Tablets

Lucky Day

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Its been a stunning week for tablets this week, beyond even me buying my first one.

Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility, the inventor of the modern cell phone, gives 12000+ patents and a hardware arm, in particular the Galaxy Xoom. What does this mean for other manufacturers like Acer and Asus?

HP has pulled out of the PC market (probably good for another topic) completely and has abandoned its Touchpad device,but not the webOS itself. The webOS has been said to be the best OS going and can even run the iPad faster than Apple's native OS. It stated that it ran twice as fast as an app a browser App and stated that the development team at webOS hated their own hardware because it limited them).
 
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My take:

Apple is sitting on the Apps market. No matter how great the alternatives, they will dominate because of that - exactly like the good old Betamax/VHS debacle.

Unlike phones, the tablets are primarily about what software is available - which means Apple will dominate for a long time. I'm hoping the Android marketplace will take off some day, but it doesn't look like it.

It doesn't help matters that the iPad 2 is the superior product.

This is only a problem if you have a problem with how Apple conduct their business, of course.
 
My take:

Hardware is not profitable anymore. Unless you take an overprice because there is a picture of an apple on it. Even in this case hardware is only profitable if you have slave workers who work under conditions to drive them to suicide.

So more and more companies only want to do services instead of hardware. The same trend is everywhere in manufacturing. Developed world companies should only do services… where salary is good and conditions are great. Leave the actual hard work of manufacturing to slave workes in poorer parts of the world.

I have realised this will strike back though…. guess how to best do services, apps, research or whatever. It is to do it near the place of manufactoring. So as the service jobs move out… we'll be in trouble. Ok end of rant.
 
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I bought an ASUS EP121 Tablet earlier this year. It costed me a hefty chunk of money but I haven't regret the decision at all, in fact it might just have been one of the best moves I have done on computers for a long time. The total freedom and versatility I have felt with this device is unmatched by any device I bought before.

ASUS EP121 is ofcourse running Windows 7, meaning I have more "apps", games and opportunities that an iPad can ever dream of. iPad simply can't compete with the amount of software I have available, including firefox and it's plugins, the office package, photoshop etc. And yeah, that includes DOSBox, emulators and a sea of classic games to play at the bus.

But there are even stronger points to be made;
* I am on the wireless network in my home, so I run files directly via the local network if I wan't to. I have direct access to my MP3 library, to my RPG PDF's, my movies, to schoolwork stored in wordfiles or excelfiles. The iPad or iPhone is locked to one app at a time, each app must have it's own storage and have it's files stored on the device that often have to be transfered through iTunes by plugging it in. A humongous hassle compared to open-network-folder-run-file.
* I have bluetooth so without hassle or jailbreaks I use a regular bluetooth keyboard and bluetooth mouse. I can fold up my "desktop" at any place, anywhere, including during a lecture in school. When I do, it's like a laptop. The leather case allow me to stand the screen in upright position. But then I can go directly from typing in my schoolwork in Word, to cook dinner (or visit the bathroom) while watching a favorite show downloaded and stored on the network or on youtube by just dragging the "screen" with me. And I can also flip the screen to portrait mode both while typing in word, or while reading a PDF or newspaper website. I just love portrait mode, it makes so much more sense than widescreen in many applications.
But there is more. When I am on the bus I turn the leathercase upside down, lean the screen on the seat before me and place my keyboard in the leathercase. This allow me to use it as a regular laptop in my lap.
* I use a Secure Digital 64gb as storage so even if I brick the machine all my files are safe and can be moved directly into my main PC if need be.
* I have no top-down regulation on what apps I use or that users of the PC can produce for the device. Someone got an idea and make that app, I got it. Free market is awesome. For instance, I have a youtube cacher for firefox that makes it possible for me to easily download nice lectures or shows from youtube at the university to watch on the busride home.

Only problem with EP121 is the price and the battery. I need an external battery when spending more than 3 hours away from a plug. I use a XP1800 that allow me to run the device in full capacity throughout 3 hours of lectures.

I have to say, that the above advantages are simply too great to give up no matter how good or effective an iPad, Android or other similar devices are.

ASUS-EP121-Desktop.JPG
 
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Joined
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I personally don't have any use of the current incarnation of tablets like iPad. I have my Kindle which is great for reading, but what I really miss is a substitute for pen & paper. Ideally it would be something akin to Kindle with color display, pen support, and great battery time.

