question Which Tablets

[LunarMist]

Is this the one?

 

[ddrueding]

Is this the one?

Yes. There is no link and no model number, but I'm sure that is it.

 

[LunarMist]

Now it is out of stock anyway.

 

[LunarMist]

How low do you let the charge go before recharging? I'm not fan of frequent charging.

 

[Mercutio]

I charge when my battery gets down to around 25%. How long that takes depends on usage. Usually Thursday night and either Saturday or Sunday night depending on how much I've been reading.

 

[ddrueding]

For optimal battery life, you should be keeping the battery near the middle of it's actual capacity. But I'm sure that the battery displays on the device are lying to you.

 

[LunarMist]

Why do you say that? Percent remaining can be determined from a simple measurement of the voltage on the discharge curve.

 

[ddrueding]

Why do you say that? Percent remaining can be determined from a simple measurement of the voltage on the discharge curve.

It can be, but I doubt (without evidence) that actual battery capacity is directly mapped to the number of bars on the display. I suspect that, in the interest of protecting device batteries from users, devices are powered down before complete discharge.

 

[LunarMist]

I am looking at the percent remaining, not the bars.

So would it be better to charge the battery partially every two days and keep it in the 30-70% range rather than do full charge every 3-4 days and let it drain to 20-25%?

 

[ddrueding]

I am looking at the percent remaining, not the bars.

So would it be better to charge the battery partially every two days and keep it in the 30-70% range rather than do full charge every 3-4 days and let it drain to 20-25%?

From what I understand about lithium ion batteries, yes. But the difference there (25% vs 30%) is probably not significant.

 

[timwhit]

I am looking at the percent remaining, not the bars.

So would it be better to charge the battery partially every two days and keep it in the 30-70% range rather than do full charge every 3-4 days and let it drain to 20-25%?

I doubt it matters that much. Can't you replace the battery if it dies?

 

[LunarMist]

Further up the thread it was mentioned that the battery replacement is only through the factory service, which is likely to be expensive.

 

[MaxBurn]

ComScore: Amazon Kindle Fire Accounts for 54 Percent of U.S. Android*Tablets
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/04/27/comscore-kindle-fire

SIDENOTE: ComScore’s report also contained an interesting bit on tablet screen sizes:

Analysis of page view consumption by screen size found a strong positive association between screen size and content consumption. Specifically, 10-inch tablets have a 39-percent higher consumption rate than 7-inch tablets and a 58-percent higher rate than 5-inch tablets.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm slightly annoyed by that. The Fire is definitely a sub-par Android experience. The hardware is fine but I spend a lot of time trying to explain to my friends and students how to work around the limitations of Amazon's app selection and the irregularities of its custom shell.

I know everyone would rather compete on high margin devices but there really needs to be a quality, somewhat unmolested Android tablet at the $150 - $200 price point.

 

[ddrueding]

Analysis of page view consumption by screen size found a strong positive association between screen size and content consumption. Specifically, 10-inch tablets have a 39-percent higher consumption rate than 7-inch tablets and a 58-percent higher rate than 5-inch tablets.

This makes perfect sense to me; the smaller the screen the more uncomfortable the experience. At the same time, the smaller the tablet the more often you have it available for that emergency lookup of MTG oracle rulings.

 

[LunarMist]

So the tablet with a maller smaller screen downloads less data? Is downsampling occurring?

 

[MaxBurn]

I was a little taken aback by hearing that. Either it is a measure of how good the fire is doing or how bad android tablets in general are doing. I bet it burns google but it happened like that, they aren't getting any benefit from putting android out there on the fire at all.

 

[Mercutio]

The Kindle is dirt cheap compared to a Xoom, Transformer or Galaxy tablet. It also has the marketing muscle of the biggest internet retailer behind it (IIRC the Fire is the best selling item on Amazon... and it exists as a platform to sell more stuff from Amazon). People who are buying a Fire probably aren't even considering a premium Android tablet. Maybe they're looking at the Nook Color or whatever the cheapass RIM thing is. It's really more about acceptable quality at that magic price point, which is what I was saying back at Xmastime.

 

[Mercutio]

Apparently Acer has released a 10" Tablet with a 1920x1200 display. It still says Acer on it, but I'd say that represents a sign of a real response to the ipad 3.

 

[Stereodude]

Doesn't the Ipad "3" have an even higher resolution screen?

 

[Handruin]

Doesn't the Ipad "3" have an even higher resolution screen?

Yes, 2048x1536.

 

[Mercutio]

1920x1200 is still a pretty big step up from the currently-typical 1280x800 for large-format Android devices.

 

[ddrueding]

1920x1200 is still a pretty big step up from the currently-typical 1280x800 for large-format Android devices.

Indeed. And for most users this will be "enough". The highest resolution they will need is to consume HD content.

 

[Mercutio]

That's a bit of a double standard. More pixels are better for photos, text-rich web pages and most electronic document formats, even if they're not being used for video.

 

[Mercutio]

The specs on the next-generation Nexus tablet are interesting: A 7" 1280x800 tablet with a quad-core 1.3GHz CPU and a $199 price tag and no lameass custom UI that has to be removed.

That's a very nice combination of price and form factor, but I suspect it will be crushed by the weight of the Kindle Fire unless it's given a monstrous marketing push.

 

[MaxBurn]

Verge leak notes for above.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/25/3115825/nexus-7-training-document-leak

 

[Mercutio]

Apparently I won a Kindle Fire from the place where I get my hair cut. Since I won't get it until Friday I'm guessing it will probably be a Fire 2. So I might have some impressions of that later in the week.

 

[mubs]

Salons hand out Kindles? Cool! Good for you! Another toy to play with.

