thelastaspec

Hi all,
I'm an engineering student looking at getting a tablet for college.

Here are some quick thoughts, budget not problem with current prices, capacity not important, no need for data plan

Thoughts:
iPad 3rd gen
-concerned already out for a while now, midlife
-good email
-apps work for me
-don't have mac, would like to develop apps for it...

Nexus 7
-concerned for email compatibility for hotmail (see below)
-small size for reading ebooks and such?

MS Surface
-learning C#, can easily develop apps for it
-199$ leaked price tag
-initial app offering
-release close to end of term (distraction from exams)

Samsung Note 10.1
-has stylus
-weird app compatibility
-screen resolution low for price

Asus Transformer Pad Infinity
-nice spec android tablet
-friends getting it

iOS
-apps just work
-less tinkering ability for future engineering projects
-don't have a mac to develop apps

Android
-apps hit miss for tablets
-uncertain on email support
-good tinkering ability

Windows RT
-apps available at launch?
-easy to develop for (for me)


Features I use:
dropbox - I use this daily to grab my assignments as my engineering profs post everything in pdf's

email - I need a tablet that nicely supports multiple inboxes.
I have 6 email accounts that I use for various purposes, logins, games, accounts, school, business, personal, newsletters etc. I need good hotmail support (no pop3 workarounds - want 100% native) as I primarily use hotmail.
I really like the iPads mail client how all my accounts just work. Not too sure on new outlook.com with android exchange support is...

read it later - I use pocket/offline reader to read stuff on the bus (parking is 550$ per year, have to buy bus pass with fees)

other hardware i own:
have an iPhone 3G on iOS 3.1.3
computers owned are Windows or linux

Cheers

asianspec

iTrader: (1)

I have the asus eee slate ep121. I love it

Pros: big screen,can be upgraded, 2 USB ports, runs windows, finger to pen digitizer recognizes very well, almost like a regular computer

Bad: battery life.(3 hrs max on wifi) dunno not on wifi, bulky

YeuEmMaiMai

lol at the aps just work comment.... stopped reading right there as it is pointless to offer advice to someone that mindlessly spouts apple marketing bs.

thelastaspec

lol I guess your right, but hey, I think I may be the exception.
I only meant to add that as a plus as dropbox, pocket and mail work (i have borrowed an ipad for a week).
For someone short on time, I is nice to have it "just work" unlike say my past 7 years with linux, where I constantly have been tweaking and such.

I am heavily leaning to the Surface with is C# programming environment... I think owning a surface is as opposite to being an apple fan as you can go lol


Wow, nice tablet! that things more powerful than my desktop and laptop put together!
The battery life seems to be the only negative there, ill keep that one in mind - im spoiled with my acer's 7 hr battery

YeuEmMaiMai

^ I frustrates me to hear people list "apps just work" for Apple not realizing that apps just work on Windows and Andriod as long as the programmer does their job right. Heck Apps just work on my HD2 running Windows Pocket PC aka Windows Mobile 6.5.1

No OS can autmajically fix broken apps or make them just work. That is entirely a programming issue.

I would hold out for the Dell Duo 12 machine before making a purchase decision...that one is a tablet that can act like a laptop (detachable keyboard) and IPS panel thus giving you the best of both worlds.

Sarlacc

Typical apple hater.

Fact is Apple has a stricter policy for getting apps on their app store. Which is why is accurate marketing for it to be said that "apps just work"

I'm willing to bet statistically iOS apps have less bugs or failures when they go live than the competing OS' because of their guidelines.

Sarlacc

As far as tablets go for the OP...wait until next month. Yes, there will be the iPad Mini...but with that is coming rumors of the regular iPad line being "refreshed"...which has somewhat been a longstanding rumor since the retina iPad was released last March.

speedemon90

I'm saying wait too, but to see the windows 8 tablet. Only reason being is because you might be able to be more productive with it that is assuming the tablet can download regular programs and run it??

I mean imagine running MATLAB on your tablet! (if you dont know what that is yet you will know soon enough)

Also nexus 7 i would disagree about the reading. Because its smaller its easier to hold and read. Dont have much real estate but you dont need much more for reading ebooks.

And also see what happens with the ipads. With the mini coming out i'm sure they are gonna have that thing be pretty cheap.