I bought an ASUS EP121 Tablet earlier this year. It costed me a hefty chunk of money but I haven't regret the decision at all, in fact it might just have been one of the best moves I have done on computers for a long time. The total freedom and versatility I have felt with this device is unmatched by any device I bought before.
The setup looks nice but I would go crazy with only 3 hours battery time. Admittedly, Windows 7 isn't the best OS for keeping battery utilization at a minimum, but on my laptop I can stretch the duration quite a bit by dimming the display.

Apple is sitting on the Apps market. No matter how great the alternatives, they will dominate because of that - exactly like the good old Betamax/VHS debacle.
I think Apps is a fad. I think ultimately applications delivered through the webbrowser will rule the world, with or without Apple or Microsoft, with the added irony that Apple enabled it in their fight against Adobe Flash.
 
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I like my iPad a lot. It's great for traveling too. I can read my books, listen to music, watch movies, play a game or work on the presentation I'm supposed to give. I can use it even to give the actual presentation and it lasts for quite a bit more than 3 hours. For work it has replaced almost everything I did with pen and paper. I use it to make notes, check my mail, tracking my todo list and my appointments.
It also has a Bluetooth connection I never use. The only thing I miss is to be able to transfer files to a USB device. But it is not that troublesome. I could use iTunes for it or just dump them in Dropbox.
And I've used it to type this message :)
 
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The setup looks nice but I would go crazy with only 3 hours battery time. Admittedly, Windows 7 isn't the best OS for keeping battery utilization at a minimum, but on my laptop I can stretch the duration quite a bit by dimming the display.
I thought that would be an issue. Turns out that it's rare that I need more than 3 hours of active use without a plug nearby. Going to the university is exactly a such situation as I spend 2 hours on bus per day, with 3-6 hours of lectures. For those situations I bought a XP18000 battery which is the cord you see on the photo above. The XP18000 battery gives me an extra 3 hours on the High Performance setting so 5-6 hours in total. One must count in 30 minutes of breaks during a 3 hour lecture so 6 hours battery for 6 hours of lecture is actually 6 hours of battery for 5 hours.

One also have to remember that EP121 is the fastest Tablet on the market. It makes even iPad 2 behave sluggy and slow. The batterytime is accordingly. Throttle the performance a bit and run less hungry software and batterylife is prolonged.

But sure, I would love a EP121-2 with prolonged batterylife. If I buy a new device I would most definitely go for a Win 8 Tablet. I do not believe iPad and Android can compete in versatility and use compared to a real computer.

XP18000-1.jpg
 
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Haha ... PC tablets ... welcome to 1995!

I have (not surprisingly) iPad, Android and TouchPad tablets. I love the *idea* of webOS, but the phones and tablet are just not tremendous. Android stuff is wildly unpredictable in terms of quality, and generally inferior to iOS stuff in terms of build and components. iOS locks you into an increasingly untenable ecosystem (the whole ebook situation is awful - they helped build the model and then pretend it doesn't exist when upping the in-app purchase ante).

I would say that 95% of the stuff that 95% of people do can be done on an iPad. I can do at least 60% of my stuff on mine, so I am pretty pleased.
 
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My friend has an ipad and it is a cool toy. But I don't see getting one until they get lighter, and I can't see it replacing my laptop, there is something to be said for an old fashioned keyboard still. I'm not sold on the touchscreen yet, its ok but kind of awkward. The ipad is not quite as popular as people might think, there are only about 1% of the population in the US that owns one and they tend to be more wealthy than the average. Yes it is a fun gadget but kind of a luxury item still.
 
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I have two Android tablets (well one was a Nook color that I put Android on) an Android phone and just grabbed a closeout Touchpad (along with about a half a million other people apparently).

I like Android. At first there weren't a lot of apps but more and more if something is on iOS it usually has an Android port. I would say vs a year ago maybe 3 times out of 10 an iOS app would have an Android version or something very comparable and now it's about 7 times out of 10 so it's catching up. This is mainly utility apps I am speaking of. Games are an exception and I think Android is a little slower to catch on there but there are definitely still more games now than a year ago.

