Tablet recommendation

Discussion in 'Technology' started by Naughtius Maximus, Dec 6, 2012.

  1. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Has anyone got a recommendation for a decent, (but cheap;)), tablet. I've seen LOADS of adverts but not sure what the significance of the different specs are for this kind of device.

    I just need it for browsing, watching BBC iPlayer, email, maybe watching a vid on occasion. Don't need huge storage because I have data storage available on wifi in the house and I'm NEVER going to watch films or anything outside. What are the considerations people have for these things?

    TIA :)
     
  2. Boundzy

    Boundzy BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 1, 2003
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    For inexpensive and functional, the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 are great products. I've been happy with my Nexus 7. If you are already in the Apple ecosystem, the iPad mini is a nice device... My wife likes hers.
     
  3. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    One of the things I'm just bit confused by the issue of flash support on these things. As I understand it if the device DOESN'T support flash then it obviously won't play stuff like the BBCiPlayer and some youtube vids. I can't see what the point of them is if they're 'nobbled' in this way from a lot of the things people might want to do on a computer??? I thought maybe I was misunderstanding something.

    Also, I'm looking for a cheap one to mess around with, (that and I'm notoriously mean and tight-fisted *), so have looked at this sort of thing...

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Archos-Arno...1_4?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1354897941&sr=1-4

    This has a capacitive screen but I believe there's another sort, (can't remember the name). Any idea if one's much better than the other?

    I don't need a great deal of additional storage as I have online wifi storage with plenty of capacity so I'm thinking the 8Gb available should be MORE than sufficient. Of course, I'm assuming the ram can be used for onboard storage space here?

    Anyway, all help greatly appreciated :)


    * For example I once spent 10 mins looking through a shops bargain bin. Nothing special about that, you might think.... but I was in Poundland :D
     
  4. Kerry Dixon's Boots

    Staff Member

    Jun 6, 2006
    77 degrees
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    I'm going through a similar process at present and am leaning towards an Asus tablet. What's your budget?

    Asus make the Nexus tablet for Google I think, but I was looking one step up the ladder at their Transformer models which have the keyboard thingy and a few more bells and whistles. The Transformer can definitely run flash and whilst I think the nexus can run it, to install it is a little more convoluted. I may well be wrong though as I own neither of these devices. The Transformer may also be a little pricey for your needs.

    One alternative that may well suit your needs is the Kindle Fire HD (less than 200 quid with all the flash support you need). One review here even specifically mentions the iPlayer support. I wonder if you can test drive it in a shop to make sure it meets your needs. I have an older Fire and not too impressed but the new one is meant to be much better with amazon keeping the cost low to establish a bigger market penetration.

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/kindle-fire-HD-tablet/dp/B0083PWAWU
     
  5. Kerry Dixon's Boots

    Staff Member

    Jun 6, 2006
    77 degrees
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
  6. Walter3000

    Walter3000 Member+

    Apr 8, 2004
    gainesville, Florida
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    My household contains 3 Nook products already, and I figured if I was getting tablet it would be nice to just get the new Nook HD, anyone heard any big negatives? Not too technology savvy so when comparing to other tablets, I might as well beat my head against the wall
     
  7. Dante

    Dante Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 19, 1998
    Upstate NY
    Club:
    Juventus FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Flash on mobile devices never has and never will work properly. Adobe have even stopped supporting Flash on mobile devices because of how difficult it is to work properly.

    As for YouTube and the BBC iPlayer, they make native apps that can be used to watch the videos. For any iOS or Android devices you can download the officials apps and they work instantly.
     
  8. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Apart from general browsing I'm also intending to run either the XBMC or MythTV frontend for my two 2 mythtv backend servers to watch some vids but mainly for live TV like this guy.



    He's using XMBC which I've got running on my ubuntu 12.04 laptop, (the Linux version, obviously), and it works fine but I wouldn't mind having something I can take outside if needs be. Well, not at the moment, obviously coz it's too damned cold but in general I mean.
     
  9. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Cheers :) I'll bear that in mind.
     
  10. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    This is the kind of thing I'm after...

    http://www.4shared.com/zip/XW3HsCUv/xbmvavi.html

    The password is obvious. You can see why it's password protected when you open it :eek: Don't worry, it's nothing too untoward.

    This is my ancient pc, (it's about a decade old now), running ubuntu 12.04 so it's a bit tardy. The first one is a video loaded over my home network and the second one is live TV, again, loaded across the network.
     
  11. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
    Belgium
    Aug 19, 2002
    Belgium
    Club:
    Club Brugge KV
    When you say cheap, what price range are we talking?
     
  12. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    It depends how good a mood the little woman is in when I get it ;)

    Let's say about £100 or thereabouts. Having said that I won't be getting it until after Christmas coz then I think the prices will drop so maybe that translates to about £110-£120 atm, something like that anyway.

    We usually do that sort of thing. For years we bought our Christmas crackers in January for the next year. Then we decided we didn't need them anyway coz they're a waste of money. It's OK but the Christmas day gruel's getting a bit 'samey' :(

    :D

    I'm exaggerating... but not by much :eek:

    Can anyone tell me what the different types of screens are like to use. I have a little android phone, (which almost runs one of the mythtv clients but is REALLY slow when doing it), and it's touch screen is a bit flakey.
     
  13. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    OK! It's done.

    I eventually got one of these from Maplins...

    http://www.maplin.co.uk/versus-touchtab-10.1-dual-core-android-tablet-682688
    [​IMG]
    Seems OK. Hasn't got GPS but I'm never gonna use it away from home and I kinda know where I am when I'm there anyway, so... ;)

    It's maybe not the best or the cheapest but I could fiddle with it in the shop which was pretty important. I usually do that and then buy online but I didn't see a price a lot cheaper. Also, this way if I get a problem I will take it back to them initially as I've always found them quite helpful if you get a problem with stuff.

    The only thing is, what is the gyro sensor thingie good for? Is that just for screen orientation?
     
  14. Boundzy

    Boundzy BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 1, 2003
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Screen orientation is the primary reason for it, but some games/apps take advantage of it... they can sense how you are holding the tablet and move items on the screen accordingly. For example, if you hold the left side down, items on the screen move to the left, etc.
     
    Naughtius Maximus repped this.
  15. Naughtius Maximus

    Jul 10, 2001
    Shropshire
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Yeah, thought that was the case. I've bought a mini HDMI to HDMI cable and can now download HD films from my samba server upstairs 'on the fly'. Good stuff ::)
     
  16. Proud Asian

    Proud Asian New Member

    Jun 10, 2013
    Try JXD, see all the types to see the one you like the best. I currently use JXD S602.
     
  17. Pipiolo

    Pipiolo Member+

    Jul 19, 2008
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    Is Nexus the best tablet on the market, outside of Apple?
     

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