Any decent Andriod Tabs?

[Timman_24]

I'm considering picking up a smallish tablet. I recently sold my netbook because between it, my laptop, my cell phone, and my desktop I didn't use it much anymore.

The purpose would be for reading digital textbooks in a new class I am taking, doing literature searches, having an internet device to troubleshoot with while install OSes, building PCs, etc, and casually surf while on the sofa.

I do not need 3G. I'd like wifi and blutooth. I would not mind a 7" tablet. I'd like the price to be reasonable.

I've heard from many people to wait for the ice cream sandwich versions to come out, but I don't know anything about the time line for that.

Recommendations?

[Vindir]

Kindle DX? No decent tabs yet at all imho no matter the OS.

[Timman_24]

Kindle DX? No decent tabs yet at all imho no matter the OS.

Darn. You'd think after 2 years they would have something to offer.

[ImaNihilist]

The only good Android tablet will be the one that Google officially endorses. If anyone else makes it you will be stuck with their proprietary GUI garbage and whatever version of Android it comes with, since they will never update it.

[Squirrel Meat]

??? There are alot of good android tablets out there. Anything running honeycomb is worth it imho and alot of tablets are getting the ics update. the original asus transformer is getting ics in feb, the motorola xoom already got it, the acer iconia is getting it next month as well....i have a lg g-slate that i picked up for $200 thats running honeycomb 3.1 and its perfect. im using it for school as mostly a ebook and its a 8.9" tablet. works great. most of them have nvidia tegra2 chipsets and are pretty damn decent for gaming even. go on newegg and look for the refurb tablets. you can get a nice one for 2-300 with free shipping. even the $200 hp touchpad already has ics ports on it and its a nice tablet hardware wise.

for what you want, i believe a 8.9" is the way to go. 7" is just too small to enjoy all the features and if its mostly for reading, a 10.1" is just a little too big.

@ima any of the tablets ive seen has a mostly vanilla honeycomb look to it. the tablets seem to differ quite a bit from the phones in that they dont seem to have all the UI garbage on them. mine didnt come with any UI garbage installed, it was straight vanilla hc. same with the transformer and same with the galaxy tab and iconia.

[Squirrel Meat]

Kindle DX? No decent tabs yet at all imho no matter the OS.

how so? i mean, tablets are nothing to replace desktops as work machines yet, thats for sure. but as that extra device that weighs 1.5 pounds and is super easy to carry that has 10-20 hour battery life...of course. i do all my school stuff on it. not essays and the like but for ebooks, writting small notes like homework that is due that syncs up with my calendar, or the ability to do my online homework straight from the tablet in between classes. when im home i use it for web browsing from bed lol. its awesome for browsing forums and such while laying down on the couch or in bed haha. my gf usually steals it to read her twilight books before she goes to sleep if im playing xbox.

At any rate, the android OS has grown up alot and ICS is the missing link. there is plenty worth it on tablets if used for the right application. like i said, they wont replace any work machines quite yet but if you are using it as a basic notes, reading, and keeping your sh!t together because your not organized to save your life and have the attention span of a freakin goldfish.....they are perfect. most of them have docking stations that add a mere pound to them they add tons of battery life and keyboard/mouse functionality to them as well.

not arguing with your opinion personally because im sure for the type of work you do it just isnt practical, but for me in college, it has been a godsend. (not to mention the money ive saved in books has already payed for the tablet just this quarter).

[ImaNihilist]

I duhno. Android tablets still seem like a one-off, instead of a platform.

I feel like there is this serious problem with Android in general, where even saying something like "Android tablet" doesn't make sense because Android as a platform is an amorphous term. Or rather, there is no such thing as the Android platform. There are multiple platforms by version and by vendor. Honeycomb is, in many ways, already the old platform.

IMO vendors need to stop locking this **** down. Upgrading to the latest vanilla release needs to be like upgrading any version of Windows—you should able to do it without getting the OEMs permission. The whole thing is completely bizarre to me, and the confusion in the marketplace is massive. It's like they are selling Windows XP, XP Tablet Edition, Vista, and 7 all at the same time.

[Timman_24]

I thought you could side load pretty much anything, even google store on most tablets. I wish MS had an option. Hopefully Win 8 unifies a lot of tablet makers.

Thanks for the info Squirrel. I'll look at newegg open box and refurb. The 8.9" size sounds perfect for what I want. Too bad this is my last semester, I could have saved more in books! I'll use it for work in the future though that is for sure.

[ImaNihilist]

I thought you could side load pretty much anything, even google store on most tablets. I wish MS had an option. Hopefully Win 8 unifies a lot of tablet makers.

