Decisions, Decisions

[billroper]

daisy_knotwise always despairs of Christmas shopping for me, so I have given her a giant hint. My several years old Toshiba Thrive tablet has become a dinosaur which I seldom use, largely because it is slow and dim. Eventually, I will want to use the tablet for reading while I'm on the exercycle, because I will -- sooner or later -- run out of well-aged Time magazines. And I would like to use the tablet as a remote in the recording studio.

So Gretchen is good with the idea of a new tablet being my big Christmas present, but that leaves the question of what to get. There are a number of options:

Apple iPad Air: the older version of the tablet is cheaper. Also slower. But it's got a nice screen and reasonable battery life. Of course, I have virtually nothing running on the Apple ecosystem other than my largely abandoned iPod Touch.

Apple iPad Air 2: because newer is better. Or at least faster. But it's still not on the same ecosystem as the other devices around the house.

Nexus 9: also new, on the Android ecosystem and running the new Lollipop release. Largely comparable to the Air 2, but it's got a slightly smaller screen. A large screen is good, especially for reading on the exercycle and use as a remote.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S: bigger screen. And brighter. Only available with a limited 16 GB of RAM, but unlike the tablets above, it has an SD card slot. Loaded up with Samsung bloatware, but basically Android and it should get a Lollipop update soon.

High-end Chinese Tablet: you can get these with a big screen, reasonable RAM, and SD card slots. But which software will fail to run? And OS updates? Challenging, at best. But they're cheap, less than half of what you'd pay for the tablets above.

So I'm rolling the question around in my head.

What do you think?

Comments

[cainle-bean.livejournal.com]

I am only experienced with the Kindle Fire. I love it. Its an older generation, but works well for what I am doing. I did not want to go with the tiny tablet, since I want to be able to stream movies as well as read on it.

I have 1 apple item in the house. Its the Ipod.

I have a friend who has a ipad and she literally stopped using it in favor of her asus tablet and kindle.

[archangelbeth]

Being a charter member of the Cult of Mac (my holy symbol iPhone can make vampires flee!), I'd say go with one of the iPads. My spouse uses his for reading a lot and from what I've seen, the screen is sharper than many of the Androids -- which is important when reading, obviously. I don't know what sort of software it'd have for being a remote for non-Apple devices (e.g., my iTunes and the Apple TV), though.

So my suggestion would be to find examples of the things you're looking at and play with them a little in the store, so you can actually see what visual differences there might be, reading-wise, and do a search on the software that you'd want for recording-remotes to see if there's anything available.

(The newest Kindles don't have as much of the annoying "OMG KILL IT" page-inversion, these days; you might want to go with a Paperwhite for reading -- or a Nook of some sort, if they have similar visual updates when "turning" pages -- and have the remote-control side of things as a separate device.)

[hms42]

I have devices of both platforms and I tend to use them both as ereaders. As for which device to get, I would go into a local store that sells them and see what feels comfortable to you when working with their floor model. That might eliminate one or more choices for you.

[spiritdancer]

Well, our family is solidly in the Android camp :-) I'm not interested is spending more money for a device that makes me go thru finding (and buying) my preferred apps or some alternative. Then again, I am annoyed at the number of apps/services that are Apple only, with no Android option. Come on, the Android market isn't small!

That being said, we have two Nexus tablets, and a Kindle Fire HD currently in use (plus two Nook Color tablets that see occasional use by the kids, and two semi-retired Galaxy S3s). We've been very happy with both of the Nexus tablets. The Kindle is a very locked down version of Android. For anything other than occasionally reading a book or magazine, I leave it as a kid's gaming device.

Daniel currently is using the Nexus 10 (two years old, made at that time by Samsung, IIRC). Battery life is still good, and there haven't been any particular issues with inadequate memory (it's has 32gb, I think). Screen brightness & resolution are adequate (considering it's two years old, and what was available at the time). The biggest problem has been a very slow recharge with the supplied cable (plugged in, the battery kept discharging as long as the screen was on :/) . We swapped to a pogo cable, which works better.

I'm using the Nexus 7, purchased last year. Slightly smaller is easier on the carpal tunnel. Screen resolution & brightness are excellent. Again, 32gb internal storage has given me no problems. Daniel tells me that the Nexus 9 screen is not quite as good - a bit lower resolution, I think. He's talked about tracking down another Nexus 7 :-)

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

I admit, I look askance at the no-name Chinese tablets. Their only advantage is price, and I don't see that as a controlling factor when you're buying something that will be used on a daily basis over a long period of time.

For me, I'm in the Android world. My phone is a Nexus 5, and my tablet is a Nook rebooted into full Android 4.4 from N2A. So if I were buying now, I'd go with the Nexus. Having an SD slot is cool, but not at the top of my wish list.

But we're also looking at the idea of replacing my mother's ten-year-old laptop with a tablet, and leaning toward an iPad Air for that, mainly because of its reputation for ease of use. She'll be trying out Sharon's iPad when we see her at Thanksgiving.

Ecosystem FTW

[lonotter.livejournal.com]

Go with the ecosystem you know, unless there is some compelling reason to join us on the fruity side. It doesn't sound like the screen differences are that significant.

I assume you've already checked availability and reviews of the appropriate apps for the studio stuff under both systems. If not, do that before deciding.

[gorgeousgary]

I have an Asus Transformer TF700 (Android) that I'm happy with. When I was tablet-shopping, it just edged out the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The Asus had better screen resolution, and IIRC purported to have better sound/speakers. OTOH, the Samsung I looked at could run two apps in a side-by-side view, which would have been a useful feature the times I have used my tablet for work.