Shortly after I heard someone make the point, I put a poster in my office that said, "A computer will help you do what you want to do. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?"
Without benefit of any special requirements, a very bright friend complimented me by asking for some of my thoughts about "the non-Apple" tablet market. Not wishing to disappoint, I tried to do my homework, and here for the general benefit of anyone else who cares is the result.
“non-Apple” limits things usefully and I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment. To focus further:
- HP bought Palm for $3B solely to get their hands on WebOS, which they proceeded to murder and then mutilate. Recent news that over 200 Palm staff were laid off surprised the media only in that it was hard to believe there were still over 200 Palm staff in HP. There are Palm tablets available but there is no point in buying something already at a dead end. As Gertrude Stein said about her Oakland childhood home, “there’s no there there.”
- The RIM death watch is continuing, and while the BlackBerry tablet also exists, there seems little point to discussing it. No there much longer.
7-inch Tablets
There are several good reasons why you might consider spending $249 for a nook tablet rather than $199 for an Amazon Kindle Fire (I will leave for another day the question of whether the $80 Amazon Plus membership is a hidden cost of the Fire).
Any Android product will be communicating through Google servers. The Fire, however, also communicates through Amazon’s servers on a dogmeat browser of their own design that is already notoriously slow and won’t be getting faster – this in the interest of “offloading” processing into “the cloud,” which as Michael Hammer would put it, adds hand-offs and thus delays results. Two clouds for the price of one, with delays for free.
One reporter, at the grand Amazon announcement, asked Jeff Bezos if someone using the Fire to shop for shoes was likely to get an instant message from Zappo’s (which Amazon owns) offering a better deal, Bezos’ reply was a terse, “We won’t do that.” Reassuring? Not so much. I was quite impressed that the reporter had internalized the architecture so quickly; many people weren’t yet even sure whether the Fire would support Google’s Market (now known, sadly, as “Google Play Apps,” but for the record, yes, it CAN).
Yes, the Barnes and Noble product will offer you access to Barnes and Noble products, but remember the concept of tablet-as-reader is 180 degrees from the concept of the ereader. eInk does not have backlighting, and many people prefer it to reading books on a computer screen. Barnes and Noble has music products but they aren’t as adept at marketing them as Amazon; they are much less adept at marketing their “cloud” services, although for the nook it serves quite well – books do not have to be stored on the device and do not disappear from the account. The nook Tablet does not REQUIRE B&N connectivity; the Fire doesn’t communicate with the Web without Amazon connectivity.
This is to say, I think Barnes and Noble will be much less of an annoyance on their Tablet than Amazon is for Fire users. Any tablet can download music from emusic, Amazon, Google Play Music and a host of others; the only vendor I know that absolutely doesn’t support Android is…yes…Apple iTunes. I am pretty comfortable with the idea that you can even watch Amazon streaming movies on the nook tablet (and Netflix, and Hulu, etc.). I know for a fact that Barnes and Noble has fewer grand schemes for the use of private data than does Amazon; since a very generous friend gifted me with a nook, B&N has had lots of time to do bad things to me and, so far, the worst they've done is sent me emails for business partners (I remember where my delete key is, so it wasn't too difficult to deal with). The Fire, on the other hand, is an identity theft waiting to happen.
“The sky” right now is the asus Transformer Prime (yes, Hasbro is very cranky about that name, which has nothing to do with Optimus Prime or Bumblebee). A to-die-for tablet, thinner than the iPad 2 (the new high-def iPad is thicker than the 2) that attaches to a delightfully-designed keyboard, this was immediately identified by c|net's Molly Wood as more than just the "Gadget of the Week.". Maximum PC says “KickASS.” BlueTooth, WiFi, HDMI video-out port, micro- AND FULL-SIZE SD ports, a USB port and an earphone jack (the single speaker is okay but not boom-box loud). Worst thing anyone has to say about aTP is, “How soon can you deliver it, please?” I think the combination of touch screen with keyboard is near perfection; it is HARD to type on a tablet. If and when I get back to building Frankenstein, I'm going to look HARD at
The other main competitors for the notPad market include the Sony, which is about the same $500 price as the older Samsung Galaxy.
