Hi all,
Recently I've felt the inevitable call of the tablet gods whispering to me and have seriously considered buying a tablet of some description.
I've been doing a bit of research and have decided really that the two choices are either the ipad or the galaxy tab.
The ipad because of the sheer volume of apps available, the fantastic battery life and the polished feel of the device (I've had a play around with the ipad 2 and it rarely, if ever, stutters when doing anything.
The galaxy tab because of the customisability that it offers, and mainly because of the flash support which lets me watch or stream anything directly online.
I have an android phone and have become quite accustomed to being able to make it look how I want it to look.
I was wondering if anyone has any of the two devices (or even both) and had any tips to share.
iPad 2 or Samsung Galaxy Tab?
Poll Options
- 23Samsung Galaxy Tab
- 11iPad 2
- 3Other
Comments
I have a galaxy tab 8.9 and absolutely love it.
However I've read great things about the transformer prime. Quad core CPU! You might want to wait till that gets released in oz, or consider a grey import of one from the US
I have a fairly good laptop and PC already so I don't really need that much grunt under the bonnet of my tablet, plus I'm guessing the battery life wouldn't be fantastic on a quad core tablet. I'd be using it mainly to browse the web, read PDFs and watch movies so battery life is high on my priority list
there is this tablet with ninja core….
I was hoping there'd be quite a dramatic price slash for the iPad 2 when the 3 comes out. That way I'd just snap up a 2 for $300 (hopefully…)
Like everything in the Tablet wars you need to weigh up your own personal preferences.
You have assessed things fairly well. Without going into the "power game" which you can research with better results on many technical sites.
Android - Flexible, and modifiable.
Apple - Apps and official upgrade support.Flash is a positive, but it does come at the expense of battery life. A trade off
But the comment above is one of the points thats a positive and a negative. As a new buyer its a negative in that iPads hold their value due in part to the official upgrade support offered, and hence access to much of the app base when newer versions arrive. Great as an existing owner, as when you upgrade you get some of your investment back.
Given the past trend, the iPad price reduction on the old model wasnt more than around 20%. So I doubt if you will find the $300 price (or buckleys to zero if you meant 2 for $300 as in $150 each)
Prices like that tend to be only on Androids due to proliferation of so many models, competition between models and lack of official upgrades.
Another factor is your existing base of apps for your android phone. I believe that like the iDevices, you can use the same app on both devices without paying extra.
And there is lies another point for you. the investment in apps which you can take with you when you upgrade in the future.
While many may advise you on specs of a current model, things always change, and its the on going support and life cost which are big factors. Thats one thing the iPad has a history of. Likewise iPhones have a better resale, for a simple reason, that a used iphone, is still "valuable" as an ipod touch. I now see 5 year olds using iphone3's as a touch.
As for customisable.
With Androids you can easily do that. The trade off is waiting for private support with OS upgrades.
With iDevices, to customise you have to wait for private support . ie Jailbreak (now available for ipad2)
So in both cases you can achieve the same. Its up to you which path suits you best. Flexibility vs future upgrades or Future upgrades then flexibility
Factor in of course that you are a happy Android user and that gives Android the edge for you.
However some rumours - and where would we be without them, is that Samsung is looking at other ways with OS rather than follow Google. Given their market size they probably can. See this recent article from Reuters on their Bada OS
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/17/samsung-tizen-idUS…
He actually says
snap up a 2 for $300
ie he's hoping to snap up an iPad2 for $300
That reuters article is looking at the "low end" OS, currently Samsung's Bada which is being merged with an Intel OS, I presume with the intent that Samsung will release some x86 powered handsets in the future.
Certainly for the time being, Android (and to a lesser extent Windows Phone) remain Samsung's Premium handset OS's.
Having not played with iOS much, and being an Android user, I found my parents' new iPad2 to be quite unintuitive to use (especially the keyboard - doesn't change to upper case letters like the Android keyboard does, surely that's one of the most basic "intuitive" necessities?).
