Tablets?

[ARTZ]

anybody tried any of these Ebay tablet pcs, they range from 50-300$ running android..

been looking at the flytouch 3 in particular, but dont know anyone thats got one, its only for fun so cant really justify 700$ for an Ipad I only want to surf and be able to have it in the car for the kid to watch vids on long drives..

Not quite sure how to get internet on the go, I have data on my phone plan can I use this sim card somehow, dont really want to fork out for a seperate card..

optus sell a samsung galxy is meant to be really good but bit or there is the optus mytab on prepaid one for 150$. its pretty ordinary, doesnt play vids well and is only 7inch anyway..

[mad082]

the price drop of the galaxy makes it the best pic of the bunch. it's also rumoured to be getting honeycomb (android 3.0). wouldn't bother with the optus or telstra tabs (and probably any other cheap ones) because of the screens.

to be honest though, i'd look at a netbook. i picked up an acer netbook from officeworks for $359. it's a dual core 1.5ghz with 1gb of ram (can upgrade to 2gb). it has good battery life (can surf the net for 6 or 7 hours). you get the advantage of having a keyboard, faster processor, will do pretty much anything a normal laptop will do, and being windows 7, my ps3 auto detects it as a media server so i can stream movies and music to my ps3 without having to go through any settings, as well as link to my windows 7 laptop to share data very easily. plus you can plug in USB devices. only thing is that you would need a USB dongle for mobile internet (or a phone with tethering abilities, such as an android phone running 2.2 or an iphone). it also runs android dual boot, but you can't add apps to it, but it is good for quickly loading up to search the net or send an email (boots up in 10 or 15 seconds).

this is the one i got (missus picked the colour)

http://www.officeworks.com.au/retail/products/Technology/Computers-and-Notebooks/Computer-Notebooks-and-Laptops/ACN55DQPK

[ARTZ]

yeah, beleive it or not I have just now (literally half an hour ago) discovered tethering, which I can do with my N97 , it even has the app installed already i just didnt know it. But unfortunately it doesnt connect with android. I did read of some patches that COULD work but didnt seem to have to many supporters.

..so back to considering laptop or getting W7 tablets form asia which are way better specd than local offerings for around 400$. But a pain if warranty becomes an issue...

[bozodos]

i have a Dell Latitude XT at work, it shits on the Ipad from a gigantic height (due to running Win 7 and not a cutdown OS that dosen't integrate with any business productivity services properly). Costs a fortune and heavier though.

I didn't mind the Telstra T Tab tbh, cheap and cheerful, runs android

[*LOACH*]

I absolutely recommend a netbook. I havent been using much else for the past 2 years and although they cant do everything a desktop can they arent far from it. I have Battlefield Vietnam and Couterstrike Source (framerate is terrible on CS though) running on my Emachines and I am still only using 1GB RAM (2GB is the max you can run though). If you like the idea of a tablet look at the EEEPC T101MT which is a netbook but has the folding/swivel touchscreen which will give the feel of a pad but running windows and having a keyboard - they might cost more than you want to spend though ($600 new on Ebay - a lot cheaper than the Dell Latitude XT which is about $1000). The T101MTs have a 2.5" HDD too which , as you can imagine, makes upgrading to a 640GB (1TB drives are thicker and may or may not fit) easy. As SATA drives develope you have that option for upgrading too. I was really lucky and got my first netbook (ASUS EEPC 701SD) for $200 from Harvey Norman on sale and my Emachines (has a 2.5" drive) from another big chain store (cant remember which) also for $200. I think it might be hard to find that sort of bargain again but with the Australian dollar being so strong you might get lucky. Netbooks dont have optical drives but you can get an external USB one or just use another computer to make ISOs of what you want.

Have a look at http://forum.eeeuser.com/ as they have a lot of mods for EEEs, for example installing the USB dongle for mobile internet, that mad082 suggested, inside the case of netbooks, adding USB ports etc etc.

Edited May 16, 2011 by *LOACH*