Not sure what is your budget though.

and i vote dont consider the other things thats not the nexus 7, ipad, or any windows 8 tablet.

thelastaspec

I find it the same way, my friends on Android seem to have more problems and tweaking needed on average.
Maybe developers are spending more time polishing apple apps than android apps.

Good idea. The iPad 3 is 30$ off at best buy (where I have a large gift card) so I can always pick it up and return it later...

Never thought about that! matlab on a tablet.... that is a big deal!
I understand Windows 8 on ARM will only run metro apps, the desktop is only for included ms office that comes for free.
The intel based ones will work like a normal computer.

I wonder what the battery life on these things will be.
I wonder what intel has in store with new low power chips...

I do have a 13" 7hr battery acer laptop, where I'm finding the tablet is nice is for the 10 min in between classes, on the bus and working in a carrel as the tablet seems to be less distracting than a laptop.

Undying Dreams

iTrader: (3)

I agree with this completely. Apple has harsher guidelines and force developers to produce apps that function correctly. Sure you have the occasional crash but so does Android. Hate Apple as much as you want but they're some of the easiest and smoothest products I've ever worked with.

speedemon90

no clue about that battery life, but thats why you should wait and find out! I'm sure if it can run full windows the battery life will be a lot shorter when you go into that desktop mode. But still MATLAB!

Man if i knew how to develop apps, i'd just do it for them on iOS and tell them to pay me like 10 million haha

Whiskers

Get an Ipad.

jupitersolo

Dillhole says what?

Sarlacc

Exactly

thelastaspec

For capacity what would you suggest? 16 gb or 32 gb?
Do new iPad apps take up considerably more space on average?

I don't plan on putting a lot of movies or songs on the thing.
More just for PDFs, apps and notes. Is is worth getting a 32 gb for down the road as media in hd is so large now?

I plan on keeping whatever I get for a long time.

YeuEmMaiMai

lol..........typical Crapple fan boy swallowinhg Apple's nutsac completly...

Sarlacc

And my eco system "just works" where virtually no effort or dealing with troubleshooting BS. So, I gladly swallow that sack.

I was a big apple hater...switched in 2000...haven't looked back, why? Because its more than just marketing...its true.

So stick that in your hollow dildo and suck it out

Sarlacc

I aways go bigger...as the OS' improve the storage needs for optimized apps, etc always increases.

Whiskers

Im no hoarder of content by any means, but I dont come close to filling my 16 GB. So much streaming, apps are fairly small, etc.

Now, the 8 GB Nexus 7 I have is too small because the OS takes up 1/2 of it, but I think a 16 GB Ipad is fine.

And not reading all the comments, but you are over-thinking too much.

If you asked about 3 months ago, its very obvious that the Ipad was the choice. With the Nexus 7 out and the upcoming release of the MS tabs, you have more choices.

is300eater

I, too, didn't read all the comments, and I'm sure I'm not the only one to say this... but why not wait for the iPad mini or whatever it's going to be called? And I say this even though I more about Androids than Apple products. Oh, and then there's the Windows 8 stuff that's also coming

fsttyms1

Our 8 month old ipad has caused my wife more headaches than my lenovo tablet. I thought that it was going to the other way around especially once lenovo basically stopped supporting it but the android community has stepped up and given me jellybean which made it 10 the tab it was prior and more stable than the ipad (that we own) and frankly a better experience, all stuff that isnt present with the ipad to each their own

Sarlacc

What issues were you having?

These are computers and like I've always said electronics arent all perfect...people are going to get the lemons or have the bad experiences.

Not to mention I already know you're anti-apple to begin with ;-)

jupitersolo

Eight months old, still under warranty...

Whiskers

I have had the Ipad 1,2 and 3 and like Sarlacc said, maybe a glitch here and there (and I have hacked them all in every way possible) but headache? She's doing it wrong.

Anachostic

I'm going to make the guess that "doing it wrong" probably means doing or wanting to do it a different way. I don't necessarily mean that as a dig. I perceive Apple products to have one way of doing something and that way works perfectly every time. When you learn and accept it, your life is much easier. PC's offer many ways to do the same task, which make them more flexible, but probably more confusing and possibly less stable.

But anyway, on-topic, I voted for MS Surface and Windows since the OP is learning C# and having the ability to quickly write utilities, scripts, and applications for your daily operating system is invaluable. That's the primary reason I only use MS products, because I can code for them.