I'd seriously investigate the Transformer Prime… you can't just assume that a Quad Core will suck more battery.
wait for ipad 3 it coming march anyway
for ipad 2 upper case letters. all u need to do is:
enter iPad / iPad 2 settings
tap General tab
tap Keybord tab
set Enable Caps Lock into ON state
afterwardgo to your virtual keybord on iPAD / iPad2
tap twice on either left or right Shift keyOh please ipad 2 is way better then samsung galaxy tab
You actually highlight the issue for evaluating BOTH platforms and asking for advice here. Most cannot truly evaluate both the user interaction on systems fairly.
If you work with one system its hard to understand the details of the other. So often judgments are made with this lack of knowledge.
Plus as you get to know one system its harder to adjust to the other. Hence my comments about being already an Android user. (and I use iDevices)
IMO the only thing better about android is its cheaper (i guess its cool to say thats its open source as well, but i rarely use any features of that sort).
Steve jobs originally called android "shit", and you can really tell. i often tell my android friends/fan boys, if androids so good change a setting like 'keyboard haptic feed back' off, then watch them search thru the endless options without any direction.
Coming form a software perspective its a nightmare. (that being said, i hear 4.0 is better, but they said that about 3.0, and it wasn't great).
They say its great because u can customize it to how u want. every time i get a device, i spend many hours making it useable, where as an iphone is already usable.
I'm gonna also point out that i dont have any 'i' device, only androids, and would general tell people i prefer neither.
saibit, that advise does nothing to change the fact that the Keyboard appears to be typing Capital letters ALL THE TIME…whether Shift/Caps Lock is on or off.
The only way to determine if I'm going to type an A or an a is to look to see if the Shift key is highlighted.
If that's more intuitive than the standard (and every non-standard that I have used) Android Keyboard, which changes from displaying a to A when I press the shift key, then you're right, iOS is indeed easier to use.
As ozpete says, it's half about what you're used to. But in this case, (and it's a situation you come across every day), Android wins by so far there's not even a competition.IMO the only thing better about android is its cheaper
so i guess you really appreciate the lack of sd card expansion, hdmi/microusb connectivity options and loves running all your music movies and files through a memory consuming and laggy software?
i often tell my android friends/fan boys, if androids so good change a setting like 'keyboard haptic feed back' off, then watch them search thru the endless options without any direction.
when i got my first android phone that's one of the first things i did out of the box with no problems at all. i think that's more a comment on the company you keep than anything wrong with android tbh ;)
edit: just realised this thread is 10months old. /walksawayquietlyandhopenoonenotices
I'm gonna be the fun police and say you can do without. Everyone that i know that has a tablet (i have a touchpad :>) stops using them. They are a toy, if u already have a smart phone (a decent one like HTC or iphone) then the tablet will become a device to play games on.
I agree its a little nicer to surf on, but a laptop is even nicer.
are they selling? because I need a fancy pdf/word/visio tablet viewer…. i don't intend to play games on these though.
Tablets Selling? - Apple alone sold 15.4 million iPads last quarter, then add in Samsung and the rest….
interestingly it hasn't taken a chunk out of laptop or desktop sales, its just a new thing and people want it, i new people that bought those 7'' asus netbooks a while back. (although i expect this to last longer than them).
@slowmo Kindle??? you can get them for like $99, and if u dish out for a 3G model, u can search the web as well for free anywhere!!
hi ozpete, i was asking if imaximax1's 'friends' are selling them since he said "Everyone that i know that has a tablet (i have a touchpad :>) stops using them"
@imaximax1: As much as I would love to have the kindle, if you seriously were after a pdf/word/visio reader, you would find that the recent offerings (including the kindle fire) very lacking. In fact, very painful if you were to be using a kindle touch to read a pdf with graphics.
@slowmo - pardon my slowness…;)
@imaximax1 - according to Data, it HAS affected laptop/desktop sales eg this report on data by both IDC and Gartner.
http://laptopbatteriesforsell.over-blog.com/article-sales-ta…
North American DT/LT sales are down, offset by higher sales in Asia.
Although specific evidence is that netbook sales are the most affected.
While I agree that you might find many friends who have bought the Cheap tablets, have now given up on them. I am a strong believer that Google has shot themselves in the foot with their Android on cheap tablet strategy, with inferior quality products coming to market, that give the overall product a poor image. - note its only the foot!! ;)
Vs the Samsung strategy of a quality product. Or Kindles, where its a specialised product for ebook reading.
