I know that the iPad is the yardstick, but you also pay much bigger $$ for them like all Apple products. They are practically giving way the Blackberry Playbook right now. Is it that bad?
If going Apple and iPad, is the basic one the one to get or do you go with the ones with more memory.
If not going iPad, what are the best of the rest?
Usage - a second mobile computer for the house. Most likely wifi only - telco phone data plans in Canada a complete rip-off( that’s a whole other story). Potentially a replacement for lap-top when traveling.
I just got an iPad and LOVE it. I got the Wi-fi only one, 32G.
I’m a big BB user (my company only supports BBs) so I looked at the Playbook. I tried it out at a Staples. It was horrible. I didn’t like the UI at all.
I like the simplicity of the iPad and the range and number of apps you can buy. I will use it for: everyday reading (WSJ, NYT and books), movies and music when I travel (a lot), Skyping my family when I travel, and letting the kids use it (a few games, but also educational things, like math and art…which amazingly they love).
We also have an iMac and I use iTunes for all my music, etc. making the iPad a no-brainer.
I think the Android tablets are worth looking at if you’re not married to Apple.
Probably the most useless product advice/help you’ve ever been given…but beggers can’t be choosers
RIM as a company appears to be circling the toilet; I don’t have high hopes for their long-term health and / or survival, which bodes ill for the Playbook to be worth the money unless there is something about the tablet in it’s current state that really appeals to you (I can’t imagine what that might be after playing with one, but different strokes and all that…)
On the low end you’ve got the Fire and Nook; the Fire was released with a boatload of problems and Amazon has promised to fix at least some of those that can be fixed with a software update sometime after Christmas but you’re stuck with the hardware-related ones (like no volume control buttons on a media playback device) for the duration. The Nook appears to have fewer problems and has a slight edge in hardware specs if those matter to you.
The problem with the 10 inch class tablets is that they cost close to what a base model iPad costs; if you hold the opinion that an ipad is the “gold standard” and you are willing to spend about that amount of money anyway, you might as well get one.
As far as how much storage to get, that depends on usage - movies are the big user of space, so if this is intended to hold multiple movies on top of everything else, then 32 or 64 is the way to go; otherwise I think 16gb should be fine. It’s a shame that 3G data plans in Canada are so expensive, as I think my 3G ipad2 is the best navigation device I’ve ever used but I’ve got a grandfathered unlimited data plan that I carried over from my ipad 1.
I have a coworker who loves his ipad, but he’s been an apple fan for a while. I’m bored of the UI, but it definitely works well. The ipad is SOLIDly heavy. The galaxy 10" tab is amazingly light - I bought one for my sister for Christmas. I think the Samsung Galaxy is the only real alternative to the ipad but it carries a hefty price.
I picked up the playbook while it was on firesale (I don’t think it is anymore) and its pretty lousy. No native email app (just opens the browser), I can crash the browser (need to reboot to recover), the BB store is terrible and it doesn’t have a2dp stereo bluetooth stereo support. (Who plugs in headphones anymore?) From some friends I know who work at RIM, they’re suffering the same issues as we did when I was working at Nokia. Great hardware, terrible software. So I’ll give them a chance with their new OS. Oh right and boot time is horrible - it must take more than a minute for the thing to load, not to mention a power button which has absolutely no feedback so you’re never sure if you actually turned it on or not. I keep telling myself its an overpriced picture frame at worst. For my uses 32GB isn’t enough. Oh yeah, there is NO Angry Birds available for BB. What kind of platform is this?
Btw, I much prefer laptops to tablets - typing is definitely faster on the tablet vs. smartphones but I’ll take my Thinkpad any day. If you travel a lot I would probably pick up a mac air/samsung series 9. I’m definitely thinking of one or the other whenever my thinkpad craps out. Personally I don’t like Apple but since my gf switched and is happy, I may as well switch too. Darn peer pressure. (My dad has been a Mac nut since the Mac Plus in '84.)
Steve,
I was debating which tablet to get not that long ago and in my case my choices were limited to Ipad2 and Playbook (using AMEX points so “free”).
Obviously the Playbook was less “expensive” (i.e. AMEX points) so I was hesitant. After some research plus starting an email thread here on the Lavender room I went with the Ipad2 (my second Apple product, first one being a Ipod Nano several years ago) because at least I want a product that is being supported (the list of apps on the Playbook is quite pathetic) with a company that does not have their head in their a$$ like RIM.
I have not tried it yet since Santa is coming this weekend but while it is not a major thing, I was expecting a lighter tablet.
Now if you are NOT with Rogers and you are considering switching, you can get the Samsung Galaxy “for free”.
We just had a thread on this, do a search for Playbook. I wrote up a fairly long post comparing several.