 

[LunarMist]

What do you think about the new Kindle Fire tablets?

 

[Mercutio]

It is just a regular old Kindle Fire, not one of the new ones. Sniff. I just got it and it's in a glossy retail box. I didn't know they could be purchased that way.

BUT, Lunar, from a specs standpoint, the Fire 2 looks really interesting. They're 7" or 8.9". The larger one has a 1920x1200 16x10 screen. The current Fire has a very nice screen, so I would expect a new model to have a nice screen also. Amazon says their CPU will be 20% faster than a Tegra 3. That's non-trivial. They come in capacities of 16, 32 or 64GB and Amazon is offering a 250MB/month LTE data plan for them for $50/year. The only down sides I can see is that they're a little heavier than I would like, and there's no doubt that it will have some lameass Amazon-centric UI on it.

 

[timwhit]

The UI is a dealbreaker for me. Yes, it's possible to root it, but I'd rather just buy a device that's works well out of the box.

 

[MaxBurn]

That data plan looks pretty compelling. Also nice to see 32 and 64gb models.

 

[sdbardwick]

That data plan looks pretty compelling. Also nice to see 32 and 64gb models.

This might be a 'first taste is free' scenario. Anand reported that it is $50 for the first year, then regular AT&T data plans after.
I'm going to need to wait for all the details to be exposed before coming to any conclusions ["This deal is getting worse all the time!"].

 

[Mercutio]

The UI is a dealbreaker for me. Yes, it's possible to root it, but I'd rather just buy a device that's works well out of the box.

You can install Go Launcher within even having to root the device. I read the instructions for doing that and actually did it in the parking lot within 90 seconds of unboxing it.
The lack of a decent keyboard option is a little bit harder to deal with, but I was able to find Aldiko, AndSMB, Dolphin and WinAmp easily. I'm going to have to pack up the .APKs for real Google apps like Reader and Gmail when I get home, though.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm also wondering if some of the software features being touted for the updated Fire models will be back-ported to the original.

 

[Mercutio]

This article was linked on Slashdot yesterday, but I only just got around to reading it. In essence, the author is describing the realities of cheap electronics manufacture, such that any random plant in China can gear up, build the logistics chain for supply and do a production run of complex electronics even on sub-penny-per-unit profit margins in under six weeks.

I believe the Tablet he's describing in the article is similar to the "Trio Stealth Pro", a 1.2GHz, 800x480, 4GB device. I can't find a generic 7" ICS tablet that supports the Play Store, but a $75 or less it's almost a non-issue. They're effectively disposable for many of us at that price and they're still going to be acceptable e-readers, web browsers and Email/Chat/Social Media updaters.

 

[Chewy509]

I can't find a generic 7" ICS tablet that supports the Play Store, but a $75 or less it's almost a non-issue.

After spending time reading about Android, etc (continuation of the other thread), the reason that cheap tablets and phones are missing 'standard applications', is that a manufacturer must pay for them!

While Android (the OS) is (mostly) open-source, all the applications that sit on top of Android have to be paid for. So if you're a tablet manufacturer in China, and you want to use Android, sure it's free. Oh wait, you want a media player, well that'll be 15c per device. oh, you want Play Store, well that's another $1 per device. oh, you want GMail support and sync. Damn, that's another $1 per device. oh, you want Google Maps, well that another $2 per device, etc... (figures are made up, but I hope it gives you the idea). The free part is the OS, think of getting Windows for free, but no applications installed, not even notepad or paint! You want MS Paint, start paying up...

Also, you need to be a member of the Google Handset Alliance Program to get access to the 'standard' applications, let alone ship/pay for them. Well, no-one will disclose how much that costs...

Hope that sheds some light on why some of the el'cheapo Android devices lack access to Google Play and are missing some of what we consider standard applications. But as noted, you can side-load them, you just need another device to get the applications from...

 

[MaxBurn]

Also if you are part of googles open software alliance you can't release your own device without those things. Acer seems to be learning about that in the news recently. Seems they wanted to include as few as possible and skip all royalties but nearly got kicked out and instead killed the release.

http://allthingsd.com/20120916/google-and-alibaba-continue-warring-over-acer-phone/

 

[Mercutio]

Considering that we're looking at devices that are sold for under US$80 retail and have several middlemen between them and their manufacturer, it in no way surprises me that $.15 for decent media player or email app is considered an extravagance.

Also, I think we all know that Acer doing things is proof of the incorrectness of those things. The only way they get a pass is if the software they provide is substantially better than Google's. Based on my experience with third party replacement for default Android apps, I don't see that happening. HTC is the only company that provides anything that's as good as Google's tools.

 

[LunarMist]

It is just a regular old Kindle Fire, not one of the new ones. Sniff. I just got it and it's in a glossy retail box. I didn't know they could be purchased that way.

BUT, Lunar, from a specs standpoint, the Fire 2 looks really interesting. They're 7" or 8.9". The larger one has a 1920x1200 16x10 screen. The current Fire has a very nice screen, so I would expect a new model to have a nice screen also. Amazon says their CPU will be 20% faster than a Tegra 3. That's non-trivial. They come in capacities of 16, 32 or 64GB and Amazon is offering a 250MB/month LTE data plan for them for $50/year. The only down sides I can see is that they're a little heavier than I would like, and there's no doubt that it will have some lameass Amazon-centric UI on it.

The reviews of the 7' one on the amazon are not very encouraging. It seems that the apps are limited compared to the natural Gogggle apps available for other devices. Then you have to pay extra to remove advertizing from the home page. OTOH, the Google tablet has some mechanical design flaws that affect the display.