@ozpete I'm the only one with a crappy tablet (although technically the touchpad is on par, once android is loaded), one friend has the new transformer…its plays games super fast.
Im not sure if the rest of your comment was for me or not, i like my hawaui ideos android phone, but know no one with a cheap android tablet.
about sales…i didnt mean netbooks, they are well dead.
Thanks for the feed back so far! I'm actually in my local JB testing out the two tablets right now. The iPad does feel a little less intuitive to me being a android user myself. The galaxy feels a bit choppy at times when I'm switching between screens and apps. There's a lot of talk online about apple slashing the iPad 2 when the 3 comes out. I guess I'll hope that'll push Samsung to drop the price of the galaxy.
@scubacoles
Capital letters/lowercase of the on screen keyboard is nice, but really its not going to be a deal breaker. I'm typing away on my computer keyboard, and the keys on the keyboard dont change to lower case when I type.
That said its a nice feature and I can get it by using third party software with a jailbreaked iPad. Now Jailbreaking is non standard, but to upgrade many Androids I have to use non standard systems. Now iPad lovers find that appalling, where as Android users laugh at Jailbreaking. So its 50/50
@imaximax1 As for functionality. On my last trip to the US, I put in an AT&T sim for $20-25 and could use my Mynetfone Voip service, and GoogleVoice and had a functional telephone, Booking hotels, GPS functionality with TomTom, Google Maps giving me traffic updates, checking fuel prices with an App. Even could scan an item in one store and it would compare prices with stores nearby - another app, not available on a laptop with as simple an interface.
Reading the SMH, getting exchange rates, finding shopping centres, transferring funds, emails, SMS, music Movies, while waiting in airports, magazines via PDF's.
Yep many that could be used with a laptop, but hey far easier to use with a Tablet. Again not pushing one platform over another, I am sure you could use either. Now when you get to having 15 hour flights you really appreciate the ability that a tablet gives you in confined spaces plus superior battery life.
Loved showing it to the passenger seated next to me, who put away his out of power, laptop and was in awe, with the simplicity of zooming in on pics and articles. I opened one zoomed in so he could read at the same time.
Games, yea played some of those too, but I dont really need fast graphics for games that require thinking and being rather sedate while on a plane are more useful and easier when you use pinching and swiping and moving, rather than a track pad.
Again its what you are using it for. As a games machine, you really arent getting much benefit over a laptop, unless its a car/aircraft type game where tilting the device like a wheel makes it much more responsive. Shootem ups I think are harder. But thats my preference.
I think you meant to reply to scubacoles :D
I started my typing life on a 100% manual typewriter, so I know where my fingers are going without too much fuss, only drawback is that i still hit them pretty hard, which kinda sounds like i'm an angry dude banging the keyboard if you are not looking. :P
Yep - sorry thats strike 2 on my behalf, have edited my post, in case others wonder what you were talking about. Times like this it reminds you of the old whiteout….
And for someone training in touch typing, looking at the keyboard was a no no… I remember stories the typists used to tell of their typing teacher using a ruler, in what today would be called assault, should their eyes stray to looking at the keys while they typed.
Haha, yeah, lucky when I started learning typing, that sort of 'motivation' has ceased… they came up with a clever scheme which is a weekly speed chart on how fast can you type at 100% accuracy. With a class of teens and 60% girls, guys like me are too egoistic to lose. lol.
I followed tablet market for over a year, looking for something I like. Being short, 10.1" is too large for me but 7.7" got odd dimension.
Settled for Samsung Galaxy Note, 5.3" + micro SD card. Happy with this decision, it's really portable, good battery life, and large enough to make it comfortable for reading or watching movie.
I prefer iPad 2. I have an iPad 2. It is a very slick device, and obviously works very well for multimedia viewing, web browsing, reading emails.
You're about 10 months too late on this one, buddy ;-)
There are many things in which Samsung galaxy tab is batter than ipad 2, but I still feel that apple is bigger name than Samsung and buying ipad 2 is more satisfying. So I will go with ipad 2.
If you can, wait for iPad 3 in March.