The official tablet (and other useless electronics) thread!

[Evan]

I use 10" when I travel and think it's the right size. :dunno:

I see 10" getting phased out in the next 5-10 years.

In the next 5-10 years we're going to have fold up screens, so size will be a thing of the past.

"when I travel" is very different from with me (almost) all the time day to day.

I take a 10" tablet (and laptop) when I travel too, but that doesnt mean Im lugging them around every day.

[Apoc]

10" for home on the coffee table.
7" for the road.

I was responding to this. I didn't realize people take tablets anywhere other than coffee shops and when they travel. Well, I did... but I always lol at those people carrying iPads around everywhere.

My phone is perfect for every day use, so I only need the tablet in the aforementioned coffee shops and when I travel.

[.RJ]

lugging them around

10" tablet = lugging around? :lol:

You're as bad as Mikey :lol:

[Evan]

RJ missing the point, Im not going to draw you a picture

[.RJ]

Does that heavy tablet hurt your back?

[JPolen01]

Does that heavy tablet hurt your back?

I lol'ed

[Mike]

RJ missing the point, Im not going to draw you a picture

It's becoming his MO.

I'm not allowed to dislike the iPad mini because the screen isn't very good. Apparently that's not a subject to be cared about.

[.RJ]

You can dislike it for whatever stupid reason you want. I freely admit I'm a technology luddite so.... grain of salt.

[Mike]

You sure do love talking about what you should buy... When it comes to tech, you're like a 17 year old talking about the mod list he has planned for the '94 Camry he's inheriting from his parents.

Just shut up.

[.RJ]

y u mad bro?

[Mike]

because you're dumb.

[Apoc]

Remember that time RJ refused to pay movers and then his phone got stolen from his car while he was moving himself?

That was funny.

[.RJ]

I hate you

[Evan]

so I did my best 16 year old impression and headed to the mall to spend some time playing with new toys this weekend

Surface: hardware VERY impressive. built like a tank, crams in lots of stuff like built in stand, usb, etc and still manages to be thin and handy. The screen surprised me, dont listen to the apple fanbois, when a screen is this sharp and bright the number of pixels isnt relevant.
floppy keyboard cover : touch typing right away, its very nice to be able to have a touchpad and cursor when you want it. the cover is a hair bigger than the tablet itself all around which looks slightly unfinished.
win RT - intuitive and fresh looking, easy to use, live tiles are great. could be more efficient with screen space, takes more scrolling than it should. needs a back button like win phone 8 has
Im still not spending $600 for a tablet, but if this thing was $400 or less I would own one right now.

nokia 920 / win phone 8
I had just come from checking out the new (underwhelming) verizon andrioid phones and i stopped in the at&t store to check this out. I liked it a lot, the metro tiles UI were very good in the surface, but you can tell it was made for a phone. the os is smooth and fast and very good at giving you the information you want at first glance. id love to try it out, but im so dang invested in the android ecosystem i probably wont. the 920 itself was a little chunky for my tastes but everything about it from the screen to the camera was superb.

touchscreen ultrabooks: will be my next laptop. a touchscreen combined with win 8 is a game changer when it comes to laptops. very well done, and some were as cheap as $500 msrp.


interesting anecdotal observations: the microsoft store was packed, and the apple store was almost empty. in the at&t store there was a crowd around the win8 phones.
in the microsoft store all the surfaces were set up like laptops at first glance. if MS wants these things to catch on, they are going to have to market them as the new hotness (tablets) not old news (laptops)

[Ken]

Ordered my Lumia 920 yesterday, it was backordered on Walmart wireless where its only $50 (!!)

[Apoc]

touchscreen ultrabooks: will be my next laptop. a touchscreen combined with win 8 is a game changer when it comes to laptops. very well done, and some were as cheap as $500 msrp.

I'm pretty sure this is where I'm headed in the next few months.

[Evan]

anybody going to try the nexus 4?

[Evan]

So the digitizer on my HTC Evo 3D started to flake out (after less than a year and a half...lame)
and coincidentally Ive been jonesin to experiment with some different phones anyway since android is starting to feel very stale.
my contract is (long since) up, and I ported my primary number to google voice so that gives me some flexibility to try a bunch of different stuff under prepaid plans without making a long term commitment.

So I picked up a Nokia Lumia 900 a couple weeks ago and have been playing around with it.


Its windows phone 7.5, not the newest winphone 8 that just came out unfortunately but it should give me a good idea what winphone in general is like.

the hardware is nice and the amoled screen REALLY pops, especially with the high contrast design of win phone. if youre into 'style' of your phone, its got a great industrial design. the polycarbonate case feels solid and bulletproof too.

I wont go into too much detail about win phone, but to sum it up, its a very good, intuitive and very fast OS. (even despite the older single core processor) with some drawbacks.

the good:
as stated above its very fast, fluid and intuitive. live tiles are a step beyond even widgets and its great to get everything you need in a quick glance at the phone.
i havent been left wanting for any apps, especially if im willing to pay $1 for something. And there are some apps that are better than other OSes.
Nokia music is like free pandora, but you can download a station into offline mode and listen to it without a connection. very cool
Nokia drive is a navigation app, but you can download maps for offline use. maps of the whole country, making it a real offline nav unit that works even when you hit that data dead spot.
IE is very fast, even faster than chrome mobile despite the slower processor. drawback is changing tabs takes an extra tap which is annoying

the bad
Nokia maps is a passable google maps alternative, but the maps dont have quite the resolution and its a little sluggish.
the win phone email app is terrible. far and away the worst part of the phone experience (and really the only bad part) It uses fonts that are way too big only 5 emails are visible on screen at a time and threaded viewing is clunky and takes too many taps. i need to play with winphone 8 to see if they have fixed this, but its a shame because everything else is very good, but email is a major use of a phone so it really kills the experience.


it was a fun experiment but I dont think ill keep this phone as my "daily driver" for much longer. as stale and boring as android is, its comfortable and does what i need it to do relatively quickly, so ill probably go back.

next experiment: google voice+voip on an android phone with a cheap data only plan

[.RJ]

After seeing a lot of friends with the 'big screen' samsung phone, I have to say I'm tempted to try it... is there a way to get 'just the tip' to try it out without going 'balls deep' on a 2 year contract?

[JustinG]

You should have a 30 day return policy, atleast Verizon does. I love my GS3, everyone thinks its big, but a 4inch screen is just about perfect IMO. Large enough to do shit, but not too big. Plus its so freaking thin I dont even notice it in my pocket.

The note 2.....is retarded.