At the base of my recommendation is RIM is slowly dying, as Chris said. They just reported a 71% profit loss. Their OS and app store sucks. They don’t have the cash to continually invest in a failed product. Even their phones are losing market share in the enterprise.
You need to define “use around the house” Is it surfing, Facebook, Twitter and email? If so, you don’t need the horsepower of a laptop. I just brought my iPad with me for a trip home and it was fine for what I use it for on a daily bases, which is the list above. I have a Jetstream (Android OS) for work which is OK. It is heavy and I need to update the OS (I’m running a pre-release). It doesn’t handle HTML 5.0 well which means reading Facebook pages on it sucks. Also the scrolling is really annoying. That could be a problem with the OS version I’m running though. I go back and forth on liking it.
Given the choice if I could only have one I’d go with the iPad. If I could supplement my iPad with a second, I’d go with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 inch. Very lightweight, nice screen and sleek.
I’m not a fan of the Nook. I’m not convinced a tablet is the best investment for Barns and Nobel and I’m also not sure they can make a long term commitment to it. The Fire has the benefit of Amazon backing it and they will continue to throw money at it. It runs on Android so you get the benefit of their app store. My brother has one that I got to play with some more this past weekend and I’m not convinced it really is a “tablet” It is a reader trying to be a tablet which is different. I like the size for portability so if that is important it might be a good choice. I think the larger tablets are fine for portability though.
My opinions are evolving as I play with more of them. But I still won’t recomment the Playbook because of the health, or lack of, of RIM.
Thanks - looks like the gold standard was and still is the iPad - based on everything that has been said here. In any case it looks like you really can’t go wrong.
No big space demands so looking like the 16 storage size should be enough - Displaying pictures, may be as advanced as it gets, plus web surfing etc . .
Surprised at the general BB/RIM negativity. I have on of their smart-phones - in fact just got a new BB Bold. Works fine!
I agree there have been some gaffes in the last year and on the product side, the Playbook, seems to be a bit of a dud, but their phones and hand-held mobile devices sort of redefined a whole category.
I’ve bought a Kindle Fire and it’s due to arrive anyday. Chose it because I wanted something smaller than PC/larger than a smartphone to surf the Internet, check email, and read articles while sitting in my fat man’s chair. Half the price of the Ipad.
Yesterday I bought the 16gb with 3g because I will use it to read magazines and newspapers during my commute. A friend bought the ipad without 3g and regrets it. $30 for 2gb of data. I am going to try it for a month and cancel if it’s a waste. So far, the Ipad is a hit in my house.
I was toying with getting a Galaxy Tab or an ipad wi-fi only (eh.)…but when the scuttlebut about the Kindle tablet started circulating, I decided to hold out. I preprdered teh Fire when it was announced.
After having it for a month or so, I am quite happy with it. It is what it is, a bare-bones tablet for browsing, media, and shopping. No camera or gps. I don’t need those, so it’s not a big deal for me. It’s perfect for portable internet around the house–I think the browser is better than my laptop, FWIW. It is NOT an e-reader–it’s a tablet with a reading app. I do read on it, from time to time, but only b/c it’s someplace my Kindles are not abailable or not feasible to use (e.g. on the ride home in the dark, or some such).
It’s not an ipad–it doesn’t have all of the stuff ipad does, and it’s priced accordingly. And again, it’s NOT an e-reader (here is where the Kindle name hurts it, I think, as a lot of folks don’t get the distinction and are consequently disappointed in it). But it’s well-supported by Amazon (and I know some people have given it bad reviews…but I have had zero problems with mine at all…I’m not even bugged by the volume thing…and I bought one for my mom, and even she’s been able to manage using ut so far :p). And it’s android, and not like BlackBerry (which is dying)…and if you’re so inclined, you CAN root it pretty easily and have a fully-functioning android device (as opposed to the modified android for amazon version). Personally, i haven’t found it necessary yet.
There’s my .02 on the Fire…it is good at what it does. I wanted something to carry around for easy web surfing in the house, and something that could talk to my Kindles and to my Kindle apps on my phone and PCs, and something I could stream some movies or TV on, and maybe play a game or two on. It’s great for all that.
I received the original iPad as a gift when it came out. Just bought my wife the iPad 2 for her birthday. Fantastic devices.
I did the 16GB for each one and WIFI only. I manage my content fairly well through itunes, and only load a movie or two at a time. Movies and videos are the real space hogs. I don’t keep much music on my iPad either, as I have more memory in my iphone.
