[Solved] Gadget Dad

I have an aversion to i-anything - just don't like the control Apple have over how you do things. I do love the designs though.

My phone is finally up for renewal, so have just ordered the Desire HD phone.

Can't justify the need or cost at the moment of a pad, but there's a couple of very nice Droid Pads due out soon, so maybe next year :sigh:

I have an aversion to i-anything - just don't like the control Apple have over how you do things. I do love the designs though.

My phone is finally up for renewal, so have just ordered the Desire HD phone.

Can't justify the need or cost at the moment of a pad, but there's a couple of very nice Droid Pads due out soon, so maybe next year :sigh:

HaHa Thats why Jailbreaking was started, You Take the control away from apple and they can't do nothing about it.

With a jailbroken device you can do sooooooooo much more 😈

HaHa Thats why Jailbreaking was started, You Take the control away from apple and they can't do nothing about it.

Except take away your warranty 🙁

HaHa Thats why Jailbreaking was started, You Take the control away from apple and they can't do nothing about it.

Except take away your warranty 🙁

I recently had a jail broken Ipod touch and the battery was done in so i took it to the apple store in blue-water, When the guy checked it he said he couldn't touch it because it was Jail broken, I left the store used the delete Ipod function and took it back in to him, He replaced it straight away with a brand new one and 6 months warranty..........RESULT 😆

I have an aversion to i-anything - just don't like the control Apple have over how you do things. I do love the designs though.

My phone is finally up for renewal, so have just ordered the Desire HD phone.

Can't justify the need or cost at the moment of a pad, but there's a couple of very nice Droid Pads due out soon, so maybe next year :sigh:

I'm with you there, I worked in mobile phones for 8 years and saw the hype around i phones explode, they are nothing special and like you hate how controled apple are, when Bill Gates did the same he went through courts so how do they get away with it??

There is a Blackberry tab out now which is supposed to be amazing, bit expensive though so i'll stick with the phone.

I did pick up a Nokia N8 the other day as a 2nd phone (as I used to work for T-Mobile I get heavy discounts on phones) I wanted it as a media player and camera it's awsome took it on holiday and the quality of the pictures and vidoes is better than some expensive camera's/cam corders

Darren

I have an Android (Desire HD) and the quality is excellent, including the camera/video. It does pretty much everything I want, though it took jumping through hoops to get various organisers to do want I want (I used to have Palm with Agendus - unbeatable as an organiser). One annoying thing is that the latest version of Android placed some extra restrictions which weren't there before, so I hope they aren't going to lock out developers on some features.

Apparently 1 in 3 phones sold this year will be smart phones - I have a Samsung Galaxy S. I really like the phone and the apps but the battery life is rubbish.

I have to switch off the automatic synching and that saves the battery

Think I will be going back to a blackberry or I-phone 5 (to wind my wife up!!)

Battery on HD isn't spectacular either - I reduced the synching for news to save battery and reduce data (though I have unlimited data), but I don't really find it a problem, I have 2 chargers at home, one at the office and one in the car, so I simply charge it when convenient. Good thing about a lot of modern smartphones is that they all seem to be adopting micro USB, so I don't need a new set of chargers if I change phones in the future.

Hi actd

I am the same charge it when I can but think that weakens the battery life - so every now and again I let it run right down

Pain though!

I'm with you there, I worked in mobile phones for 8 years and saw the hype around i phones explode, they are nothing special and like you hate how controled apple are, when Bill Gates did the same he went through courts so how do they get away with it??
Darren

Well, From having this debate a fair few years ago my take on it is quite simple:

Apple users expect a slick, simple and easy environment with as little skill involved as possible (and usually have too much money). So Apple's products and operating systems are intended for complete ease of use and less requirement for back-end functionality, plus, SHINY.
You can use terminal, you can jailbreak and you can mess about with the unix based environment but there's really no real need to, It "just works"

Windows users have always had a less restricted experience and the freedom of building whatever spec machine they see fit, slapping an OS on it and having the pride of building it themselves (unless ya buy pre-made which is a total rip off). Now, Windows has, over the years evolved and is seemingly more "mac like" but there's still loads of back-end functionality for guys like me that need the freedom. You never see a mac funcionting as a domain controller / AD DS Server, VPN server, Exchange server, file server etc etc.

