New tablet?

[Bikewer]

My iPad 2 (about 3 years old...) is essentially "full". It's the 16 gig model. I suppose I could dump all the music and gain a bit of space, but I just went through the music and deleted a bunch of tunes I rarely listen to and didn't gain much ground at all.
I've joked that the thing will be run up to capacity by the constant App updates...

So I've been looking around.. The bigger iPad offerings are still pretty damned expensive.
Of course, you get the excellent Apple support and the impressive varieties of apps available....

I was looking at the Samsung Galaxy tab 4 at the bookstore... Pretty attractive. 300 bucks from Amazon. Expandable with an up to 64 gig micro SD card...
Most of the reviews are quite good... a complaint about occasional lack of Bluetooth connectivity (I use an external keyboard) and one complaint about refusal to honor a warranty claim on the Amazon site.

Anybody have any experience with these or similar "iPad Killers"?

 

[dasmiller]

I was looking at the Samsung Galaxy tab 4 at the bookstore... Pretty attractive. 300 bucks from Amazon. Expandable with an up to 64 gig micro SD card...
Most of the reviews are quite good... a complaint about occasional lack of Bluetooth connectivity (I use an external keyboard) and one complaint about refusal to honor a warranty claim on the Amazon site.

Anybody have any experience with these or similar "iPad Killers"?

Not sure how helpful this will be, but:

2 months ago, I got a 10" S4 for my brother in the hope that it would be so easy and convenient that he'd actually use it and, thus, become a little more familiar with modern computers use.

I picked the S4 because, based on some quick research, it seemed to be the best of the midrange tablets.

I liked his so much that I bought one for myself. I've been using it for about 6 weeks now, and I'm quite happy with it. I do all the 'heavy' computer stuff on my desktop, so I'm not a tablet power user, but for browsing, a few games, etc, the S4 has been working great.

I've added a 32G microSD card and I just picked up a bluetooth keyboard.

In use, it's much more pleasant than the Windows 8.1 tablet that I've spent some time with. I can't compare it to the iPad offerings, but I have a friend who's a fairly heavy iPad user and she doesn't act smug around the S4. I don't know that she'd want to trade, though.

Do you have any specific questions?

 

[malicus]

If was looking for a new tablet with a good amount of (expandable) storage then I would likely look no further than the Sony Z2. Accepts up to 128GB SD cards.

I am waiting to pull the trigger on the new Nexus 8/9, as usual no expandable storage with a Google product but that is not an issue for me. And yes, I am a fanboi.

 

[dasmiller]

If was looking for a new tablet with a good amount of (expandable) storage then I would likely look no further than the Sony Z2. Accepts up to 128GB SD cards.

Speaking as someone who has dropped his cell phone in a hot tub, and often uses a tablet in a hot tub, there's something to be said for a fully-waterproof tablet like the linked Sony Xperia .. .

 

[rjh01]

Find out what is using all of your space on the iPad. If it is music then here is one trick I use.
1. Have all your music on your desktop.
2. Set play count for your music to zero.
3. Have a playlist that has all your good music on it.
4. Have a second playlist that has a few hours worth of the above playlist, but only where the play count = 0.
5. Have this second playlist on your iPad. Do not have any other music other than what is one this type of playlist.
6. Repeat 3-5 for all the different types of good music.
7. Frequently connect the iPad to your computer and allow them to sync.
8. Once you have listened to most of the music set your play count back to zero.

Result you only have on your iPad music you will listen to in the next few days, yet you will listen to all of your music.

 

[Bikewer]

A workable but somewhat labor-intensive solution. Or, I could put everything on the cloud for 30 bucks a years or something like that...
However, then I'd need a wi-fi connection to listen.
What I've been doing for the last couple of years is listening to podcasts of The World on the way to work, since our local PBS station quit carrying it. So, most of my music listening was via Pandora or YouTube while at work with all the free wi-fi.
But KWMU picked up The World again... So no need to podcast.

So, back to listening to music at 6am.

The iPad is getting a bit creaky... I don't know what the lifespan of these devices is. Battery still holds a charge well, but it does freeze up now and then. Also has a quirk that if you press a certain spot on the rim of the case... the screen goes black. No biggie... A push on the home button restores things but it's kind of odd.

 

[jasonpatterson]

It takes a lot of music to fill up 16GB (not that there isn't a lot of music out there, of course), but not much video, if you've ever used that. Even short videos fill up space fast. It's another place to look while you're figuring out what you want to do.

If you want to switch to Android, the Galaxy series are quite nice. The only real downside is if you've spent a sizeable chunk of money on Apple's apps. You can move your music and such, but not all of the same apps.

There are a lot of rumors about a new Nexus tablet coming out in the next <time period unknown> as well; I'm waiting on that, personally.

