Tablet or netbook

[Petra]

Maplins are selling and Android Touchscreen tablet for £99.99 and wondered if anyone had used one of these and what they thought of them. I was thinking about getting a netbook for the motorhome so I could check out email and surf the web whilst away touring but wondered if a tablet would be just as good. We dont need a DVD drive or to use it for films as TV does that.

 

[Eriba trafic]

£99.99 8-) 8-) That must be with a 10 year contract with orange 8-) 8-)

 

I "played" with an HP 7 inch tablet which said £999 full price £699 with contract i think *-) that was the contract price (?) (?) It was £999 as the FULL non contract price i was so shocked at the full price i just tried it and left

 

The 7 inch tablet is nice but when you try to hold it you touch the keys & have to start again & again & again :-(

 

I hate touch screens preferring the 800 gram 32 giga SSD Toshiba AC100-111, nVidia Tegra which has reduced from around £499 to £299 without touch screen but with Android 2.2

 

On the other hand a tablet for £99 you should buy while you can be sure its not the device that LOOKS LIKE A TABLET is CALLED A TABLET but only shows your photos which it can down load via wi-fi

 

If the tablet has Android its super 8-) :-D You can scroll info within a page without scrolling the page,or show info & images related to the page without changing the page Its ten thousand times better than apple it uses flash player really well :-S

 

Please tell us more even if you keep the maplins location top secret for now ;-)

[Homenaway]

Hi,

I would wait a while before buying a tablet running Android as some are reported to have limited functionality at present. The Maplin device seems very cheap and you certainly won't be able to do as much while motorhoming as you can with a netbook.

We have an ipad and even that has limitations especially for web browsing - no flash supported, and handling photos from your camera is not as useful compared to using a netbook.

Steve

[Eriba trafic]

QUOTE:

 

I would wait a while before buying a tablet running Android as some are reported to have limited functionality at present. (>)

 

Android is miles better than anything at the moment The "limited functionality" in v2.1 was the missing flash player needed to serve ads *-) which concentrated minds at google 8-)

 

Android v2.1 is now v2.2 WITH FLASH 8-) and works wonderfully, android was/is made for touch screen (phones) and now tablets.

 

I still prefer non tablet but must say Android tablets are VERY good B-)

 

As for price i did see one priced £999 to encourage telecom sign ups.I was looking at a couple of tablets in November while trying the Toshiba 100 AC im almost sure they were priced about £100 more (?) (?) which would make them around £350 today???

 

Im very occupied finding a new exhaust since ive discovered that exhausts in France for FRENCH motor (bit of the home 8-) )Cost 10 TIMES the price in the UK 8-) 8-) 8-) £60 hear £240 in France (the same supplier sells a landrover full exhaust price UK £30 for £660 8-) 8-) 8-) )Other wise i would be "trying" tablets

 

NOTE; USB 3 and SSD have been around & priced at USB 2 price & solid state drives are now fast & affordable if you can wait a bit longer until netbooks have 32/64 gig SSDs & USB 3 Much much faster & multi tasking B-)

[le canichot depang]

I'd go for the net book over the tablet at present, we bought a refurbished one from laptopsdirect for £130 about 4 years ago for use on the go and it does everything we want, as you said, no need for DVD as the TV has that, but you can Skype with in (which I know the ipad doesn't have a webcam or SD card reader - not sure about Android ones though). Also check emails and look up places of interest if you are in a wi-fi area which is handy. I sometimes also put my pictures on to view before we get home. I have read that the ipad is not designed to replace a laptop as you need one to "sync" with for certain things, so until they put a webcam, flash support and an SD reader on it I'll be sticking to my acer one.

[Eriba trafic]

Ive been shopping B-)

 

I may have seen the tablet you saw (?) I saw an "Archos" 7 inch for £120 BEWARE It only has Android v1.5 i dont think you can update & even if you did its simply a very large phone that dosnt work very well & eats batteries 8-)

 

If you cant wait take the advise above & buy a net book :-) Check it has the Atom 450 At least the Atom 2xx if there still about are to old *-)

 

I use a VERY old Asus with Linux 20gig SSD & slooowww 900 celeron i use it to watch videos (im downloading) or just look through photos as the Asus with SSD uses a third of the power a std HHD dose

 

A net book will do every thing you want and more B-)

[johngee]

The only thing I don't like about my wife's netbook is the multifunction touchpad and she hates it too. Difficult to control we find.

 

So if you go for a netbook, use it first and see how you go. We bought a small usb mouse with retracable cord which is better.