The main thing here is that if Bill Gates wants to introduce restriction on desktop windows / windows mobile or anything else there will be a fight.

Apple do it, it's standard.

Funnily enough, My iPhone (and i've had every generation up to 4 barring 3Gs) is awesome. Jailbroke, got mah terminal, can RDP to my windows pc wherever i am etc etc and the iPad was bought out of sheer curiosity, jailbroke of course and my daughter loves it so i'm not all about hating Apple, I just really don't like their restictions but there are ways around it.

Not sure whether to get an I-Phone 5 when it comes out - if nothing else to wind my wife up who now has an I-Pad 2!!

Apparently it still does not support flash

iPhone 5 should be worth the extra cash but if you're on contract i'd wait to see what your carrier can hook you u with.

I think i'll pick one up for part ex of my iphone 4 but don't want to pay over £400 that i don't have.

Apple will never support flash on ios. They're all about html 5. The skyfire web browser plays flash though. It just converts it on the fly. I can view flash on here and on the phone with skyfire. It's top.

wanted an i-Pad for a while but money is too tight to mention, as they say, so my in-laws got me a Binatone pad from Tesco's. At first I wasnt sure, but it does pretty much all the same stuff at a quarter of the price. Well worth it

I did look at alternatives and I was actually going to get one from China that ships with windows 7 for about £99 but unfortunately I'm a bit of a tech nerd and due to my job I need to keep up with all the current stuff that the guys use. the MD / Senior VP etc all have 'em.

If i don't have one I can't really support it so I saved, did some overtime and picked one up on the cheap. It's definitely not a necessity if you want a tablet though. There are android ones at half, sometimes even a quarter of the price that do all the same stuff.

You pay for that shiny apple on the back which is why I will never buy an iMac or a Mac Mini. Overpriced. Shiny, but overpriced. It just turned out that for professional reasons as well as some personal I kinda needed to shell out.

Plus, it's a good musician's tool.

No way will I be updating to the 2 or 3 though, I couldn't afford that unless I didn't have a life outside the office.

Anyone after one though, I'd say first hit up Ebay. First gen ipads now are going for less than £200 in some cases.

My youngest has announced he wants a tablet for Xmas - will be looking at an android one as you say less than a quarter of the price and you can put 32GB flash card into it

I'm currently keeping an eye on ebay for the HP Touchpads - missed the firesale £89 price, but I hope I may be able to pick one up for £150 in the next week or two. Runs WebOS, but since I was a long time Palm fan, that's not a problem to me, but there are stories starting to circulate that they can be cracked to run Android.

I'm currently keeping an eye on ebay for the HP Touchpads - missed the firesale £89 price, but I hope I may be able to pick one up for £150 in the next week or two. Runs WebOS, but since I was a long time Palm fan, that's not a problem to me, but there are stories starting to circulate that they can be cracked to run Android.

To be honest, I really wouldn't bother. There's a reason it's dubbed the ouchpad.
I tried one as my guitarist works in a store that had them for sale. Web OS was horrible.
While it's nearly possible to install android it will never do it perfectly.

If you're after a decent tablet for a decent price i'd go for the Archos 7". http://www.amazon.co.uk/Archos-Home-Tablet-V2-Viewer/dp/B004H1X3OS/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1315325918&sr=1-2 . It's lovely, we have one at work and it's smooth as [censored].

Plus, by November the new range would have come out so this will likely drop to £80.

For my needs (ie limited), the WebOS would be fine for me. One of the attractions at the price is the 10 inch screen - I'd thought about one of the 7" androids, but my phone is 4.3" screen, so there's not much point in going for something that's only about 50% larger.

Fair point.

There is a 10 inch Archos droid tab out there and it's stunning.

Archos Arnova? If so, it's a resistive screen - having now got a phone with capacitive screen, and had resistive screens on my palms for year, I can appreciate the difference, so wouldn't go backwards. The screen is also only 600 pix high, which is a limitation that annoys me with my current netbook when browsing. The Arnova also has android 2.1, which means that apps can't be moved to SD card - with 4GB, that may not ever be a problem - though I suppose with the Touchpad, I'm limited to the apps currently available anyway as it's unlikely that it's ever going to increase unless Samsung buy WebOS.