I have an iPad2 - after the novelty wore off it’s been relegated to duty as a fancy alarm clock for us. One of the main things I use the laptop for at home is for watching TV shows, either downloaded content or on a website (we cut the cable cord, 500 channels and nothing on). The iPad does not have flash support, which is a major limitaion IMO. The email client also sucks, and typing is awkward on any tablet.
I had a look at the ASUS Eee pad when I was out Xmas shopping the other day, it looks like a really solid product. It runs Andriod, has a detachable docking station keyboard, flash support, and the upcoming version will have a quad core processor. pricing wise, I think it is in the same bracket as the iPad2
The iPad does not have flash support, which is a major limitaion IMO.
Since Adobe has abandoned further development of Flash on mobile devices, this is going to be a factor of diminishing relevance. Individual HW vendors may support it on their own for a while but I expect that this support will also wane, correlated with the increasing maturity of HTML 5.
Surprised at the general BB/RIM negativity. I have on of their smart-phones - in fact just got a new BB Bold. Works fine!
I agree there have been some gaffes in the last year and on the product side, the Playbook, seems to be a bit of a dud, but their phones and hand-held mobile devices sort of redefined a whole category.
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Steve,
Do you remember when Nokia was king of the cellphone world? Same here…
Perhaps, but a tablet isn’t a pure mobile device. It is a semi-mobile device for most people (i.e. use it around the house, or download a book, or at the office to get access to data / email from anywhere in the office). Everyone who has a tablet will probably also have a smartphone for their mobile device.
There are still plenty of websites that use Flash now, and it will take quite a while for it to die completely.
I’ve played a bunch with an iPad, had an Android tablet and now have a Playbook. While iPad is nice, there was no way I was paying $500 or more for a device that would do less than my laptop. So instead, I had a wifi Android device for ~6 months and it did most things that I wanted it to; there were two issues I ran into that eventually saw me upgrade to the Playbook when I had the chance to get one for a great price. The first was wifi; while most places I go have wifi, there are those that don’t and the wifi on my tablet didn’t always play nicely with hotspots. The second issue was that the OS wasn’t super stable; I would have have crashes and my widgets would die on a regular basis.
When I had the chance to get a Playbook I did a bunch of research and was well aware of the limitations of the Playbook (many of which should be addressed in OS2 but I purchased knowing the issues and assumed they would never be addressed). IMO the only real issues the Playbook has is that the keyboard needs to be improved, there is no auto text feature and that there are not many people developing for the device. The native email (and calendar, BBM, contacts, etc) is not an issue for me as I am a BB user and the two devices are always bridged so I have access to everything I need on the Playbook. The fact that the two devices can be bridged and the Playbook will use my phone’s data plan when I don’t have wifi is a huge plus as it means I always have internet access on my Playbook.
I use my Playbook instead of my laptop for almost everything except when I’m doing any large amount of typing although if there is an improved document suite at some point I’ll probably get a Bluetooth keyboard which will further reduce my laptop use.
There are issues with the Playbook but for a BB user I think that it is a great option provided you ensure there is nothing that you need it to do that it will not (for example, Netflix will not run on the Playbook).
But you are conflating two different senses of the word ‘mobile’ here - it’s true that the physical circumstances of use for a tablet may be mobile or stationary but as far as the version of the flash player that will be available to install and run on a current generation tablet, it’s going to be the mobile version not one for a desktop - different CPUs, different operating systems, etc. have already forced that distinction. And it’s the mobile version where more of the problems have been. Adobe may or may not contribute security fixes to future mobile versions of Flash, I don’t recall the details of their press releases on this topic. As various versions of Android continue to evolve, implementations of Flash for particular tablets are going to have to be modified as well and it’s not going to be Adobe footing that bill - it will be the hardware vendors and I expect they will be doing a cost / benefit analysis of exactly how Flash does or doesn’t help them sell more tablets. Even with it, their sales haven’t been great.
As far as the time needed for Flash to die completely, even if it is the case that every current flash site stays up and without a non-flash counterpart (something we already know isn’t true), the rate at which new info, new sites, new apps, and the number of mobile devices are appearing are all accelerating so unless Flash development is accelerating at an equal pace it’s just going to fade away more quickly rather than less.
Yes, BB used to be great. And their phones are quality but lagging behind. Their tablet, however, is a flop and they are getting killed in the market. People are seeing their partners/friends/kids with iPhones and Andriod phones and they want one. People have used Blackberry for so long because there wasn’t much of a choice until now. I work in telecom where people have access to pretty much any type of device on the market. In meetings, I see one BB out of 10 phonesin one meeting. In all the other meetings I attend, no BBs. I was give a BB when I first started so I could become familiar with it. I used it for about 5 days then was done. I use an iPhone for personal and just got the new Windows Phone for work. My BB is gathering dust in my cabnet.