If you're willing to do some tinkering with your device there are some good deals to be had in Android tablets. My larger one is a Viewsonic G Tablet I got for $229. The stock OS was pretty bad, but I installed a custom ROM on it for Android 2.3 and it runs really well. I did pretty much the same thing with my Nook Color which I got for $249. Purportedly, there's work being done and an Android ROM for the Touchpad so I may go that route in the future too.

It is possible to brick your device if you don't know what you are doing when you do these OS upgrades, but there's a lot information out on the net and some really good 'For Dummies' style step by step guides.

Overall, I'm happy. I got 3 tablets for around $600 and they work pretty well so I can't complain.
 
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The idea of having a tablet for me is that I do not have to carry around a backpack with stuff in order to use it. If I want to do that I'll just use my laptop.
For me the iPad is not a replacement of my laptop. It is an addition and takes over some of the tasks of the laptop and most of the tasks I used pen and paper for.
 
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Picked up an HP TouchPad 32Gb for $150 yesterday. For that price, it was a no brainer. Perfect for just doing some web browsing and emailing from the couch, or watching video on the train. Plus, there is a hacking group that is about to release a beta of a Honeycomb port for it. Android tablet for $150? SOLD!!
 
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I also just bought an HP touchpad for ~$100 16GB version...my first foray into the tablet domain. I currently have an Android cellphone which I love...tons of free apps. I've been wanting to try one out and at $100 I couldn't resist any longer. Hopefully it ships soon. Waiting for the port of Android to the HP tablet. Do you have a link ninja to that information?
 
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re: Android for the Touchpad

This seems to be one of the places where such development is going on

http://rootzwiki.com/forumdisplay.php?f=257

There may be other projects as well.

These guys are doing Gingerbread (2.3) first. That's actually fine by me. While I like the interface in Honeycomb, there's still a fair amount of apps that seem to have troubles with it so I think it needs some more time mature.
 
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Actually ... webOS is a better OS than Android, at least at its' core. Better notifications, better multitasking, better unified architecture, less of a 'DOS'-like feel (i.e. need to move apps to SD constantly on older phones) and so on. Of course, there are fewer apps and those that are there are worse than anything except Windows Phone 7 (cue chuckling).

But webOS also has loads of issues. I love the quote 'webOS was always 6 months from greatness'. Sorta like Honeycomb ... ;)
 
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I like WebOS but its days are numbered and it has a limited set of applications which obviously won't be expanding at this point. That said, I think it depends on what people want to do with their tablet. If you can pretty much do what you want to do with the current WebOS setup and selection of apps there may not be much reason to mess with the hassle of replacing the OS.
 
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I really like my iPAD, even better now when its jailbreaked, can get any software, for free if i want ;) was a no-brainer to me, has the best apps and games available and can run any emulator too.

I was looking at a few other tablets before i got it, but none at the time had a better display (the ipad has a IPS display, the colors are just beautiful!)
 
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I really like my iPAD, even better now when its jailbreaked, can get any software, for free if i want ;)

Remember folks, when you see 'jailbreak' or 'root' ... the folks will try to rationalize about 'choice' or 'freedom' ... but THIS is what it really comes down to the overwhelming majority of the time.
 
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I'm not advocating piracy, but yes i do want to have it available like on any other platform. I also want to be able to use any browser, or use Flash etc. I also dont like that Apple make use of censorship, in my book that is the opposite of freedom.

Piracy in general is about freedom, the problem is kids without any morals, some pirate ALL their games/apps and even if they like it they don't buy it to support them. It's like shitting where you eat.
 
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I'm not advocating piracy, but yes i do want to have it available like on any other platform. I also want to be able to use any browser, or use Flash etc. I also dont like that Apple make use of censorship, in my book that is the opposite of freedom.

Piracy in general is about freedom, the problem is kids without any morals, some pirate ALL their games/apps and even if they like it they don't buy it to support them. It's like shitting where you eat.

You will never hear me argue that Apple is NOT draconian with regards to control ... but that is a known quantity for good or bad. And I think it is BOTH good and bad.

And I also don't like how the majority of Android software on my phone and tablet are conveying private information without permission and have more than 10x the malware/trojans/viruses of any other mobile platform ... that is quite a price to pay for freedom! :(

My point was that like the PC and PSP, both of which were terribly hurt through piracy, smartphone piracy sucks and hurts developers and therefore users as well.
 
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