Android tablets - advice?

Blaze

Blaze

The Jeeper Reaper
Joined
Aug 9, 2005
Location
Wake Forest, NC
My wife really wants a tablet for her birthday in November. I am not totally anti-Apple, but I am anti-Apple enough that the expense of an iPad makes it not an option.

What is a good Android tablet for $300 or less? Would be nice to have a camera/video and a good processor. Doesn't need to have 3G/4G or anything, wifi would be fine.

I'm thinking I might go a little over and grab a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 for $350, but not sure if there are better ones for cheaper or similar price.
 
In my experience with tablets, the sub $300 (actually most android) tablets aren't as polished as the galaxy or the ipad. Really those are the only two players in the market.

If you're looking at the galaxy, you might as well give the Apple a fair chance. Don't forget that it's an american company playing against a slew of asian companies that have an unfair advantage due to the currency games that their governments play against the dollar.
 
Amazon just released this today:

Kindle Fire

But it doesn't come out until November.
 
That Kindle has a lack of functionality compared to the other ones though. Plus the screen is small at 7".

I have a really hard time buying Apple stuff, although I do try and buy American stuff whenever I can. I just hate how Apple stuff interacts with my PC, drives me insane with their proprietary crap. I swear I want to throw out my wife's iPod Nano every time I try and put songs on the damn thing.
 
Jmauld said:
In my experience with tablets, the sub $300 (actually most android) tablets aren't as polished as the galaxy or the ipad. Really those are the only two players in the market.
If you're looking at the galaxy, you might as well give the Apple a fair chance. Don't forget that it's an american company playing against a slew of asian companies that have an unfair advantage due to the currency games that their governments play against the dollar.
Click to expand...

And where do you think all those Apple products are built?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/31/us-apple-china-idUSTRE77U4M620110831
 
Blaze said:
That Kindle has a lack of functionality compared to the other ones though. Plus the screen is small at 7".
I have a really hard time buying Apple stuff, although I do try and buy American stuff whenever I can. I just hate how Apple stuff interacts with my PC, drives me insane with their proprietary crap. I swear I want to throw out my wife's iPod Nano every time I try and put songs on the damn thing.
Click to expand...
With the upcoming release of iOS 5 there will be less required interaction between the iPad and the PC.

Being a diehard PC fan, I resisted Apple for a while and then purchased an iPhone. Their products (excluding iTunes, which is crap) are really slick. That's not to take away from the galaxy. I played with that before purchasing an ipad and it's by far the best android table out. But in the end I was already familiar with iOS so I stuck with it.
 
catfishblues said:
And where do you think all those Apple products are built?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/31/us-apple-china-idUSTRE77U4M620110831
Click to expand...
I know this, and I probably hate that fact just as much as anyone here. But it has nothing to do with what I said.

Apple = American company that has to compete $1/$1
Samsung = Korean company that gets to compete at whatever rate it's government chooses to be low enough to give their companies an advantage in the World Market.
 
Jmauld said:
I know this, and I probably hate that fact just as much as anyone here. But it has nothing to do with what I said.
Apple = American company that has to compete $1/$1
Samsung = Korean company that gets to compete at whatever rate it's government chooses to be low enough to give their companies an advantage in the World Market.
Click to expand...

Apple used to produce some seriously good stuff back in the day. The IIe was an awesome computer! ;) Seriously, though, nowadays it seems their entire goal is to rush undertested, unreliable products to market and use marketing to build such consumer hype that everybody's afraid to actually admit their products don't work as advertised! And I love the fact that they've used the "iPhone left at a bar" trick not once, but TWICE!
 
catfishblues said:
Apple used to produce some seriously good stuff back in the day. The IIe was an awesome computer! ;) Seriously, though, nowadays it seems their entire goal is to rush undertested, unreliable products to market and use marketing to build such consumer hype that everybody's afraid to actually admit their products don't work as advertised! And I love the fact that they've used the "iPhone left at a bar" trick not once, but TWICE!
Click to expand...
I remember writing my first computer "program" on a IIe.

I think that's everyone's goal these days. It's a side effect of companies being owned by people who are only interested in collecting money from as many people as possible and as quickly as possible.

I've had my 3GS for almost three years now. It still works great. The battery still lasts a full day, even though I use it quiet a bit. The thing has flown out of my jeep while I was going over 35mph and landed on the pavement. I've got sand inside of it, from dropping it at the beach. It just keeps working. I haven't tried drowing it though. Not yet anyway. :lol:

The bar thing is sad really. While they do have a good marketing team, they should change up their strategies occasionally.
 
