Tablet deal - or maybe not

For US buyers, the cheapest tablet I would get is the B&N color nook and root it. They pop up on ebay for <100. I assume these were being sold at a loss because they surpass the quality of equivalent products from 2nd/3rd tier manufacturers.

Unless you’re buying a first class (:money_mouth_face: tablet, OS support from the factory is basically useless. For the best user experience I would look for the cheapest thing you can get that’s supported by cyanogenmod/AOKP or similar.

@Vectrex: You didnt mention the Huawei Mediapad. 3G, SD, Dualcore, 800p display.. around 300€.

something with a 7-8 inch high res screen is a must IMHO. The large tablets are too heavy and awkward to hang onto and handle as e readers for more than a few minutes.

I have a Galaxy 7.7 and an Acer Iconia A500. The galaxy gets used a lot, the A500 not so much.

The smaller form factor is perfect book size and much lighter. I have a good convertible case cover for it so it props up in bed perfectly for a late night read or early frosty morning lay in.

My phone is an HTC One XL and is great as an EDC device. I do a lot of browsing and reading here on it too, when I am out. The phone gets the most use of the three. I have been very happy with HTC devices, this is the latest in a string of smartphones I have had from them. Number six I think.

I did look at the Galaxy Note but thought it a bit too big for EDC.

Generally though, I much prefer my Macbook Air to any of them. I really like a good keyboard for text input. Great screen. It’s small, light and very portable and I got it as a runout model for only slightly more than an iPad.

Now if they only made the Air with a rotating touch screen …

The original poster of this thread listed some ultra cheap tablets in the <$100 range . So even the $150 Chinese tablets I posted are already stretching his budget probably. But I feel that the sub $100 price range is too limiting these days. If you are really tight on money and don't want to spend $150 and don't need BT.... the Ainol Novo 7 Crystal looks promising. I would not buy tablets with single core SoCs anymore. BTW I said it before that I have trouble spending money north of $200 for a throwaway item. (batteries can't be changed) I have a Huawei Ideos X3 smartphone and while they are one of the nicer Chinese manufacturers, I think I would go with a different brand for that kind of money.

My pont is that smaller and higher resolution screen and size is for me the deciding factor on how usable the device is.

Unfortunately, the tradeoff is price. I doubt that ultra low end devices will fulfil their function well.

I love a bargain as much as anyone, but practicality eventually wins out over low cost. Some things you just have to spend the money on if you use them a lot.

Not trying to brag, just share my experience. I have probably spent more on cheap low end gadgets than on good ones. Now, I look around and compare very carefully. Sometimes budget wins and sometimes the quality difference is so great high end wins.

Either way, choose carefully. There is some merit in buying a cheap one until you establish how much you really need or will use the item. If you use it a lot then a high quality example may be a worthwhile investment. Just sayin.

Its easy to get wowed by big tablets until you try holding one to read for a while and get hand cramps after five minutes.

But something small with a low res screen will give you eye strain and maybe headaches too.

Small and high res usually, at least at this time, with tablets means more expensive. You need to consider the type of usage you need the device for and spend the most money on that feature.

If you want it mainly for reading e-books, then get a Kindle or similar and save the bucks. If you want an all in one, then I doubt a cheapie will cut the mustard.

The Nexus 7 is the best tablet you can buy for the price ratio.

It uses a quad core 1.3 ghz processor with 1gb RAM. Latest Android 4.1.2 software. (updated a few days ago). With the Nexus you can very easily unlock, root and install custom OSes.

I have one of these and highly recommend it, a 32gb version is coming out soon, and rumoured 3G.

There is a rumoured iPad Mini, though I don’t like how expensive Apple products are for what you get and I absolutely hate their business practices.

You can buy direct from Google Play Store or find one at an electronics retailer near you.

EDIT: I believe most electronic retailers have usable display models. Go try the tablets there.
Samsung Tabs are only dual core vs quad core Asus tablets. (Nexus 7 is manufatured by Asus)

And also I have my Nexus 7 overclocked to 1.7 ghz and it is glorious, the dynamic frequency clocking is great for battery too.

The nexus feels “faster” due to the UI optimizations 4.1, not because of quad core (or anything > 1 core) or any amount of ram. The android system isn’t designed to take advantage of any of that.