Thanks for the info Squirrel. I'll look at newegg open box and refurb. The 8.9" size sounds perfect for what I want. Too bad this is my last semester, I could have saved more in books! I'll use it for work in the future though that is for sure.

If the Win 8 ARM port actually makes it to market it's going to be FREAKING AWESOME…assuming all apps are compiled for both architectures.

Just about the only thing that will get me to switch back to Windows will be a unified Windows architecture that supports the current app/marketplace model. There are just too many apps I use today that have no good Windows port. It would easily add 10 hours to my week if I was forced to move to Windows today. I'm still not confident Microsoft can pull it off, but I feel like they have all the pieces laying around. I guess what I really doubt is whether or not Ballmer is capable of leapfrogging Apple. They've got the OS, they've got the mobile OS, they've got the marketplace, they've got .NET, they've got an ARM/tablet port in the works, etc.. All they need to do is win back developers and the tides will turn.

Developers have moved to OS X/iOS in droves because of the ease of getting apps to market—but the total market is still relatively small to what a Windows market could be. They will switch back in a heartbeat because the potential revenue will be an order of magnitude greater over the long haul.

[ua549]

It is a trivial task to turn a semi-proprietary Android device into a generic Android device as long as it doesn't use an encrypted boot-loader. There are also many custom built versions of Android that can be flashed by a novice. Check for your device at xda-developers.com.

[Timman_24]

Would it be worth it to get an HP Touchpad and load honeycomb/ics on it? I saw that someone loaded ICS on a kindle fire, but I don't think it has full functionality.

I mainly want a good web browsing experience with pdf functionality.

[kpxgq]

just goto xda dev and you can pretty much load any rom into whatvever tablet you want.. i would reccomend either a kindle fire or nook tablet due to size (7")

[Squirrel Meat]

IMHO that is one of the good thing about android. You can sideload just about anything. ESPECIALLY if you are rooted and have an unlocked bootloader. tbh most devices already have the bootloader unlocked and the few that dont have it have community cracks for it. My tablet was locked and holy crap, now its unlocked thanks to the dev community haha. the dev community for android is HUGE. just about every flaw with android has a rememdy that the dev community cooks up and shares. like UA mentioned, www.xda-developers.com is the place to go for anything android.

@ima- the fragmentation of android is indeed a problem which is why ics or android 4.0 is such a big deal. its supposed to unify tablets and phones and keep 1 os instead of having a bunch of different os's on different devices. its a bit of a double edged sword imo. everyone gets a different experience which is great but sometimes its not a good experience. android needs more consistency. but it is awesome that i can put so many different roms on my phone or tablet and change the things i dont like or have a new experience with it. wanna overclock? just flash a new kernel and overclock to your hearts content. wanna oc even higher? run a script with higher voltages. want better battery life? flash a sbc kernel and run a script for under voltaging. why not mix and match them? free wifi hotspot and tethering? yes please. want the new os before anyone else gets the ota update? yes please, ill take that. wanna tweak the crap out of your phone and make it run like a brand new one? sure ill do that. wanna completely change the way your os looks inside and out? done. even if honeycomb seems old already (which i dont think it does) you can change EVERYTHING about it. and its all open source. why do you think so many devs flock to it? its easy to manipulate, its free to manipulate, and its fun to manipulate.

i hate sounding like a fandroid too much haha. win7 mobile and ios are great os's but nothing comes close to the amount of deep ui and performance tweaking that android offers. let me put it in an easy way: if you dont give a crap about making the expierence your own and just want something that works for your basic tasks, then stick with win7 or ios. otherwise, android IS for you.

the hp touchpad can be found for pretty cheap and the ics rom is coming along pretty nicely. BUT...its just like anything else man, its still in beta and its not rock solid yet. its still a bit of a gamble if you wanna go that route. i would do it because i get nerdgasms over this stuff and the development is going pretty fast. check into it first to see what the bugs are right now. otherwise, for the price its a great tablet.
*looks like its still in alpha.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1247

acer iconia a500, asus transformer, galaxy tab (the latest one) can all be had for about $250-300 on newegg. the acer and galaxy both have 8.9" versions available.

sorry for the long post

[proxops-pete]

Didn't they just recently announce an Ice Cream Sandwich-based 7" tab that would have dual-core 1 GB mem for $250? I'd hold off for that...

[Timman_24]

I've been told by a ton of people to hold off a month or so. A flood of ICS tabs are supposed to hit the market soon at lower price points. I guess it is a waiting game. I looked into the A500 and liked what I saw. Its like Acer made it to be reflashed.