BraveDemon

Either the Ipad 3 or the Infinity. I have both at home (Ipad 3 is my fiance's) and here's the breakdown:

If you like troubleshooting and customizing your OS to a ridiculous extent - Infinity.

If you want shit that just plain works, but you have to play by their rules - Ipad 3.

Sarlacc

For the iOS...yea more or less. There are some options in terms of how you can accomplish things...but yes its fairly straight forward.

For OS X...no. There is always more than one way to achieve the end result.

fsttyms1

Im not anti apple (except the I phone) like Yumcha, I have 2 I pods

It just seems slow in comparison to my tablet, it locks up, if it looses wifi signal while your doing something you have to restart the whole damn thing. Ill bring it to the apple store and complain one of these days.

zguy95135

iPad- You know what it does, it does the same thing that previous iPads do. Apps do crash on iOS too btw.

Asus Infinity- I haven't used it but I have the OG TF101. Asus is good with updates and the keyboard can be very useful if you need to be typing a lot. I would make sure the infinity doesn't have the IO issue. They used a cheap memory and it can get kinda slow when theres a lot of background downloading going on (it's a read write thing).

Nexus 7- I absolutely love mine, it's the perfect size for portability and I bring it everywhere with me. GPS, internet and nav (when tethered) it's amazing. My TF101 was used at home and work sometimes but it was too big for everyday use. The N7 is lacking on ports though compared to other Android tabs. OS wise everything has been flawless for me. I had a weird lag issue but I disabled google currents from downloading huge amounts of data constantly and now it's back to it's speedy self.

Samsung Note- I haven't used any of the Samsung android tabs.

MS Surface- I obviously haven't used it (its not out yet) but I did get to play with a bunch of Windows 8 based tabs and phones this weekend at the Techcrunch event. Even though I'm an Android guy Windows 8 is really nice. Seriously. They had some demo units on some older Samsungs and it was really smooth and the UI is actually nice. The new phone is really nice too btw.

Sarlacc

I thought you had some post of hoping to ban all apple products from house.

The tablet should not be slow or lock up....does she ever "close out" her apps or does just leave everything open all the time? Locking up is something that should definitely be rare.

wifi...depends how far away she is from the base station. Admittedly...wifi has always been kind of a weak point for the ipad. Try resetting the network settings, see if that helps.

Sarlacc

and zguy...no one said OS apps never crash.

fsttyms1

That was more to get a rise out of the natives here

She closes apps when done, as for locking up it happens daily.

Wifi probably 30-40' tops. When she goes out of range (usually in the 20-30') area though the whole ipad locks up and she has to hard reboot the thing

Sarlacc

locking up isnt right...have it looked at.

Back everything up before taking it in. Hell, before you try taking it in...just try blowing the whole thing away and starting over. Don't do any restores. All of her apps will still be available on the app store, it keeps record.

Moog-Type-S

iPad

cmschmie

Don't mean to this thread. But I am sorta in the same boat.

Does anyone use their tablets to read magazines? How well do they work? If you use a 7" tablet, any regrets?

Whiskers

Reading magazines is the biggest difference between the 7 inch and 10 inch tablets. I stopped reading them on my Nexus 7 completely because its too small for reading. The 10 inch Ipad always wins with reading mags. I have the Nook App on both the nexus 7 and Ipad and its crap on the nexus, too small. On the Ipad, its good. I have some subscriptions on the Nook bookstore and some on the Itunes store. While the Itunes magazines look great, they sometimes are a bother more then the nook. I have the british T3 and Stuff (its gadgets people) on the Itunes store and they add so much interactive content that it takes a bit to load the covers, and other pages with the interaction, plus the constant scrolling up and down to see the stories gets old. Sometimes I prefer the nook app.

Sarlacc

I use my ipad for reading books all the time. I don't buy anymore physical books.

I do read some magazines on my iPad...I have a subscription to car and driver on zinio ($5 for the year so why not)

Whiskers

I have a few on Zinio, works fine.

Sarlacc

Yeah, didnt say it didnt.

I had a few subscriptions. I just let them lapse. I re-upped with c&d because of the super discount.

ipad is also great for comic books.

Whiskers

Didnt say that you didnt say it didnt