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Which Tablet to buy ?

2K views 13 replies 8 participants last post by  Zoot 
#1 ·
I've decided one of these would be ideal for taking and storing photos/videos of work projects.
I don't really know much about these and there seams to be a lot of conflicting opinions on a Google search.
I also wondered what the connectivity is like on these away from home.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Al
 
#3 ·
Need more info as to what you want to do exactly.

Tablet cameras = please don't use them.

Storing photos/videos on a tablet? Not meant for this, meant for reading/consuming from the cloud... tablets are pretty much totally gimped and limited in terms of software and storage capacity. 4G tablets are dying around here (USA) in terms of sales for obvious reasons (everyone has a phone and doesn't need a slightly larger phone that can't make calls)... glen
 
#4 ·
This is what I needed to know.
I have a mass of portfolio cases and I was hoping that a Tablet would be good for showing customers pics of projects without having to go through a wad of portfolio cases.
I guess a link to a blog or page would be better. I don't have a website as I don't advertise due to having more than enough work coming in from word of mouth.

Thanks.
 
#6 ·
I recently bought the Surface 3 w/i7 proc & 128GB SSD to replace an Atom-powered ASUS tablet that I had for a year, but wasn't nearly powerful enough.

The Surface 3 is my primary business computer, I am a corporate consultant and I am not in my office much. It's compact, powerful, and has full Windows Pro 8.1 on it. When I'm on the go, if I need to access my software or office server for a client, I can hot-spot my phone and connect my Surface to it. Works like a champ.

I don't do much more than access my client databases with the tablet, which isn't particularly labor-intensive for a computer, especially an i7 processor. I don't ask it to do high-end things (like gaming, software compiling, or rendering/graphics)... I only ask it to act like a very portable Windows computer that allows me to run my businesses from anywhere I go. Battery life is pretty much outstanding as far as a portable computer goes - it gets about 6-8 hours (depending on how hard I work it) out of a single charge.

I have a camera that I can download to it because it has a full size USB 3.0 port. I also keep my music library on it (on a 64 GB microSD card). Basically, it's got limitless storage, or as many microSD cards as you care to carry.
 
#9 ·
Just my 2 cents.

I would tend to go with the Asus Nexus 7 running Android as Mike recommended. For ease of use I would stay away from Apple for the simple reason that you have to run everything through an interface, it's a pain in the arse to have to wait for Itunes to do file transfers, for anyone used to PC or Linux Android just makes more sense. You know where your files are, you don't have to wait for a program to transfer them, network sharing is easy.

Steer clear of the Surface too, one major issue - you cannot charge from USB. May not be a biggie, but sometimes you may find yourself needing a quick recharge from a PC, you may find you're in a place where the current/wall outlet is different and need to buy a cheap local USB charger.

Jem's recommendation on the Dell is handy as you then have a machine that will talk directly to your Win machines with the minimum of hassle, although my past experiences with Dell have been terrible to put it mildly.

To tie things up. Please don't take photos with a tablet, they're awful (even the ones with good cameras are terrible), they're too unwieldly to hold up, you're relying on digital zoom which is .....well...digital and when I am trying to take a photo and some gob****e holds up a tablet blocking my view it takes all my will power not to grab it and smack it against his head until either one breaks. You can get a good camera with a real zoom for next to nothing.

As for photo storage, the non Apple ones are perfect. I carry one with my cameras when travelling. It's so easy, you've a 32gb micro SD in the slot, so when you fill up your camera card, hook up a USB transfer to a folder on the tablet and you're good to go again, no messing around with laptops or running out of space on the card when you need it.

As for connectivity they should all give good results on wifi no matter where you are on the planet. When wifi was less available I used to notice that in the middle and far east a lot of people still trusted WEP (and many still do), fire up Backtrack and within 2 minutes I could borrow some bandwidth for my tasks. If anyone here still uses WEP change it, even if you're on WPA change your key on a regular basis, if a not particularly tech savvy guy like me could borrow some bandwidth on either protocols imagine what someone with a little skill and drive could do.
 
#10 ·
I use a surface RT running 8.1
I support Apple stuff at work, I have an iphone and my kids have ipads but for the me the surface is just fantastic. runs word/excel etc so its good for work blah blah. everyone who hasn't used one will hate on it but I would take one over an ipad anyday
 
#11 ·
surfaceRT will absolutely charge any phone (via it's USB port) but while powered on (battery or ac). The battery lasts for hours so it's ideal in that regard. AFAIK that chipset doesn't support usb charging while powered off though. Moot issue imho.

SurfacePro's power adapter has a USB charger built in which is really handy. I'll check later if it will power a device while off (probably not). My YogaS1 has a dedicated "always powered usb" port with firmware option to disable... glen
 
#13 ·
I have a 4th generation iPad from work and the "Retina Display" screen is absolutely beautiful. Huge improvement over even a 3rd gen iPad. I honestly wouldn't buy any tablet without a screen at least this good.

But the camera is pretty miserable on it. Far worse than the camera on my Samsung Galaxy S4 phone. Not sure if they improved it on the newer iPad Air?

If I were buying a tablet with my own money, I'd probably go with the newest Samsung Galaxy Tab. I've read that the screen is at least as good as the iPad screen. The iPad is extremely good at its basic function of consuming media (browsing internet, watching videos, etc) but pretty awful at everything else. One of the most irritating aspects of it is the total inability to manage files on it. For example, if you have a large collection of photos, it's not simple to get them on the iPad and look at them. You need to open iTunes, then go to the program that would use them (Photos or something like that) and then manually transfer the files. Worse, if you have different projects arranged into folders, you can't transfer the folder structure. All the files just end up in the root directory and then you have to manually rebuild your directory structure on the iPad. Compare this to any Android device where your computer will recognize it just like an external drive and you can simply drag and drop things onto it.

I'm very intrigued by the Surface Pro 3, but I still don't think the screen is up to par with Apple or the newest Samsung stuff. The thing that really interests me about the Surface is the ability to run MS Office in a native environment. For work, that would be huge for me, as I use Outlook and Excel all the time. But again, for displaying media to clients, I still prefer some of the other tablets with better screens.
 
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