[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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