Any Android product will be communicating through Google servers. The Fire, however, also communicates through Amazon’s servers on a dogmeat browser of their own design that is already notoriously slow and won’t be getting faster – this in the interest of “offloading” processing into “the cloud,” which as Michael Hammer would put it, adds hand-offs and thus delays results. Two clouds for the price of one, with delays for free.
One reporter, at the grand Amazon announcement, asked Jeff Bezos if someone using the Fire to shop for shoes was likely to get an instant message from Zappo’s (which Amazon owns) offering a better deal, Bezos’ reply was a terse, “We won’t do that.” Reassuring? Not so much. I was quite impressed that the reporter had internalized the architecture so quickly; many people weren’t yet even sure whether the Fire would support Google’s Market (now known, sadly, as “Google Play Apps,” but for the record, yes, it CAN).
Yes, the Barnes and Noble product will offer you access to Barnes and Noble products, but remember the concept of tablet-as-reader is 180 degrees from the concept of the ereader. eInk does not have backlighting, and many people prefer it to reading books on a computer screen. Barnes and Noble has music products but they aren’t as adept at marketing them as Amazon; they are much less adept at marketing their “cloud” services, although for the nook it serves quite well – books do not have to be stored on the device and do not disappear from the account. The nook Tablet does not REQUIRE B&N connectivity; the Fire doesn’t communicate with the Web without Amazon connectivity.
This is to say, I think Barnes and Noble will be much less of an annoyance on their Tablet than Amazon is for Fire users. Any tablet can download music from emusic, Amazon, Google Play Music and a host of others; the only vendor I know that absolutely doesn’t support Android is…yes…Apple iTunes. I am pretty comfortable with the idea that you can even watch Amazon streaming movies on the nook tablet (and Netflix, and Hulu, etc.). I know for a fact that Barnes and Noble has fewer grand schemes for the use of private data than does Amazon; since a very generous friend gifted me with a nook, B&N has had lots of time to do bad things to me and, so far, the worst they've done is sent me emails for business partners (I remember where my delete key is, so it wasn't too difficult to deal with). The Fire, on the other hand, is an identity theft waiting to happen.
More and perhaps better thoughts about the nook tablet are here: http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/barnes-noble-nook-tablet/4505-3126_7-35059751.html
The Large-Form Tablet
The other main competitors for the notPad market include the Sony, which is about the same $500 price as the older Samsung Galaxy.
Samsung http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/samsung-galaxy-tab-10/4505-3126_7-34505338.html
Everything else is so many shelves below the two tiers identified above that you just DON'T WANT TO LOOK.
Everything else is so many shelves below the two tiers identified above that you just DON'T WANT TO LOOK.
You will discover that you want the MOST on-board memory and storage capacity you can get. If they don’t offer Ice Cream Sandwich, ask why. Firmly.
Android Apps - a few recommendations
- avast or Lookout security
- Cracked Light
- Dictionary.com
- GasBuddy
- Netflix
- Overdrive Media Console (allows you to borrow books from your library)
- SpeedTest and
- WiFi Analyzer
Don't panic yet - all of the above are well within your price range, and so far we haven't spent a dime.
If you have $10 left after your tablet purchase, that will pay for both PocketCast (which I find the most effective podcast manager) AND MobileKnox, a secure database for user names and passwords that allows you to back up the data to your desktop (all for one low price).Being more than slightly compulsive, Folder Organizer was well worth the price to me. My work desk may be a mess, but my 'droid walls are tidy! And your correspondent is not being compensated for these recommendations.
Be aware that many games have in-game purchases, preferably BEFORE your kids start playing. Corby is one of the worst offenders, and news that someone's children spent over $100 buying hats and clothing for the charming main character of the game was unsettling but unsurprising. Google is paying attention, though, and later 'droid operating systems have governors for in-game purchasing in the Setup menus.
C'mon Jellybean! Let's keep building Android Planet!
RodM
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