Still keeping an eye out on ebay for the Touchpads, as the prices are dropping as the initial excitement drops off, but if I don't get one, I'm happy to wait until the Android tablets come down in price.

Nah, I think Arnova are Achos' budget name like Gibson have Epiphone and Fender have Squire.

The one we messed with in tesco felt too nice to be resistive. I think it was £199 but there's no way it was resistive.

Would never go back to that. *shudders*.

So if I had £150 to spend on an Android Tablet which one would you recommend?

I'd wait til all this legal business blows over - if you'd not seen on the news, Apple are claiming the Samsung tablets are a copy of their iPad, and Samsung/HTC are counter-suing over illegally used patents. Eventually they'll all stop throwing their toys out of their pram and we can start enjoying our toys again 😀

We're trying to get my boss to buy the IT managers here tablets, wish me luck!

So if I had £150 to spend on an Android Tablet which one would you recommend?

The Archos 101, if you want a 10 inch screen, looks quite nice - the reason I wouldn't get it is the screen size as it's wide screen, good for watching movies, but a pain for internet browsing. You'd also want to check that it has access to the Android market, which at £150, you may not get. You definitely want a capacitive screen, not a resistive screen. The Archos 70 looks good if you don't mind a smaller screen.

Otherwise, wait a while and the prices will fall and the specs will rise.

I agree. The archos tabs are by far the best value for money out there.
There's a new samsung tablet coming out ready for Windows 8 though which has a 2nd Gen i5 Sandy bridge processor. 4gb ram and a 11" high def screen. Beautiful but It's going to be expensive. :'(

Would have thought the battery life on that will be very poor 🙁

Would have thought the battery life on that will be very poor 🙁

Battery technology really needs to take a big leap soon else at this rate my next phone will only get me 2 hours of use without a charge 🙁

I agree about battery life - I am really worried that my next phone will need to be permenantly plugged in!!

I've worked on that basis for years (I've had 'smartphones' for about 12 years now starting with the Nokia Communicator). I have two chargers at home, one on my desk and one in the car. The fortunate thing is that, apart from Apple, phone manufacturers seem to be standardising on micro-usb so I don't need to get a new set of chargers when I change my phone.

Get an iPad Super M,

I love my shiney new iPad - great apps, works a treat and is the dogs.......

Get an iPad Super M,

I love my shiney new iPad - great apps, works a treat and is the dogs.......

... and you can now dispense with your PC entirely?

no - not entirely but then no tablet will completely replace a pc.

But you can do most things.

I tend only to use my netbook for email and web browsing, and very little else, so with some external storage, I'm sort of hoping that I can dispense with my netbook entirely when I get a tablet.

Of course, I could be living in cloud cuckoo land 😆

The iPad can handle browsing and email with no issues.

Just doesn't do flash.

The iPad can handle browsing and email with no issues.

Just doesn't do flash.

Flash doesn't worry me too much - I think a lot of websites are being designed around this anyway - it's the lack of storage that's a problem, though my boss has just bought a wireless hard drive which works with the ipad, so in theory, that problem is solved - . I just prefer having a tablet that has USB support, which is why Android or Touchpad appeals - especially since I have an external 500gb sitting at home.

I was tempted by the iPad 1 when the price dropped on the release of the iPad 2 - but not quite enough.

My wife has a brand new shiny Ipad2 and loves it - I was looking at one for youngest but hopefully have persuaded him not to get one as his laptop does everything he needs it to!

I do like the Ipad but think it is clunky and prefer a laptop although the fact that it is easy to transport does tick a lot of boxes

The iPad can handle browsing and email with no issues.

Just doesn't do flash.

Skyfire browser for iPad can convert flash to HTML 5 on the fly. Flash video is totally possible on an iPad if you don't mind getting a 3rd party browser that's actually better than safari and taking a little time to set it up.

😉 )

Thanks Rik - I will be checking out the Skyfire browser on the app store tonight.