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Hi guys, I've had a Kindle Fire HD for like, 5-6 years or something. It's definitely reached the end of its natural lifespan and I'm ready to move on and up. I don't use an iPhone or any other Apple products, but I'm seeing a lot of iPad recommendations in here. I just wanted to make sure that the recommendation still stands even if I won't be able to take advantage of any synergy with other Apple products. I'm a student and would like a tablet that's comfortable for reading pdfs of textbooks and whatnot, but also able to read books comfortably. I also have been learning to draw and have been thinking of investing in a tablet for drawing in the future, and I have no idea if an iPad can fulfill that functionality, but if it could that would be awesome, albeit secondary to the other stuff I mentioned. What model would you all suggest for that? (keeping in mind my student budget means I can't drop $500-$600 on a tablet) Tosk fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Nov 8, 2020 |
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Nov 8, 2020 13:28
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Tosk posted:Hi guys, I've had a Kindle Fire HD for like, 5-6 years or something. It's definitely reached the end of its natural lifespan and I'm ready to move on and up. Fire HD 10 is on sale for $79 right now
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Nov 8, 2020 16:03
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EDIT I was able to find it, never mind. Thanks for the heads up!
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Nov 8, 2020 16:22
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Tosk posted:Hi guys, I've had a Kindle Fire HD for like, 5-6 years or something. It's definitely reached the end of its natural lifespan and I'm ready to move on and up. I don't think you'd lose all that much only having an iPad in the ecosystem. It definitely gets slicker the more apple devices you have but only having 1 isn't some kind of problem. For future reference if you want to get drawing the base iPad will get you that - the pencil is like $100 I think. The base iPad is now $329 and recently got refreshed. On the last generation 32GB price drops to $299 were very common, $279 was attainable and $249 infrequent but not impossible. MrBond fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Nov 11, 2020 |
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Nov 11, 2020 08:14
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Reading the past few pages and it looks like Samsung do the best Android tabs. How non-stock are they? Are they easy to make stock? Also, when do new models come out as the 8" version seems a bit dated.
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Nov 15, 2020 10:34
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We are in week two with the iPad tablet, as an Android user Big plus is the new ipads use the same USB-C charging as my phone and all other devices. So no futzing about with stupid proprietary cables. Ipads don't really need accessories so the total vendor lock in is low. We did get the $130 Apple pencil, and it's mostly worth it, except the text input in chrome sucks (for me) and the main app switching method, swiping up from the bottom, isn't supported by the pencil, which is really irritating, because everything else is supported The apps seem to be mostly the same as Android, just less broken (on average) Reading the news on the iPad with the pencil is a really luxurious experience We probably would have gotten a cheaper ipad model if they also came with USB-C, but only the pro and air have it right now (we got the air). I may order an ipad mini for my own personal use when they release a model with USB-C in the future What surprised me was that all the iPad video apps (Amazon, Netflix, hbo, umm that one that starts with an S, etc) all support for Chromecast to my tv, so it's made an awesome "remote control" for the tv. I was up late last night on baby duty and catching up on season three of Rick and Morty via the iPad streaming to the tv via chromecast. I knew ipad would work with whatever Apple calls their apple TV these days, I didn't expect it to flawlessly with with Chromecast was well
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Nov 15, 2020 12:49
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notaspy posted:Reading the past few pages and it looks like Samsung do the best Android tabs. Define "stock." Google has effectively stopped Android tablet development, so there isn't a gold-standard Nexus or Pixel device to compare to. They've more or less moved on to Chrome OS as their new non-phone hardware standard, but they've neglected the tablet side of things there, too. Samsung has been the only manufacturer putting significant effort into building high-end Play store compatible tablets for a while. They come with all the usual Samsung issues including high price tags, forced systemwide advertising, and gimmicky features. The bootloader is unlockable after seven days of ownership; you can check around XDA for the state of custom ROM development. It's not great. Lenovo has a few cheap Android tablets, but they're slow, have crappy low-res screens, and the company has a terrible reputation for providing updates. Amazon's Fire tablets are dirt cheap, but you can't get the Play store or services without jumping through a bunch of janky hoops, and the Amazon-is-everything launcher is locked down tight. What's pushing you towards Android? Google has essentially let Android tablets go the way of Reader, Play Music, and Hangouts. iPads are cheap and do a pretty good job at being a tablet, even if you use Android for everything else.