 

[quadraginta]

Lack of expandable storage is a deal killer for me. Now that quality 32 and 64 GB micro-SD cards have gotten down to the ~$0.50/GB range (Jesus, it makes me feel old when I say that. It always reminds me of my first hard drive, 10 MB the size of a stack of paperbacks and $300 at wholesale.) you can store and tote more than you might need between wifi hotspots with ease.

I'm a fan of Samsung products. We have several, and I've been very pleased with all of them. I haven't had any experience with the S4 but it looks to spec out pretty nice, and I tend to trust Samsung's build quality.

Also, if you ever want to root or go custom ROM then Samsung stuff always gets a lot of attention from the hobby dev crowd. There are plenty of alternatives and problem solving. That's only a minor side benefit, though.

 

[Cuddles]

Most of the reviews are quite good... a complaint about occasional lack of Bluetooth connectivity (I use an external keyboard)

When it comes to complaints about things like this, if you're not seeing thousands of complaints along with plenty of coverage in the media, there really isn't a problem. Companies like Samsung and Apple do not have issues with one of their high-end flagship devices without everyone knowing about it.

If you want a high-end Android tab though, the Asus Transformer has the Galaxy beaten in pretty much every way - faster processor, more RAM, much, much higher resolution screen (the Galaxy isn't even 1080p), and is quite a bit cheaper ($233 to $268 on Amazon.com). You can get a keyboard that doubles as a battery pack plus some extra connection options (full size USB and SD card) as well which pushes the price up a bit, but even without that there really isn't any Android tablet that can compete.

Of course, if you want something smaller and/or cheaper then things like the Google Nexus will be much better, but it doesn't look like that's what you're looking for.

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

When it comes to complaints about things like this, if you're not seeing thousands of complaints along with plenty of coverage in the media, there really isn't a problem. Companies like Samsung and Apple do not have issues with one of their high-end flagship devices without everyone knowing about it.

If you want a high-end Android tab though, the Asus Transformer has the Galaxy beaten in pretty much every way - faster processor, more RAM, much, much higher resolution screen (the Galaxy isn't even 1080p), and is quite a bit cheaper ( to on Amazon.com). You can get a keyboard that doubles as a battery pack plus some extra connection options (full size USB and SD card) as well which pushes the price up a bit, but even without that there really isn't any Android tablet that can compete.

Of course, if you want something smaller and/or cheaper then things like the Google Nexus will be much better, but it doesn't look like that's what you're looking for.

It may be useful to specify which Transformer (and which Nexus) you mean.

I have a Nexus 7 (2013) and a Transformer 300T, and I have to say, I'd take them over a Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 any time. Yes, that's because I also have that one.

However, as Jasonpatterson said, it might be worth waiting for the next Nexus tablet to be released, because it's almost guaranteed to be better than any of the ones I mentioned.

 

[Comrade Quixote]

When it comes to complaints about things like this, if you're not seeing thousands of complaints along with plenty of coverage in the media, there really isn't a problem. Companies like Samsung and Apple do not have issues with one of their high-end flagship devices without everyone knowing about it.

If you want a high-end Android tab though, the Asus Transformer has the Galaxy beaten in pretty much every way - faster processor, more RAM, much, much higher resolution screen (the Galaxy isn't even 1080p), and is quite a bit cheaper ($233 to $268 on Amazon.com). You can get a keyboard that doubles as a battery pack plus some extra connection options (full size USB and SD card) as well which pushes the price up a bit, but even without that there really isn't any Android tablet that can compete.

Of course, if you want something smaller and/or cheaper then things like the Google Nexus will be much better, but it doesn't look like that's what you're looking for.

I can't speak for recent Transformers, but I'm still running an original TF101 and it's pretty decent, even after all these years. The keyboard is very good and if you do much typing it's the best android solution I've seen, it adds 10 hours to the battery life and makes the tab into a mini laptop to the point where I don't carry much else.

 

[quadraginta]

When it comes to complaints about things like this, if you're not seeing thousands of complaints along with plenty of coverage in the media, there really isn't a problem. Companies like Samsung and Apple do not have issues with one of their high-end flagship devices without everyone knowing about it.

If you want a high-end Android tab though, the Asus Transformer has the Galaxy beaten in pretty much every way - faster processor, more RAM, much, much higher resolution screen (the Galaxy isn't even 1080p), and is quite a bit cheaper ($233 to $268 on Amazon.com). You can get a keyboard that doubles as a battery pack plus some extra connection options (full size USB and SD card) as well which pushes the price up a bit, but even without that there really isn't any Android tablet that can compete.

<snip>

I've got an Asus Transformer TF700T.

Sadly, I wish I didn't. Looks nice. Feels nice.

It's a dog.