That’s why the intel android single core chips beat any of the ARMs.

Well, while the Nexus 7 might be great for playing complex games at home, the lack of 3G makes it less practical for its intended function: being transportable.

Quadcore is (currently) overkill for most people. Anything except for games runs perfectly on dualcores.

@agenthex: No, thats not true.

It’s very unlikely anything > 1 will ever be useful in mobile space (which is power constrained). Even on desktops, with far more sophisticated apps, single thread performance is most critical.

What’s not true? Everything in android was designed for 1 processor on a phone. Is that difficult to believe?

But there is a noticeable difference between single, dual and quadcore. These mobile cpus work different from those in desktops.

I dont know about RAM though, but I'm sure Android will be adapted to better hardware.

Android might once have been designed for one CPU, but we are up to 4.1 now. Just compare a dualcore Samsung tablet with an Asus quadcore tablet side by side.

While performance on a single core is important, the thing with these tablet processors are that the quad core processor here and the single/dual core processors are around the same clock speeds. They also perform quite similar per core.

I use my Nexus 7 for book reading, internet browsing with WiFi at home and heavy 3D gaming. I have a dual core tablet and that lagged on some games that run perfectly on my Nexus 7.

Android can and does take advantage of multiple cores and GPU rendering. The UI smoothing in 4.1 is very noticeable and it works, but if you compare it to iOS products the iOS ones are smoother because Apple coded the UI to be atop level process, this means that UI is processed above everything.

Lack of 3G does make a dent in portable usage for some people. But why not buy a pocket WiFi device with a data sim card? I use my phone for portable internet usage. You could also tether your phone to your tablet.

OR look up the Asus PadFone 2.

Yes, mobile software is different in that it’s more primitive than desktop equivalents, so multi-core is even more useless than on the desktop.

Multicore is more important on mobile technology than on desktops IMO. I say this because people always “minimize” apps without realizing, this then keeps the app running in the background taking up CPU and RAM; Android 4.0 and up is very good at dealing with this and the multicore CPUs help a lot.

For comparison purposes: When an app is “minimized” in iOS, the OS takes a screenshot of the current app screen then stops the process for the app but remembers where the user left off (like the hibernate option on Windows computers). Upon resuming the app the OS displays the screenshot while it loads the app back up again. This is why iOS may seem faster when it really isn’t and is not truly multitasking capable. iOS is a very heavily UI orientated system.

Tethering uses a lot of battery.. and I cant fit a WiFi device in my pocket, I barely get my 7" tablet in a pocket. :P

But seriously, those WiFi devices have a runtime of max. 6 hours.. and 3G needs less energy than WiFi on a lot of devices.

This is due to factors other than inadequate cpu’s. For example, it’s very unlikely the two are using equivalent ARMs or graphics chips. The later is most critical for game performance.

I really have no idea what you’re trying to say. 4.1 doesn’t depend on multiple cpus. An example of some insight into why this isn’t a trivial problem from someone who knows what they’re talking about: Google Workspace Updates: New community features for Google Chat and an update on Currents

WiFI actually uses much less power than 3G or 4G when in use. WiFi only uses more power than mobile data when idle (connected or searching for connection).

I never said that Android depends on multiple cpus. :open_mouth:

Background apps in androids are for the most part paused anyway, just like ios. Android apps don’t “multitask” unless apps specifically ask to be (ie notified of events). This is done for very good reason, because cpu cycles cost power.

What you’re talking about is only why the apps appears to show up quicker; it’s not as if google engineers are so stupid as to redraw them in the background. Android can trivially implement this and still be much slower for reasons some of which are iterated at the link above.

What I’m saying is that the android ecosystem as a whole simply doesn’t utilize multiple cpus. There might be a fixed cost to running the OS which can take advantage of two, but this cost decreases as single core speed increases.

That’s the app developer’s fault. Apps need to be coded to allow multitasking/running in background or disallow the system to suspend it if the app is idle for a long time.

Multithreading is very difficult, and often ineffective on OS which aren’t optimized for it. It’s rarely done well even on mature desktops OSs which are far superior in that regard.

Maybe in another 5-10 years we’ll start seeing more mobile apps which take advantage of this, but I doubt what’s being bought right now will be around them.