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Nov 16, 2020 00:02
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Space Gopher posted:Amazon's Fire tablets are dirt cheap, but you can't get the Play store or services without jumping through a bunch of janky hoops, and the Amazon-is-everything launcher is locked down tight. I believe it's simple to get Play store and services working, like download and install an apk, and it works fine. Replacing the launcher to be more normal rather than Amazon's weird thing was a little more involved and jankier in use, last I checked. But very much agreed on iPads, as someone who has exclusively used Android phones since Android was a thing and only uses Google services. A base model iPad on sale for $250, or 1-2 generations back for less, is so much nicer to use than a Kindle Fire. I think I used the now one generation back Kindle Fire HD 10, and it was so slow and painful to use that I just stopped using it. When I'd rather watch or browse poo poo on my phone because of how slow and annoying it is, that's not ideal for a media tablet. I get it if you have a very tight budget, but if you can stretch at all, an iPad will last much longer and be much more pleasant to use.
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Nov 16, 2020 06:08
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Big thing about Samsung is they are so popular you’ll see a lot of support by other users. If you want to flash a custom ROM there’s basically guaranteed to be a guide for your model. Plus there’s excellent build quality (even if the guts might be low spec). But importantly if you have a problem you can Google it and easily find an asked and answered tech forum post about the problem.
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Nov 16, 2020 06:17
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Space Gopher posted:Define "stock." Google has effectively stopped Android tablet development, so there isn't a gold-standard Nexus or Pixel device to compare to. They've more or less moved on to Chrome OS as their new non-phone hardware standard, but they've neglected the tablet side of things there, too. This is a depressing read. Why have google abandoned the Tablet market? MAdness. What I am after is something that is larger than a phone to watch tv and films on along with photos and sometimes documents. Also a bit of facebook as I refuse to have that installed on my phone. I wanted google as I don't want to have yet another big data company looking at my poo poo, I don't want yet another set of accounts, I don't want to have to learn yet another interface. I also really, REALLY hate apple and apple users. But it looks like it is the only choice. gently caress.
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Nov 16, 2020 22:38
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notaspy posted:This is a depressing read. Why have google abandoned the Tablet market? MAdness. You don't have to use any apple services beyond making an account so you can download apps. You can replace the iOS keyboard at this point even. The interfaces are also extremely similar. Click app icon, use app lol. With base iPads getting so cheap, Google getting out of the tablet game was the right call. Here, they're even on sale right now: https://slickdeals.net/f/14557076-apple-10-2-inch-ipad-latest-model-with-wi-fi-128gb-space-gray-myld2ll-a?src=frontpage
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Nov 16, 2020 22:59
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notaspy posted:This is a depressing read. Why have google abandoned the Tablet market? MAdness. It really sounds like you'd be fine with a Fire HD 10. They'll probably hit $100 or less on Black Friday. And sideloading the Google Play store is hella easy.
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Nov 17, 2020 00:12
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Yeah I'm a fan of the new HD10, except for the kind of goofy shape of it. I don't tend to hold it much while using it though (mostly watching Netflix or using it as a security camera monitor at work) so it hasn't been an issue. Installing Play Store on it took all of like 5 minutes.
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Nov 17, 2020 00:28
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Thanatosian posted:It really sounds like you'd be fine with a Fire HD 10. They'll probably hit $100 or less on Black Friday. And sideloading the Google Play store is hella easy. But then he'd have to get an Amazon account and have another Big Data Company reading his emails or whatever.
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Nov 17, 2020 00:37
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Hoping this is the right thread for Surface recommendations. I bought a SP6 in early 2019, and underestimated how much I'd love it. Because of that, I got one on the lower end, and it's starting to struggle RAM-wise. Now that the leaks show no significant form factor upgrade to the 8, should I pick up a 7 when they go on sale...and go with the 8 for the Tiger Lake CPUs, Xe graphics, and larger storage capacity? I looked at the X, but I don't really think the 32/64 emulation is what I'm looking for.
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Nov 17, 2020 06:50
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Devorum posted:Hoping this is the right thread for Surface recommendations.
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Nov 17, 2020 14:32
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sourdough posted:You don't have to use any apple services beyond making an account so you can download apps. You can replace the iOS keyboard at this point even. The interfaces are also extremely similar. Click app icon, use app lol. With base iPads getting so cheap, Google getting out of the tablet game was the right call. Here, they're even on sale right now: https://slickdeals.net/f/14557076-apple-10-2-inch-ipad-latest-model-with-wi-fi-128gb-space-gray-myld2ll-a?src=frontpage My only gripe with iPads is that they don't let me install all the apps I want to use. On Android, installing third party apps is pretty easy.
