June 24, 2014

Tablet Questions

I find myself in the market for a tablet/pad/Hand Computer and thus am seeking recommendations from my readership. 


Difficulty: Although I am a Mac user I would prefer that said pad bot have a lower case "i" in front of it, though I am not strictly ruling such a possibility out. 

On a completely unrelated note, here is Rin Tezuka, on a Llama. 


Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:37 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 65 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Just buy something reputable and don't buy junk. Otherwise, you need to understand what works for you, and nobody can suggest it for you.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Tue Jun 24 16:32:51 2014 (RqRa5)

2 Depends on what you want to use it for.
For reading, checking email, and playing games, you can't do better than the 2013 Nexus 7.  But it's a bit small for browsing web sites, and definitely too small for reading comics.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wed Jun 25 02:01:07 2014 (PiXy!)

3 Yeah, that's the kind of thing I'm trying to find out. I have no experience with tablets. A tablet was recommended for the upcoming kanji class and I'm curious about things like actual as opposed to advertised battery life and how big the screen really ought to be. It'll be used as a reader so finding out that ones like the Nexus 7 are a bit to small helps. Thanks!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Wed Jun 25 09:17:01 2014 (DnAJl)

4 Kanji class? Then you'll definitely want a high-DPI device, especially if there will be any furigana. For reference, I have a bunch of books from Amazon Japan on my Kindle Paperwhite, and while I need mild reading glasses to make out the furigana at the standard text size, its 212dpi renders everything clearly (and of course zoom is your friend). Fortunately, Apple isn't the only tablet maker that's shipping high-DPI displays.

Several of my friends are happy with recent models in the Samsung Galaxy Tab/Note line, and since Amazon lists a brand new model as "released tomorrow", you could either get a decent discount on the previous model or get The Latest Thing, depending on your budget.

(of course, my own tablet of choice is the Microsoft Surface Pro 2, which is more capable, but also heavier and considerably more expensive)

-j

Posted by: J Greely at Wed Jun 25 11:24:18 2014 (1CisS)

5 I've been using an Acer Iconia A3.  As a computing device it's fairly powerful, or seems that way.  The 10" screen works well as a reader, but the higher weight and bigger size can make holding it in one hand uncomfortable.

Also, having worked with several tablets over the last several years, I strongly recommend you budget for a sturdy cover.  I have seen several tablets suffer damage to the screen because they were held between thumb and fingers on the left or right edge.  A good book-style cover will give you something else to hold on to.

Posted by: Ben at Wed Jun 25 11:34:02 2014 (S4UJw)

6 The new Samsung Galaxy Tab S (that J mentions) looks awesome.  The smaller model weighs the same as the Nexus 7, but has an 8.4" screen instead of 7", so 44% more screen area.  The Galaxy Tab Pro is also very nice and is on sale now that the Tab S is out.  

Tab Pro is currently $329/$399 on Amazon for 8.4/10.1 inches; the Tab S is $399/$499.  All have "retina" class 2560x1600 displays, fast processors, plenty of RAM, and a rather poky 16GB of storage.  (There's supposedly a 32GB option on the Tab S, but I haven't seen it.)  But they do support microSD cards.  The Tab Pro has a high-quality IPS LCD; the Tab S has an OLED screen, which can use less power and potentially better colour reproduction.

Also, the Nexus 7 now seems to be out of stock in many places, suggesting there's a new model on the way.  An announcement was expected at Google I/O yesterday, but so far, nothing.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thu Jun 26 04:07:59 2014 (PiXy!)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Comments are disabled.
32kb generated in CPU 0.0209, elapsed 0.5645 seconds.
69 queries taking 0.55 seconds, 300 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.