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Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008
I like the look of windows 8 tablets but they're just in a funny place right now, but a lot of good stuff is coming out of CES for 8 inch tablets. Have a look in the dedicated thread if you want.

And I feel like the Metro start screen is a little more customisable then on iOS.

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Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008

InEscape posted:

OK, I bought a refurbished Vivotab Smart MC400 in September and really, really loved it, but it crashed and burned big time and the screen is totally fried. I would like another tablet, because that one was awesome.

I want:

Windows 8 (unless someone can really sell me -- I want office, that's most of what I use it for)
Keyboard
Good Battery Life

Can be one of those foldy fake tablets, that's fine, I don't care, but I need it to be less than ~$500. I know, but I wasn't expecting to have to buy two in a year. :(

It looks like the ASUS Transformer T100 is a great choice but it seems to be out of stock everywhere and I'm a little gunshy about buying from the Amazon affiliates because that's where I got this crashy, broken Vivotab. There are two Yogas -- the 11S is honestly too pricey but there's a cheaper one, is it garbage?

If literally all you wanted was Office you can get a surface 2. The hardware is great but as you can't install non-Metro apps you'll probably find it limited. Plus Office is included in the price

Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008

tehllama posted:

I'm off to med school this fall and looking for a tablet to replace the dozens of spiral bound notebooks I had through engineering school. Lecture notes are basically the core of our curriculum and being able to annotate pdf's right on a digital surface rather than printing 1000+ pages a month is pretty appealing. I have a semi-recent desktop for gaming, an iPhone 5s, and an aging first gen aluminum macbook. Ideally I could get rid of the old macbook since it's on its third battery or so and is definitely worse for wear having been hauled around for the last 6 years.

I know from my initial investigations that the iPad is basically out because it doesn't have palm rejection. People also seem to rave about the Wacom digitizer and the demonstrations of handwriting I've seen from devices with it seem pretty good for hastily scribbled notes. Plain tablets in general seem like they may not be ideal for the amount of productivity I need so I was thinking maybe something like the SP2 or a ThinkPad Yoga? My original plan was to replace my laptop with a new retina pro and then get a tablet on the side so I could take typed notes on the laptop and have slides or whatever pulled up on the tablet but a) reading and writing typed notes is a pain in the rear end and b) being able to keep it on one device would be nice. I think now I'm envisioning my ideal situation as one larger screen where I can pull up the pdf with the lecture notes on one half, be able to annotate it, and have a second half with OneNote or something for doing more formal outline notes. I don't even know if any of the current OS's can do that though so I'd settle for just being able to make notes on pdf's.

The Surface Pro 2 is the only tablet that can do what you want - but its pretty expensive. The first edition is still available for cheaper but it has a miserable battery life. There is also a 8 inch Windows 8 tablet with a Wacom digitiser made by Asus http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/6/5278692/asus-vivotab-note-8-wacom-stylus-specifications that is well reviewed and only costs $300 but it has compromises, check out the Windows tablet thread for more details.

A convertible laptop may be the better bet if you're going to use it for writing whole essays.

NB: I would have killed for a pen enabled OneNote device when I was at Uni, learning to use it properly will make your life a million times easier.

Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008

-Blackadder- posted:

So, in the 10 inch tablet range, if I want something with good note taking is the Galaxy Note 10.1 what I should be looking at or are there comparable tablets as well? How's the keyboard dock for the Galaxy Note?

Speaking of which, does one note on Android support handwriting recognition?

Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008

Takes No Damage posted:

That's what I've decided, based on everything I'm reading everywhere. A few things sound a little janky like Flash not working (but... Youtube... Google...) but there are workarounds posted, and worst case I'm comfortable with rooting/soft modding so I should be able to get everything working without too much hassle. As long as I can install Flash and ABP in Opera or something I'll be happy.

Youtube works with HTML5, mostly.

Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008

EugeneJ posted:

App selection, and the budget Windows 8.1 tablets reportedly won't have enough memory for the Windows 10 upgrade

I don't think that's true, even phones with 512mb are supposed to get the upgrade.

Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008

dhamster posted:

My girlfriend wants a tablet to handwrite her notes on into a searchable format. Any functionality beyond that is a bonus, really. I showed her the Google handwriting app on my phone and she likes it, so maybe an Android is the best bet. Any suggestions? She wants something fairly inexpensive.

OneNote and a windows tablet is what you want for that. Surface 3 is great but many of the cheap er tablets ask also have fantastic handwriting recognition.

Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008

omg chael crash posted:

So, I've been thinking of picking up the 599.00/128GB/4GB ram Surface 3. I was just wondering if you guys would reccondmend I get some other Windows tablet instead around that price point. I don't need an LTE device. Just something around that price with comparable specs. I'm open to pretty much any suggestions.

It's a really good device, I'm sure you'll be happy if you get it

Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008

obi_ant posted:

I currently have an old Surface Pro (9UR-00001; i5 3rd generation), I need a new unit that cannot wait so I'm thinking about picking up a Surface Pro 3 (4YM-00016; i3 4th generation). Are the processors comparable I can't seem to find the exact difference between the two aside from Hyper Threading. I'm primarily using this for internet browsing, Hearthstone, YouTube, lots of Office. Will the Pro 3 suit my needs?

Not even two weeks until the 4 comes out?

Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008
Can anyone recommend a (likely windows) tablet that's small, light and has an active pen.

I'd like a reasonable resolution and battery life as well.

Also nice would be a smart cover without a keyboard as I don't need one but it adds cost and weight.

Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008
So I wanted to test how fast the fire HD felt in person- but in all the shops I've been too they have this unexitable demo which just goes through all the different screens. Does anybody know a trick to boot out of that?

Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008

withak posted:

I want an ˜10" tablet for Internet/Word/Excel/OneNote with physical keyboard and pen capabilites. The Surface Go does exactly what I want but it was pretty slow and laggy when I played with one at Best Buy. I've read that comment in reviews also so it probably wasn't just a display model issue. Are there any tablets that are basically a Surface Go but not slow?

Depending on what you want to do in office, iPads and Apple pencils work great with OneNote.

Built in text recognition isn’t as good as with windows though.

Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008

withak posted:

I want an ˜10" tablet for Internet/Word/Excel/OneNote with physical keyboard and pen capabilites. The Surface Go does exactly what I want but it was pretty slow and laggy when I played with one at Best Buy. I've read that comment in reviews also so it probably wasn't just a display model issue. Are there any tablets that are basically a Surface Go but not slow?

Depending on what you want to do in office, iPads and Apple pencils work great with OneNote.

Built in text recognition isn’t as good as with windows though.

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Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008
So good I said it thrice.

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