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Nov 17, 2020 15:45
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Endless Mike posted:The laptop thread in SH/SC is probably better for Surface questions. Thanks. I wasn't quite sure since it's a tablet form factor.
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Nov 17, 2020 17:10
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notaspy posted:This is a depressing read. Why have google abandoned the Tablet market? MAdness. The better question is, "why would Google stay in the tablet market?" Google abandoned tablets outside of Surface-ish 2-in-1 Chromebooks because there's not much value there for them. They already get to track most of your life through your phone, and people use roughly the same set of services across a phone and tablet. They've shifted towards Chromebooks because that gives them more avenues into workplaces and schools - people aren't typing essays or building slide decks on phones or tablets, for the most part. Also, rewards for individual devs, managers, and directors at Google follow product launches, and people who work on maintenance (like keeping Android's tablet features going and making incremental extensions) are seen as burnt-out failures unless they're on one of the massive core money-printers like advertising, search, or phone-Android. So, there's no overriding business reason for Google to keep tablet development going, and no big rewards for talented, well-connected people at Google to develop or sell Android tablets. Amazon makes a lot of cheap tablets because they totally failed to break into the phone market (lol fire phone), and want a hardware foothold that locks people to the world of Prime services. Needless to say, if you buy a Fire tablet, everything about it is designed to push you towards Amazon. But, hey, the hardware's cheap and good for the price. Apple and Samsung have kept making higher-end tablets because, unlike Google, they make a ton of money selling high-end hardware. Why do you hate Apple and Apple users? If it's about people choosing to buy technically inferior, overpriced hardware just to fit an image, I've got some real bad news about buying high-end Android tablets in 2020.
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Nov 17, 2020 21:30
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I don't like Apple much, but I'm still considering an iPad to use on my boat (34' sailboat) for charts and to connect to the chart plotter... sigh.
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Nov 17, 2020 21:46
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that's not to say there aren't decent chromebook tablets. my dad refuses to have any apple stuff in his house so my mother had been using my aging pixel c. It is no longer getting updates, so i bought her this tablet when it was on sale for $230. the interface is familiar enough that she hasn't had any issues using it. i would consider it a good replacement for anyone still holding on to a nexus 7
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Nov 17, 2020 21:49
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I need a new tablet for my 82 year old grandmother. She can get around on her kindle fire 10 inch okay enough, and likes the big screen, but complains about how heavy it is to hold up for long periods of time. Is there a large screen tablet out there that is particularly light?
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Nov 18, 2020 17:46
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Gangringo posted:I need a new tablet for my 82 year old grandmother. She can get around on her kindle fire 10 inch okay enough, and likes the big screen, but complains about how heavy it is to hold up for long periods of time. Is there a large screen tablet out there that is particularly light? I think the Fire 10, iPad Air, and Tab 7 are about the lightest 10" tablets, at 432, 437 and 490 grams respectively. The iPad Pro is ~650 grams.
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Nov 18, 2020 18:16
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Gangringo posted:I need a new tablet for my 82 year old grandmother. She can get around on her kindle fire 10 inch okay enough, and likes the big screen, but complains about how heavy it is to hold up for long periods of time. Is there a large screen tablet out there that is particularly light? The Kindle Fire is about as light as it gets, but you might look around for tablet stands. There are tons of them out there, both desktop and floor-standing models, and most of them are a whole lot cheaper than a new tablet.
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Nov 19, 2020 22:20
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I haven’t particularly been paying attention to the android tablet world for a while, so I’m here to ask what’s probably a dumb question: what is the best cheap android tablet with a 8+ inch screen? The reason I’m asking is because I’d like a bigger screen to use with my DJI Mavic Air 2 drone. I currently use my iPhone X and a newer iPad, but there are two problems with that. The screen on the iPhone is too small to make out sufficient detail while I’m flying. I realized this after reviewing the video I shot and seeing I very narrowly missed some power lines that I didn’t even see on the iPhone. The iPad works very well but it’s my wife’s and I don’t really want to risk dropping it while out flying. So, I’m looking for something that is: 1) bigger than an iPhone X, screen-wise 2) cheap, so if I drop it outside it won’t matter too much (under $100 ideally) 3) able to use the Google play store so I can download the DJI Fly app to it. That app is pretty much all it will be used for so storage doesn’t matter much to me. I see the Fire 8 HD is cheap but I’m not sure if I can get DJI Fly on it. What say ye goons?
