happily on an entry level one. It all comes down to usage patterns: do you need that full Windows experience out of the house. Personally I don't, and I have several desktops available to me when I'm at home, so I don't actually need a laptop for the out-and-about use I'd make of it. As I said earlier, the good uses are: web browsing, ereader, internet radio, music / video playback (although this will depend on codecs & file formats, of course), social media, casual gaming. Software dependant, it might be acceptable for light productivity use. The main advantage over any kind of x86 laptop is the portability: it's going to be half the depth and weight. The question is whether you can accept the compromises on productivity (and blogging / foruming of course: I would have struggled to type this response on my etouch!) as the pay off for the slightly smaller form factor (and longer battery life).

[leonkehoe]

You seem very reluctant to even entertain the idea of buying a HP TouchPad? It's a great device with a great operating system. You can learn more about it on HP's YouTube channel. It may not be the tablet for you but it's definitely worth a closer look in case you're missing out.

[[GSV]Trig]

The Iconia A500 looks ok but is Tegra based, cant seem to find a definitive answer to it being a hardware problem or software/encoding issue as far as HD lag goes..

Shame there isnt a decent hardware review site out there that could get a hand full of tablets and do a proper comparison/test to give some decent answers, I would of thought something like that would generate a lot of traffic as well...

[Bunjiweb]

Still think the transformer video issues are massively overblown. For me the only real "issue" is that it doesn't handle a wide range of codecs such as MKV and DivX out of the box, but there are apps that can, so It doesn't bother me.

I think essentially the Tegra 2 processor isn't properly optimised for heavily encoded HD video, but anything SD (say, up to 576p) is handled happily. Videos on YouTube play in "HD" mode quite happily since the 3.1 update.

Don't think you are going to find a suitable Android tablet if you aren't going to consider Tegra, that is until second gen / Tegra 3 tablets.

The HP Touchpad really is worth considering if you can live without the media connectivity. I was very impressed with the way it synced with the Palm Pre 3 when I saw it at GSL and would have certainly considered it over the Transformer if it wasn't for the lack of apps.

Ben

[Stringent]

Surprised no one has mentioned the PlayBook ...

I have an iPad, the flash thing isn't much of an issue, plenty of apps for kids to use and play to be honest. I also haven't seen a single person with an Android tablet. Well OK one person but it was some Chinese import thing at 7".

How about the Galaxy Tabs? The new ones are due out soon.

[SiM]

I also haven't seen a single person with an Android tablet.

Seen a fair few people with Archos and Galaxy Tabs on the tube. Many more ipads around though. I've never seen anything useful done on them though, just silly games.

[[GSV]Trig]

Ok, so whats the best Tegra 2 unit then, I still like the idea of the Transformer but theres a few reports of the build quality being a bit random over on XDA.

As for nobody mentioning the Playbook, theres probably a good reason for that

[[GSV]Trig]

Gonna give the Xoom a shot as its the only one that ticked most of my boxes...

Coming to a for sale thread near you soon

[Diggit]

I would take the xoom. Held it in my hands. It was quite fast an looked really nice.
Tablets are very good to just relax on the sofa surfing. My friend has one. He's loving it. I think I'll buy one too ant it will be the xoom.

[Deadlight]

Just out of curiosity, what do you want/need flash for? I thought I'd miss it on my iPad, but the only thing I've found which doesn't work is the CBeebies website, and to be honest there's loads of kids games very cheap/free anyway.

Agreed. Upgraded my IPad to a 2 earlier this year, and loving it.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

There are some new Archos tablets for under £300:

http://mobile-device.biz/content/item.php?item=30971

They use a 1.5GHZ OMAP4460 which means they probably have the fastest CPU of the current ARM based consumer tablets.

It seems that the tablets use an SGX540 graphics processor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_I...ts_OMAP#OMAP_4

Since the SGX540 is clocked at 380MHZ and the SGX543MP2 dual graphics processor at 200MHZ the G9 series maybe not be too far behind an iPad2 in graphics performance.

[[GSV]Trig]

I ended up with the 3g Xoom, have updated it to 3.1 using a mixture of the US 3.1 image and a few random bits.

Motorola support seems to suck the moose balls though and dont seem to care about the device outside of the US..

Hopefully things will pick up on the dev scene over on XDA and newer updates/ROM's will come out as Android gets updated..

[mrwhippy99]

Argh, I hate tablets lol...

Anyone else got a tablet and actually tried it in day to day use?

lad in work has one.
he'll sit squinting at websites and youtube while a 24" monitor clad pc sits idle just a few inches away.

it's an invented market and doomed to fail.
upgradability, none.
can do stuff my phone cant, nope.
can replace my pc, nope again.
price, twice that of a netbook in most cases...

[Deadlight]

it's an invented market and doomed to fail.
upgradability, none.
can do stuff my phone cant, nope.
can replace my pc, nope again.
price, twice that of a netbook in most cases...

LOL! Sorry, old chap, but you're post has 'FAIL' stamped all over it. Oh, and you forgot the 'IMO' bit.