Tablet  By  devo344a (Read 816 times)

i touch was the best when i was not allwaoed to walk for 5 days due to accident in the hospital

I love my iPad, but then I had already tested my brother's and knew I wanted it. I got it for the very specific purpose of loading my Jazz band's piano music on it so I no longer have to mess with all the paper pages. And it works better than I imagined!

Yes, I also have a couple games on it (Solataire and Angry Birds Star Wars) but I don't seem to play those much at all. And I do grab it when I'm upstairs and need to check the internet for something. Otherwise it's in one of its two cases waiting for the next Jazz gig.

I agree with pma', figure out what you're going to use yours for, first. Are you just wanting to download and read ebooks? Graze the 'net? Keep up with emails? Play games? Then you can zero in on which tablet will best fill your needs.

Hopefully you won't end up needing to stay in the hospital. But if so, make sure you get your tablet all set up from your computer before you go. And give yourself time to mess around with it beforehand, too. That way you'll find out if there's an app or anything you want. Once you're in the hospital (and again, hopefully not!) you'll be stuck with what's on the tablet, unless someone brings in your laptop for you.

Good luck, Tim!

>'Kat

I have a Skytex Skypad Alpha 2, it's a horrible name but it was a great inexpensive tablet I purchased over a year ago, and I still use it continually. It's an older Android package but it plays all the goodies without issues... I use it for reading eBooks watching movies and cartoons, and playing games. It's good for web surfing and email. It plays Angry Birds, Subway Surfer, Temple Run and other games fine. The newer high-res gpu intensive games don't play well though.

The 7" screen size is a nice compromise. It's small enough to drop in a back pocket and always have with you, but big enough to still enjoy watching video on and read books easily.

A few things to look for:

• Get a capacitive touch screen! A lot of the cheaper tablets still have resistive touch screens; the capacitive is a much better technology.
  
• Look for USB OTG compatibility. My tablet has that and it is a very good feature. It allows you to connect mice, keyboards, and USB flash drives to the tablet. I have a keychain with USB flash drives containing a lot of my favorites; One with the entire Star Trek Original Series, another with the Firefly Series, one with the entire Futurama Series...
  
• Good speakers are nice. This mini sound bar is awesome though: dx.com/p/loya-mini-usb-powered-music-speaker-black-3-5mm-jack-113790
  It is powered by mini-USB, so you can power it from an emergency cell phone charger and hook it up to your tablet for great sound. I'm shocked at how good the sound is from such a small unit.
  
• Bluetooth and GPS would be nice. Mine doesn't have either feature. That's not a dealbreaker though for me.
  

there are many possibilities.
You can stick with the known brands, or gamble upon unknown brands.
you can prefer larger or smaller than the stock 7" screens you get for that price.
Know if you go larger (eg:9"), there must be some kind of downfall on that tablet, like not capacitive touchscreen, or low battery life or something.

Look at them all, compare specs.
For me, internal memory (ram and rom size), modern OS (Andr. 4.1 instead of 2.3), long battery life, and good graphics are important.
Other people might put more value on size, looks, shape, accessories...
it really depends on what you need!
I bought myself a new android phone. An LG Optimus L9. It's based on only 2 cores instead of 4 or 5. It's cheap, long battery life, good contrast, fluid screen, and I think it's worth every penny I paid so far!
that, and I pay $45/MONTH for phone + 3G internet unlimited!
It's way better than $30/month for phone, and $40/month for internet.
I'm not a downloader, but if I ever need something I can always use wifi.
The 3/4G connection works fast, and can help me out in a pinch (should I need to know where I am it has a GPS inside as well).

The Matricom only has 3 hours of battery life? That's pretty wimpy. Even my old Nook will do nearly triple that. I'd stick with a brand name you recognize. Amazon also has listings for used tablets. So you could get a deal from someone that bought one on impulse and didn't think about what they were actually going to use it for.


If you do end up in the horse-pital be sure to get yourself hooked up to the guest wifi network. Very few places don't have it available. Have the nurses hook you up with the IT department if necessary. They'll be happy to get you going.