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Nov 22, 2020 16:12
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:I haven’t particularly been paying attention to the android tablet world for a while, so I’m here to ask what’s probably a dumb question: what is the best cheap android tablet with a 8+ inch screen? Current version of Fire HD 8 is on Fire OS 7 (Android 9), and Play Store says the requirement for that app is Android 6 or higher, so it should be fine Fire HD 10 is on sale for $79 this week for Black Friday, so that's another option MorrisBae fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Nov 22, 2020 |
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Nov 22, 2020 17:20
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Can the fire devices use regular google play? I thought they were locked to Amazon’s App Store? E: apparently the fire tablets are 32-bit and the dji app is 64 bit? Beve Stuscemi fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Nov 22, 2020 |
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Nov 22, 2020 17:38
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:Can the fire devices use regular google play? I thought they were locked to Amazon’s App Store? You can sideload Play services and the Play store. You're at the mercy of hobbyists posting random apks to forums for all your updates, and there's no guarantee Amazon won't push an update that breaks everything, but it's worked OK so far for people who want cheap tablets and are OK with a bit of jank. But, coming back to the larger problem - are you sure that you would have seen the power lines on the iPad or another tablet, just because of its larger screen? Drones have wide-angle lenses and stream video with simple codecs that sacrifice image quality so they can run small, light, low-power hardware on the drone and still make their bandwidth and latency budgets. Those codecs often obscure fine detail - like a single medium-contrast line of a couple pixels that runs across an image. Power lines blend into the background easily from the air, even for experienced helicopter pilots who are looking directly at them and flying at relatively low speeds. There's a reason that power lines around airports have the orange beachballs on them. Push an image over a low-quality codec at 1080p, and you're going to have trouble spotting power lines, even if you hauled a 55" TV out with your drone setup.
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Nov 22, 2020 17:50
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That is true to a certain extent but the couple times I’ve flown with the iPad it helps show ancillary stuff like telephone poles and whatnot that signify drone-killing obstacles. I can see them on the iPhone too but they’re drat near microscopic at that point. I can see power lines but it’s more of a contrast problem than a resolution problem it seems Thinking of getting this because it’s got google play out of the box and it’s cheap/big. Plus Walmart has a good return policy so if it absolutely doesn’t work I can return it http://www.walmart.com/ip/onn-10-1-Tablet/248528865
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Nov 22, 2020 22:26
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If your looking for a good Android tablet I would recommend the Samsung Galaxy S6 Lite. I find it has decent performance and battery life. I use mine for Netflix and Webtoon. It also has good sound as it had been tuned my AKG. Link for more details: https://www.samsung.com/ca/tablets/...nRoCy8sQAvD_BwE
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Nov 25, 2020 18:57
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Thoughts on the Samsung Tab A7? My mum is looking to use some of her Frequent Flyer points before they expire on a Christmas gift for me and it's about the right number of points (iPad is 4 times more). Currently have an old Surface Pro 3 which I barely use. Had an iPad that I also barely used and gave it to my dad when his died. Not really looking to play games on it (but I wouldn't complain if it were capable of it), probably just browse and watch videos. They use Android, not Tizen right? I've heard the Samsung flavour of Android is terrible, but I can probably deal with it. My other options for a similar number of points is some kind of new mouse/keyboard or set of wine glasses or something.
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Nov 27, 2020 05:07
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How do people feel about the Tab S7 vs the Apple iPad Air? The former is on sale at Samsung's website. I have an Android phone but also a Macbook air so I have my foot in both ecosystems. The Tab looks to have better tech specs overall, and the base model has more storage, plus with the sales is cheaper than the iPad, even at Costco, where I've found it the cheapest. Plus it includes the pen at that price whereas the iPad does not. Any thoughts on the user experience or hardware between the two? Edit: I should say, that the primary use for this tablet will be or consuming videos, reading manga and possibly books though I do have a Kindle which I may do most of that latter with. It's likely that most of my work would happen either on my Windows desktop my Apple MacBook air or my phone if I'm out and about. Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Nov 27, 2020 |
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Nov 27, 2020 21:06
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Nitrousoxide posted:How do people feel about the Tab S7 vs the Apple iPad Air? The former is on sale at Samsung's website. Kindle Fire HD 10 is $80 today, and I love it for streaming and reading comics.
