[GTALUG] I not have a smaller phone, and therefor want it's big brother in a pad
Evan Leibovitch
evan at telly.org
Mon Jun 25 16:16:42 EDT 2018
On Mon, 25 Jun 2018 at 13:43, Myles Braithwaite 👾 via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
wrote:
> On 2018-06-24 15:32, David Collier-Brown via talk wrote:
> > Now I need something about the size of my Kobo,
> > https://ca.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-aura (6.5 x 4.5") for programs
> > like Open Street Map and Waites' Guide to North American Birds. Any
> > recommendations for good, relatively inexpensive pads that run Android
> > 7 or 8?
>
> I was playing with an Amazon Fire 7 last weekend, it's a nice tablet in
> terms for the price, $80 for the 16GB version. It also has a microSD
> card slot so it's expandable to 256GB, which will probably be important
> for your bird watching guide and OSM cache.
>
> The only drawbacks (which are big drawback IMHO) is it runs Amazon's
> Android and not Google's, I'm not sure how they are subsidizing the
> price, and I'm not a fan of tablets with a 16x9 resolution.
>
​It's not very difficult
<https://www.howtogeek.com/232726/how-to-install-the-google-play-store-on-your-amazon-fire-tablet/>
to install Google Play on a Fire tablet, and once that's on you can install
a new launcher and generally have a similar experience to a conventional
Android tablet. In this respect that Fire HD 8 might be a nice idea, the 7
looks too underpowered to me.
FWIW, I own four tablets including both models of the Nexus 7; its 2013
model still stands up as very good, though the stock OS doesn't get updated
anymore and requires a ROM replacement such as Lineage if you want to keep
it up to date. The other two are an 8" Dell that runs Windows and an 8"
Acer with a nice screen but horribly underpowered.
My own very personal observations:
- The sweet spot for size is 8", especially if you want to use it
instead of a laptop on your travels. An 8" together with a Bluetooth
keyboard makes a great combo, and there are advantages to having a keyboard
with good keys that's not wedded to the form factor of the screen.
I have a Logitech
K380 <https://www.logitech.com/en-ca/product/multi-device-keyboard-k380>
and am very happy with it; happy to bring it to the next TLUG meeting.
- From my own research to date, the best value right now is the Huawei
MediaPad M5, available in 8.4" and 10.8" versions, and the best place to
get them in Canada appears to be Newegg. Cheaper but less capable are the
Asus Zenpads as a reasonable alternative. The Samsung S a series is
overpriced and the A series is underpowered. Only downside of the Huawei is
the lack of an audio jack (though it has really good dual/quad speakers
depending on screen size). If you have headphones you'll either need the
USB dongle it ships with or Bluetooth
- I've also had experiences with the no-name brands from places like
Gearbest and Aliexpress. All I can say is that they're cheap and usually
under-powered, and don't ever expect a software upgrade (or 3rd party ROM
support), They make a model, sell it until the batch runs out, then design
a new model. (Come to think of it, that also describes OnePlus....)
HTH,
--
Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada
@evanleibovitch or @el56
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