The promise of its specs (one of the main reasons I chose it) has not been realized in its performance. It is slower than cold molasses and nothing (so far) has been able to change that. I've tried custom ROMs (running CROMi-X right now), cutting down on everything that can be cut, etc., etc.

I'm not the only one, either. Reading Asus' own Transformer forum as well as XDA's and numerous others it seems that performance-wise it is just a dog.

The keyboard is sweet, though, and the I/O is great. Yes the screen res is top notch, but that doesn't help when all you're doing is watching it and waiting for something to happen. It takes two and a half minutes just to boot, and I have made sure that nothing defaults to start-up on boot that can possibly be left out. (And it's rooted, so I can stop just about anything.)

It has 1GB of RAM, of which 970MB is available.

It ain't enough.It should be, but it ain't. It gets used up fast (starts at about 50% at boot) and any time it gets much above 80% usage it slows to a crawl and whatever's running starts to choke, especially anything that's using a browser.

I do use it all the time, mostly for reading, and web surfing in bed (when it doesn't choke). It does pretty well as a video feed to the TV (The HDTV out is one of those I/O perks, and the GPU carries the load well), but I'd never buy another one or recommend it to anyone I liked.

I haven't looked at how the TF701 or any of Asus' later models are doing. Mebbe they ironed out some of the problems, but stay away from the 700 unless you're getting 'fell off the truck' prices, and you're very patient.

It's kind of a shame. Asus has hit it out of the park on a lot of their products. They make the best routers for the price that can be found. I wish they had kept those standards up with the TF700.

 

[malicus]

Quad, have you tried reformatting to F2FS then reflashing? I have a N72012 (Asus built iirc) and well know deterioration of crappy RAM. I wiped mine and formatted as F2FS then reflashed a decent ROM (Carbon). Totally transformed it, snappier and a now a joy to use as opposed to the lagfest it had become.

F2FS on T700 guide.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Look at the Asus range of Tablets.

New ones due this month. They are very good and they were the company that manufactured the Galaxy Tab

 

[quadraginta]

Quad, have you tried reformatting to F2FS then reflashing? I have a N72012 (Asus built iirc) and well know deterioration of crappy RAM. I wiped mine and formatted as F2FS then reflashed a decent ROM (Carbon). Totally transformed it, snappier and a now a joy to use as opposed to the lagfest it had become.

F2FS on T700 guide.

Many thanks. Looks promising. I'm surprised I didn't run across it in my search for cures.

I'll certainly check it out.

 

[kajata]

I'm a huge iPad fan but jeez, what Apple charges for those increases in storage...shameful.

 

[GlennB]

Is this £49 tablet more than a toy? My only real use would be for idle surfing while sitting in the yard or on a bus.

We B's are on a slippery techno slope after living happily with our ancient XP desktop for years. First a wifi modem snuck in, then a new PC, next thing you know we're bristling with devices, but no tablet yet

 

[Cuddles]

Is this £49 tablet more than a toy? My only real use would be for idle surfing while sitting in the yard or on a bus.

Even just for that, that tablet would probably struggle. This is exactly the kind of thing that gave rise to the term "landfill android". 512MB RAM isn't enough at all - see quadraginta's complaint about the Transformer only having 1GB for example. The wifi is a joke - it only supports 802.11 b/g, which means it's over a decade out of date. There's very little point in getting a device that doesn't support n and/or ac which allow much faster connections and better range. The cameras may as well not exist at all; while number of pixels isn't everything, less than a megapixel for a main camera is something I don't think I've ever seen on a phone, even in the earlier days of sticking cameras on phones. The screen is piss-poor, but would probably do just for idle surfing. Might be a problem if that involves videos and the like, since it's really rather low resolution. It also doesn't charge by USB.

And let's be honest, even if just looking at the specs doesn't put you off, I would fully expect it to fall apart if you breathe on it a bit too heavily. £50 including keyboard and case does not inspire thoughts of quality construction.

For under £100 you could get a Kindle Fire or Tesco Hudl. For around the £100 mark (or a bit more depending on options) you can get an Asus Memo 7 or LG G pad. If you try to go cheaper than that, you're likely to end up very disappointed. The more expensive tablets might not be necessary if you're not interested in all the shiny bells and whistles, but up to a certain point you really do get what you pay for.

 

[PixyMisa]

Is this £49 tablet more than a toy? My only real use would be for idle surfing while sitting in the yard or on a bus.

We B's are on a slippery techno slope after living happily with our ancient XP desktop for years. First a wifi modem snuck in, then a new PC, next thing you know we're bristling with devices, but no tablet yet

512MB of RAM and an 800x480 display? That would be really painful to use.

 

[malicus]

Higher priced tablets from brand names do many things very well.

Cheap, off-brand tablets do all things poorly.

A sweeping generalisation, but if you buy out of date tech, you get an out of date experience, right out of the box.