It will be hard to get a good tablet for 300 or under.

When I was looking back a few months ago I was torn between Motorolla Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1...both ran around 5 to 600.
 
xoom, galaxy, or the new lenovo thinkpad tablet. I have the thinkpad, and it is by far the best of the lot, but it's not "pretty" and it is heavier. I'm a large male, so I don't particularly care, but for your wife, the xoom and the galaxy may be better.
Apple may do their R&D here, but production is all offshore, very very few electronics components are made here. I'm not going to support a company that is putting out overpriced products for the hipsters. Not that their stuff is bad, but you can get a HP with identical specs to a macbook for easily $500 less. Yeah you get windows, not osx, but for 98% of apples customer base, they're buying it because it's "cool".
The ipad/ipodtouch line is brilliant. The decision to release early to get the first marketshare was good even though it was buggy. Those products are solid, I don't like them, but I've had a 1stgen itouch for 4 years and aside from a screen with a couple hairline cracks in it, it still works just fine. I have the lenovo thinkpad tablet and it's brilliant, would never buy an ipad, and as soon as samsung gets their act together with the galaxy player I'll be replacing my itouch. As an engineer I like having pc products that talk to each other and unless you're a graphics/audio designer there is no way to justify apple products. OSX runs some stuff better than windows, but the apple fans rave about how awesome their stuff is, then have to dual boot windows more often than not to run programs. Waste of money right there. I have a 4 1/2 year old thinkpad that is still going strong. Replaced the battery last summer. I don't know a single person whos been able to keep a macbook running that long before they die...

rant over, check out the xoom, and galaxy, if you can get a galaxy for $50 over what you want, it's worth it. Don't know what the xooms are going for. Mine was $500, but it was worth every bit with a full docking stations and the durability factor, in my line of work that's extremely important. I've heard good things about the acer's too
 
A lot of hate for the Ipad. I have mine and love it (however I am not apple fanboy, I just think the Iphone and Ipad just work better and are easier to operate). It works much better than any Droid tablet I have touched. If i was going to buy a tablet though, I would really look at upping the budget to around 500 to get one of the newer tablets. I haven't seen the galaxy tab for that cheap yet, but I haven't looked too hard.
 
Blaze said:
Well, I can get a Galazy Tab 10.1 for $350. Seems like they are coming down a lot in price.
Click to expand...

Then there is your answer, at 350 its a steal. I might look into it again. I was hesitant on both at 500 because I really didnt know how often Id use it
 
Macdaddy4738 said:
Then there is your answer, at 350 its a steal. I might look into it again. I was hesitant on both at 500 because I really didnt know how often Id use it
Click to expand...

I thought I wouldn't use mine too much other than for travel at first, I travel pretty often for work (IPad). However I use it more than my laptop now for surfing the web at night, etc. It is nice to not have a laptop that is hot and weighs a lot on your lap when watching TV.
 
the ipad is brilliant if you have a mac computer, without it's hard to use with windows... the galaxies i've seen for 350 are the 7 inch ones, double check that, the 10" is still $500
 
My 2 cents.

Apple is by far the most overpriced technology on the market. I build computers as a hobby and can personally tell you apple has the exact same technology as anyone else, they just do a better job of making it shiny and impossible to upgrade, and personalize.

Also while apple may be an "American" company, there products are still made overseas, and a little digging will show you that Apple's oversea assembly facilities have terrible worker conditions with over spacing and pretty much treat there foreign workers just as bad if not worse than any other modern Chinese sweat shop. Which makes it hard to forgive them for there terribly high prices.

Android is the official apple OS killer, it is more customizable, there are more apps being made for it (just like windows products) and it will only continue to grow. I would choose an android tablet because at the end of the day it Can do More, plus it supports Flash, and probably costs a bit less.
 
it's because itunes is such a wretched program that makes syncing anything of importance damn near impossible. everything has to be made into proprietary formats and it's just a vile program on windows... Nothing wrong with the product, everything wrong with the software it runs on. Same deal with the computers, nothing wrong with them, but why would i pay almost twice as much for the same hardware to fight the software? Can't wait to be rid of the apple software from my computer, and android just makes life that much easier
 
I have the Xoom, I bought it the day it came out and I love it. I'm not anti-apple but I didnt really want an I-pad cause I need flash and I didn't want to follow the trend. The speakers are loud and clear, screen is great, size is okay (its in a outterbox anyway so i dont care about size) but I would pay to have a tablet with the speakers on the front of it. I paid almost $700 for it when it came out but i'm sure prices are much much lower now. If that link above if legit and you can get one for $350 I'd jump on that.
Alex
 
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