 

Otherwise our Dell mini is fine. Odd screen sizes on netbooks too.

 

[BGD]

For us: netbook. Every time.

 

Much more flexible, much more user friendly, MUCH cheaper, potentially more robust; all technology proven; keyboard is much better in use, and if you can get one with Windows XP loaded (or load a cracked copy yourself) then it's compatible with just about everything you can load on/bolt on to it.

[BGD]

As an example, here's a very good deal from Curry's:

 

 

 

 

 

 

ACER Aspire One D255 - White

Product code: 606590

 

 

Was £239.99, now £199.00

Save a total of £40.99

(£239.99 from 30/09/10 to 25/11/10)

Intel® Atom® N450 (1.66 GHz)

Genuine Windows® XP Home

Memory: 1GB

160GB

 

 

 

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/netbooks/316_3048_30048_xx_xx/xx-230-criteria.html?sPageInfo=1_12&sSortInfo=topsellers-desc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mel B]

I'm always wary of 'touch' screen equipment as the screens do wear out from being ... touched!

 

At work they used to buy in touch screen laptops, the ones with the swivelling screen (can't remember the make), which cost a packet, so that they could swivel the screen round and in effect fold it over the bottom so that the screen was facing outwards like a tablet. This would then allow the lecturers to manipulate stuff on their laptop screen when it was linked to the video projector. Unfortunately after a while the screens started to deteriorate as they were 'touched' in the same place over and over again, in effect rendering the 'touch' facility useless, although the laptop worked perfectly otherwise.

 

So, if you're going to give your equipment a lot of use, make sure you have some way to input stuff other than via the touchscreen.

 

It makes me wonder just how long some of the touch screen phones are going to last in reality ....

[lennyhb]

I'll stick with the netbook more versatile & light enough to cart around I've had a Samsung NC10 for over 2 years great bit of kit.

 

SWMBO wanted a Smasung Galaxy Tab for Christmas I managed to talk her out of it couldn't see the point of paying 500 quid for a big phone.

 

 

[nuevoboy]

As someone who only uses tablets to get rid of headaches

and my notebook has a spiral binding along the top,

can someone please suggest a way of learning about all this technology?

My PC (I think that's still the correct term) is around 10 years old, was installed by the selling company and I can send and receive emails and even post on forums. *-)

However, as a new M/H owner, I would like to keep in touch when away and possibly look for camping sites when on tour.

Oh yes, my mobile phone is also 10 years old and I've topped it up with £10 twice in that time.

I've bought some computer mags but it's all gobblydygook I'm afraid.

I've even tried enrolling at the local college on a couple of courses but none seemed suitable.

So, where should one start please?

[Mel B]

First decide what you're going to use it for, that will help you determine what kit/programmes you want on it and therefore the size/quality of machine and from that you can determine whether a laptop or a netbook would be better.

 

For example, do you want to play high-spec PC games (probably not!), or do you do a lot of browsing, or want to use high processor power hungry programmes.

 

A netbook can have a battery life of anywhere up to 9 hours, whereas a laptop is usually half that it you are lucky - are you going to be able to charge it up in the van?

 

What size screen do you want - netbooks are quite small, around 10 inches or so, whereas laptops can be anything up to 19 inches. If you want to watch DVDs and/or TV then really you need a laptop as watching on a small netbook screen would be a pain and you don't generally get a built in DVD player either. You also need to see how good the speekers are as some are terrible.

 

Do you want a full sized keyboard, or would a smaller one (as per netbooks) suffice.

 

 

[Petra]

Thanks for all the replies, think I will go and have a look at Currys sale. I know the Acer Aspire One came out best in the Gadget show netbook test so £199 sounds like a good price. I did think that £99.99 for the tablet sounded very cheap but was always taught not to touch computer screens so can understand Mel B's point about screens wearing out.

[Caroline]

Know what you mean about technology and all that, I have just discovered Best Buys they are store similar to PC World and seem to stock everything, compatible prices and a geek desk for further help after sales. If I want to know anything techie I go to them I have just got a new phone and over three visits chatted about the differences for a total of 3 hours, nothing but praise for they way they chatted if I had a question they did not know the answer to the found another person who did, there was no pressure as I walked out of the store with out a purchase on the first 2 occasions. They are not on commission!!!!!

 

If you have one buy you they are worth a visit, they have Car phone warehouse under their umbrella.

 

They have a lot to touch and play with.

 

I have been interested to see your comments on tablet/ipad verses net book. Thanks