As a matter of interest: what phone do you have and why 7″?
I have Asus EEE Pad Transformer which is a 10 inch tablet, plus a Sony E Arc S phone and to be honest I wouldn’t go smaller than 10″ on a tablet, largely because my phone would do pretty much the same thing as a smaller tablet. This is especially the case as the one in your link is ‘Gingerbread’, which I believe is a phone OS. The tablet version of Android is Honeycombe. However, I am not too sure what difference that makes.
I apologize if i have misunderstood any of this technology terminology – I am far from an expert – but that is my experience, and all my own opinion, of course.
7″ for portability and price. I don’t want to spend a lot of money – I might by a 10″ pad later and spend a decent amount on it. Its only for travelling, looking at photos and the like.
I have a Desire – it’ll be bigger than that.
Lenovo A1 is going for £149 on Amazon if you want something from a more mainstream name.
You could take a punt on a BB PlayBook £169 at the moment from Currys – will be able to run Android apps when the new OS is released (there may be some limitations around this – things not clear at the moment). I have one which I use with my work Blackberry and for email and surfing it is fantastic. Apps are limited and expensive though.
7″ tablets are ideal for travelling – 10″ better for sofa surfing – different classes of device imo.
That’s my point: Modern smart phones pretty much do exactly the same thing as the smaller tablets. In fact, they pretty much are more portable tablets.
I understand your point re: price. Just be aware that OS systems are moving on at a rate of knots so make sure that whatever OS the one you buy comes with will still be supported and available for updates.
I don’t want to spend too much because I feel there’s going to be a lot of good Ice Cream Sandwich pads out soon – I thought I’d wait and get a good one of those.
Still I’ll have a look at the price of the 10 inchers. But I don’t anticipate using it much at home.
What’s the PlayBook like? I prefer my iPhone to work BlackBerry, but my BlackBerry is a basic 8900 job, and, it’s an arse reason for dismissing the PlayBook anyway.
I can’t help feeling that if I bought one, that I’d have been better off waiting and getting the iPad.
I’m thinking of replacing my busted desktop with an iMac soon, if that’s a reason to wait and get an iPad
Well all the cheap 10inch tablets have poor reviews or resistive screens or some other reason for not buying them. 7 inch it is. Now I’m dithering between the Lenovo and NATPC M009S. I suppose the Lenovo would sell better 2nd hand if I didn’t get on with it. (This is only some more justification for buying something I don’t really need – I never sell stuff I’ve just bought).
Wrong linky’s, been looking for a couple of 7″ers for work (Ooh err!) Ended up buying 5 of them, quite impressed too after trialing a 10.1″ Lenovo for a month.
If I was getting a tablet it would be a 7″ – I have a 11″ notebook which would make a 10″ tablet redundant.
And I’d be prepared to bet that after a short while the pad would replace the notebook for virtually everything you do. My iPhone replaced a 17″ PowerBook just because it was so easy to use for browsing, playing on here, Facebook, reading ebooks…
For other stuff the Pb’s been superceded by a Mac Mini because it’s permanently on and connected to the TV and A/V, and easy to remote control from the phone. Next acquisition is an iPad 3…
…and an iPhone 5.
I HAVE to maintain a netbook for Excel. Apart from MSExcel I just have chrome on here (using it now in kitchen). Thats why for me a tablet wouldnt replace it, but a 7″ would be ace on the train.
It still means owning 4 computers:
Android phone 3.5″
Android Tablet 7″
W7 netbook 10″
W7 desktop Monstrous”
Ive just had a useful type chat with the support guy on ipadalternative.com about the Bmorn V11, the Onda Vi40 and the Novo.
Although the the V11 doesnt come with Ice Cream Sandwich it does support android market out of the box – Vital if you want to syn with a google account.
However, the Onda and the Novo Aurora can be fixed with a root to give you android market access. Downloads easily findable online.
EDIT – In fact just now, “James” has just added the root fix to the product page. http://ipadalternative.com/40-ainol-novo-7-aurora-6946795800767.html
The expectation is that the V11 ought to get ICS sometime soon, but it’s your gamble.
I like the idea of touch buttons on the front over physical push buttons on the front/rim so that gives the aurora and v11 the edge I think.
There’s a 30day returns to China policy with a 20% reimbursement deduction for inconvenience if it’s for a non-technical issue.
Thanks for all the info. I went for the Lenovo A1 in the end. I’ll let you know how it goes in a few days. Installing the latest firmware is a must, I’m lead to believe.
hmm was thinking ipad2 but this got me thinking, i have an android phone and think its good even for an older model.
the cost of these android tablets are over half that of ipads, so what will i be loosing out on if i get an andoid tab instead of an ipad? never had a iphone btw
had a fondle with my brother’s Playbook this lunchtime. If you’re used to Blackberries then its probably teh awsum. As it was it was very nice, slick, bright, almost intuitive in a blackberry kind of way. Nice slim metal case, but bloody heavy. Not for me as not an android, but might suit some in here.
ordered on pre order, should get it on the 13th of feb.
Bit of a gamble, but gadget freak will update the firmware, install Android Market with a full key and generally give it a bit of a check over at their UK base before shipping out to punters. Saves me having to run the firmware fix scripts myself.
Reviews so far have been extremely positive about quite the breakthrough chipset and the IPS multitouch screen is the same tech as in ipad2.
– good for watching BBC iPlayer
– can be set up to use a proxy easily
– good for streaming content over wifi from a Windows desktop
– can be used for reading eBooks
– can accept SD cards or memory sticks for playing movies on planes etc
– probably not an iPad because they’re so expensive
– any android with gingerbread 2.3+ can run flash 11 and therefore iPlayer.
– Dont see why not, but not tried to set up a proxy connection
– I hadnt set up a stream before, but have just set up Andromote in 5 minutes and its streaming music from my PC with no client needed on the PC, just the App. Amazing!
– Aldiko is a good book reader with some nice features and a large free library as well as the ability to import ePub
– just about all Android devices have microsd card slots, and many also have a USB port that can be used to mount USB sticks to.