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Nov 27, 2020 21:16
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How obtrusive are the ads on that $80 version? Also, can you sideload apps? The Android manga reader that I use is not in the app store and I have to sideload it. And I use Google apps on there like youtube? I watch a lot of videos on there it suck to not be able to use it
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Nov 27, 2020 21:22
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Nitrousoxide posted:How obtrusive are the ads on that $80 version? I don't think I've ever used it for YouTube, but I can't imagine it doesn't support it natively (I mostly do Netflix and Amazon Video). EDIT: Oh, not in the store; I sideloaded the Play Store without a problem, haven't sideloaded anything else, but it was very easy.
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Nov 27, 2020 21:28
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Nitrousoxide posted:How do people feel about the Tab S7 vs the Apple iPad Air? The former is on sale at Samsung's website. Are you going to be using locally stored media, or streaming? If you want to have a ton of local storage for on-device media, the S7 is the clear winner unless there are any hard dealbreakers; it's cheaper per gig of internal storage, and it can take an SD card. You can plug a thumb drive or external hard drive into a USB-C iPad, but it's a lot clunkier. I'm not sure what comparison you're using to say that the Samsung has "better tech specs," because Apple has been on an absolute tear with mobile hardware recently. The Air is substantially faster in most benchmarks, and although the Tab S7 has twice the RAM, iOS is generally much better at memory efficiency than Android. If you care about running higher-end software quickly, the iPad is a better choice, both because of the stronger iOS tablet app ecosystem and because it's just faster. Really, though, you probably don't need to worry too much about performance. Longevity is a thing, too, and I would expect the iPad to remain useful - in the sense of getting updates and developers continuing to target the hardware - for longer. Apple tends to support their old hardware until it simply can't run whatever new features they've cooked up. Samsung ditches things more quickly, and Google hasn't given a poo poo about Android tablets in years. The pen is either essential (if you want to do digital art or note-taking) or a not-particularly-useful gimmick. If you're mostly interested in watching movies and reading books/comics/etc I wouldn't factor it in too much. As far as the user experience goes, I'm biased here - I absolutely loving hate Samsung's hard push to put advertisements in everything. Even Apple isn't great here - looks like you need to buy more iCloud storage! Use Apple Music! - but they have some sense of restraint. Samsung puts ads throughout the stock UI and has been caught sending push notification spam to market new products more than once. A new high-end Samsung tablet will have more ads sprinkled throughout the UI than a cheap Fire tablet - and you can pay a few bucks extra to turn off the ads on the Fire, too (or even just complain a few times to Amazon until you get a sympathetic customer support rep who will do it for free). But, I know a lot of people don't mind it as much, so if you're not usually bothered by ads then it might not be a dealbreaker for you. Overall, if you're not super price conscious and mostly watch streaming media, I'd go for the iPad based on the longevity more than anything. If you want a ton of local storage and don't mind ads, I'd advise you to choose the Samsung even though I wouldn't buy it myself because of those drat ads. Space Gopher fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Nov 27, 2020 |
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Nov 27, 2020 21:42
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Space Gopher posted:Are you going to be using locally stored media, or streaming? If you want to have a ton of local storage for on-device media, the S7 is the clear winner unless there are any hard dealbreakers; it's cheaper per gig of internal storage, and it can take an SD card. You can plug a thumb drive or external hard drive into a USB-C iPad, but it's a lot clunkier. You make a good point and the ability to use the iPad for sidecar could be useful in a work setting since I can essentially expand to two monitors if need be. I really do wish that they had like a 128 GB option. 64 gigs just seem so limiting. And $150 upgrade to the next storage level is extremely pricey.
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Nov 27, 2020 23:27
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Nitrousoxide posted:You make a good point and the ability to use the iPad for sidecar could be useful in a work setting since I can essentially expand to two monitors if need be. iPad Pro starts at 128 fwiw, so if you find any deal on it and need more than 64, might make more sense than the Air
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Nov 28, 2020 00:42
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I'm looking for something that I can do zwift on... I got kicked out of the home office and need something more portable than a PC. I'd like to stick to android but looking at the last page it seems like there's not much out there anymore. I guess I just need enough beef to run the program, Bluetooth, and decent battery life.
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Dec 4, 2020 19:23
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Fire/Fire HD are a reliable recommendation because they're supported by Amazon for more than 3 months after release, which is way better than pretty much any other tablet including those from Samsung and Lenovo, and YES you can install stuff from the Google play store on them Otherwise I would just find the cheapest refurbished ipad on eBay that's newer than 3 years old I'm a quasi Android die hard and even I'll admit Apple makes the superior tablet. Other than a couple of non-intuitive gestures, the iPad is about as easy to use as an Android
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Dec 4, 2020 20:38
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