sending this email from my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7" procured through Amazon for less than $200. It has all the specs you want. The battery life isn't amazing if you are using it constantly, but you will get a good 4-6 hours. My one complaint is that it has a funky charging/usb port that is almost identical to the Apple iphone accessory port, but not enough to be compatible. That said, it charges easily with USB, is light weight, performs awesomely with Skype (front and rear decent resolution cameras and stereo speakers), can do voice to text translation, and I'm typing right now on an gmyle USB Bluetooth keyboard while using a Jetpack (also from AMazon. $1 plus wireless plan) while riding the train to work.
I used to lug a 3.5lb dell e4300, which is awesomely light for a PC, but this, even with keyboard and jetpack is feather weight. I can even use it as a serial terminal in a pinch with a prolific USB/serial adapter. Also, it has android 4.0 so I'm sending this while connected to the corp VPN. (micro sd slot in use, too) PS - amazon recommended the Poetic leather protector/stand. I got it. It's decent. I might have gone with a different one that has an integrated keyboard if I were to do it over, but the Poetic one is stylish and protects the device well. It's not as rigid as a plastic stand, so you may not find the angles that it chooses to be especially suitable as others. Sent from my android device. -----Original Message----- From: Morgan Blackthorne <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, 21 Feb 2013 1:13 AM Subject: [lopsa-discuss] Android Tablet recommendation? Like the email thread, this is sysadmin related, though perhaps not as intuitively so. I work from home almost exclusively at this point due to my disability (significant rheumatoid arthritis). New meds have gotten it under control, to a point, but there are still problems. One of my current coping methods is to use my Droid 2 (which is my pager for work) and my Nook Color (which I've rooted) to keep up with work when I hurt too much to sit up in bed (where I spend most of my time-- my back is usually less likely to complain when I'm propped up with pillows vs. sitting in a chair) with my MacBook. Since I'm a remote employee, I do spend a lot of time writing emails and responding to instant messages. I am looking to upgrade the phone, as I've found that despite my best efforts, the unit simply refuses to stay awake all the time and will drop the wifi/3g connection and go to sleep at times. While pages get through, as they operate over SMS, people IMing me often does not. I'm currently looking at the Kyocera Rise, as it's Android 4.0 based, and has significantly better specs than the Droid 2. And the physical keyboard definitely helps a lot with responding to emails or SSHing into a node; touchscreen typing is often frustrating as I typo all over the place. The Nook Color is a great e-reader, but really a so-so tablet. The BN market is tiny compared to the Play Store or Amazon's App store. And after rooting it, many apps will refuse to load onto the device for compatibility reasons. A good example of this is the Amazon AWS Console app, which would certainly be handy for me. I also tried to use it for watching TV via Netflix and Plex, and it just doesn't have the juice to render fast enough. Since I work from home and my work is very flexible, I often take breaks during the day (especially when meds kick in hard and zombify me for a bit) to read a book or watch TV and work at different points throughout the entire day instead of working 8+ hours at one or two sittings. This habit particularly comes in handy when I am able to do work after the devs leave for the day and I can make changes without having to worry about blocking them, or doing maintenance at off-peak hours. Needless to say, I sent a lot of 1am/2am emails and management loves that, and that demonstrated work ethic has earned me a lot of latitude-- especially since we care more about results than process. My work is really flexible about a lot of things like that (as evidenced from me transitioning from being a full time commuter to a full time remote employee gradually over the last three years). I'm also interested in testing out compatibility for our revamped site on the tablet as well, which slightly alters my specs. Here's what I'm looking for: - Capacitive touch-screens only. - Bluetooth support preferred, so I can use a headset down the line and potentially a keyboard. - If Bluetooth is not available, this mandates a microphone. One of the things I'll be testing at some point is audio recording on the device. I'd prefer this even if it does have Bluetooth, however. - Decent display-- somewhere between 7 and 9 inches with a good resolution. A former housemate had a Xoom and the 10" tablet was simply too bulky and too heavy (1.6 pounds). Unwieldy for me. The Nook Color is 7" and something slightly larger would be preferred. My wife has a Nook HD+ and the 9" is a very pretty display without being too heavy. - Not too heavy, especially as I'm going to add a protective case to it. - Android 4.x preferred. If I'm spending enough money on this, I don't see any reason to go with an older OS. - Access to the Google or Amazon app store natively strongly preferred. I'm tech savvy enough to root it if I have to, but I don't want to have to, I just want it to work. And I definitely don't want to fight compatibility issues after rooting the unit, because neither store ever says why it considers the device incompatible, which makes trying to troubleshoot it very cumbersome. Again, I feel that if I'm dropping this kind of money, I shouldn't have to fight to get it to do what I want. - Wifi. I don't intend to pay for a cellular data plan. - Expandable memory slot highly preferred. I prefer micro-SD but I'm not wedded to that format; the important part to me is the ability to swap out storage if I want and to expand the capacity of the unit itself, especially if I ever end up using it on say a plane ride and want to watch videos. - Front camera with decent resolution. I would like to be able to use the unit to Skype with. - Not a bank breaker. $300 is the most I'd like to spend, but I might spend more if I believed I needed to. - Good battery life. Two of the units I've been considering are the Kindle Fire 8.9" and the Nexus 7". The Kindle doesn't have micro-SD but does have a USB port; I assume I could plug in a USB stick to it (or even USB drive). I also do have a bunch of TV and movies purchased off of Amazon Unbox and the only tablet that will play that back is the Fire, as they don't make their Unbox player available on the Android markets. (Well, I might be able to use Flash, but Flash on Android always seems to chug, no matter what device, in my experience. Then again, Flash tends to chug period...) Both units seem to have 1G RAM, a microphone, Bluetooth, and 16 or 32G of flash. The Nexus 7 has a Tegra 3 quad-core chip and the Fire has a dual-core ARM chip-- I don't know how they rate performance wise since they're apples and oranges. The Nexus is smaller, but has Android 4.2 instead of 4.0 on the Fire (as far as I can tell online). The Fire is 20oz and the Nexus 7 seems to be ~12oz. Smaller but lighter and cheaper might be a bonus, but smaller does tend to make typos easier when using the touchscreen. On the other hand, I will likely be keeping this for a long time, so I'd probably want to invest in a bigger display and look towards the Kindle. On the other hand, Amazon has a bit of a stranglehold on the ebook market and that's one reason that the wife and I went toward the Nooks in the first place. Any other tablets that I'm not aware of that would fit the bill, please let me know. I'm sure there are some that I'm not thinking of, I just haven't had time the last few years to keep track of electronics. Looking around on Amazon the Idolian Studio 10" (although probably too large, it is on the cheaper side...), Galaxy Tab 2 (again, probably too large/heavy at 10" and 1.3 pounds), and Lenovo Idea 9.7 look interesting. Thanks for any help you folks might have. Assistive devices are very, very important to me at this point. -- ~*~ StormeRider ~*~ "Every world needs its heroes [...] They inspire us to be better than we are. And they protect from the darkness that's just around the corner." (from Smallville Season 6x1: "Zod") On why I hate the phrase "that's so lame"... http://bit.ly/Ps3uSS
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