Samsung Galaxy tab

[Toni]

I am thinking of buying a Samsung galaxy tab mainly for work ( or any other tablet). Budget is limited at the moment so can’t stretch to iPad. any suggestions ?
Can it read & save pdf documents
Whats the diary like on it and would possibly like to write calls on it. can it do all this ?

Regards
Toni

[funkyboogy]

Re: Samsung Galaxy tab

mini i pad or large smart phone htc samsung etc

theres seem to be lots of tablets on the market how good they are i dont know ,

which has a survey out on tablets i think

ive got htc 1x its ok but i could do with a larger screen , its on contract with bt with unlimited minutes and 1 gb of data – doesnt cost office anything to call bt mobiles so we save a bit over all.

it really down to our our preference as to how it functions etc

ally

[Martin]

Re: Samsung Galaxy tab

Toni wrote:Can it read & save pdf documents

Yes and create your own pdf’s too. The large screen is brilliant for reading large pdf documents especially the likes of Zanussi / Hotpoint and Bosch manuals…..oh and the UKW Bible of course, 😉

Toni wrote:Whats the diary like on it and would possibly like to write calls on it. can it do all this ?

Like all diaries, pretty crap so little use for writing calls. Besides, you can’t beat a 5 quid Staples/Ryman diary and a lead pencil. 😈

[bagman]

Re: Samsung Galaxy tab

The Google Nexus 7 is a nice sized tab and very powerful with a quad core processor.
I use mine for all my work related PDF’s and also for net access when needed (via tethered phone).
At £159 it’s a lot of tablet for very little money.

[kwatt]

Re: Samsung Galaxy tab

It is a good tablet the Google Nexus, can’t argue. One of the very best Android based tablets for sure, certainly the best I’ve used thus far.

I would argue that the iPad is more useable in the real world and doesn’t have the bloody Android OS that is desperately infuriating to use and for development it truly is hell incarnate, hence the dearth of apps for it.

If all you want to do is read the odd book, play the odd game, browse the web and read PDFs et all then the likes of the Nexus, Galaxy Tab and so on are fine but, for much of anything else, they all really pale when used next to an iPad.

I know, I have a Galaxy Tab, A Google Nexus Tab, several iterations of the iPad and a few other things kicking about for development work.

But don’t take my word for it, just look at the proper tech reviews. You won’t find one that differs much from that opinion, the fact is, Apple own the tablet space for now and even MS are playing catch up.

It may well be more expensive but, there’s a reason for that.

K.

[blackandwhites]

Re: Samsung Galaxy tab

I have a blackberry 7 inch tablet 64g/bites From Currys £129.
They were about £200 a few months ago.
I use my HTC desire mobile phone as a modem when I am out and about, and it works pretty well.

[squadman]

Re: Samsung Galaxy tab

Being a apple fan myself I found myself hovering wanting a ipad or ipad mini, after all it would make so much sense, would’nt it ?

Think again, having spent a lot of time looking, reading, handling and playing with all the tablets on the market, vis last two weeks, it became a no brainer, of course it was the Nexus 7 32 GB android tablet. for starters the screen resolution puts the ipad 2 and ipad mini in the backseat, for the money I cannot see how you could better it, now with 3G HSDPA, for the mobile engineer its a dream, far better than the largest smartphones but not as big as as 10 inch tablet. The Samsung tablets are clunky in comparison and the Nexus syncs up with all Google, calenders, email, maps ( yes you wont find southhampton in the middle of the solent, Cloud storage and whilst some of the apps need refining I cannot see anything that you can do on a apple tab that you can’t do on the Nexus especially running Jellybean 4.2 or 4.1.2 .
Google are also selling a million Nexus 7s monthly and have ordered further shipments from Asus. Who said a 7″ tablet would not work or be a sound business move ? this tablet has upset the market and if the truths known I bet Apple wish the Nexus 7 had failed.

[bagman]

Re: Samsung Galaxy tab

Going to disagree with you there Ken. I don’t want to get into an Android/IOS war (I’ll leave that to the geek forums).
But a dearth of apps? Really? There aren’t that many apple apps that aren’t available on android. Those that aren’t have alternatives.
My wife sold her ipad last month in order to buy a tablet that she can do what she wants with, and it won’t wipe her music etc because itunes has had a fit during a sync session.
Being able to drag and drop anything you like is a big plus as well as seamlessly streaming from my nas. The ipad always glitched or stuttered no matter what app was used.
Don’t get me wrong, I know how good the apple stuff is, but I think the simplicity of the Android system is preferable to the overpriced and walled garden that apple is.

Damn…. that was an Android v Apple rant… sorry 😛

Have to agree with the Playbook being amazing value for money as well. With Blackberry 10 coming out soon it will be even better.

[kwatt]

Re: Samsung Galaxy tab

The new Blackberry OS looks, well, interesting. We’ll see. However, as of now, no Blackberry announcement on tablet support for the new OS that I am aware of. Hell, we don’t even know if Blackberry will be making tablets (or anything) in the near future.

Windows Mobile also interesting. But untested, I may order a Surface tablet just to mess with it. But initial reports don’t bode well.

Android, if you develop apps then you won’t like it. I just can’t get to grips with what *I* think is a very clunky OS. I just want to pick it up and use it, not faff about for hours finding ways to do what I want done.

As to a “walled garden”, I think I might have heard that expression before somehow. 😉

So, here’s the thing…

They’re all a “walled garden” and, if you don’t realise that going in then you’re either desperately tech non-savvy, stupid or just have the wrong tint in your specs.

Go Blackberry, you’re tied to the Blackberry eco-system.

Go Windows, you’re tied to the MS eco-system.

Go Android, you’re tied to the Google eco-system.

Go Apple, you’re tied to the Apple eco-system.

Go Amazon (Kindle) and you’re stuck with Amazon’s eco-system. Which is of course just a bodged up Android OS heavily Amazon-ised.

That’s it, end of story, conversation over on walled gardens. The only question that remains is, who has the best eco system and hardware support?

Be under no illusion, you’re pretty much screwed regardless of what way you decide to jump.

For me, the best overall package across the various devices and platforms is using iOS devices to access the content easily and, that’s the important measure, getting at the content you want. All the rest is fluff IMO.

I can stream from NAS directly transcoding along the way via Plex or a number of other apps very easily. Trust me, I have over 30Tb of stored stuff here that I want to do it with so it’s sorta important to me.

And, none of them deal with high resolution or bitrates without transcoding and that’s lossy.

Drag and drop files can be done on all of the above (so far as I know) it’s just that some are easier/harder than others.

Would I buy an iPad mini… no. Not yet. Even as an Apple fan.

I don’t have a need for it really as, at the size of it, it’s only of use to people that really need the smaller form factor or want to read. If you want to read only, buy a Kindle PaperWhite (fantastic device, best eReader on the planet for now) and synch your books to the Kindle App on whatever flavour of tablet you prefer.

Asides which, around September next year I’d fully expect a Retina Display iPad Mini, a bump to the iPad as well as the form factor being brought into line with the mini and a bunch of other stuff going on.

With my sense of design and whatnot I just can’t go the blown up phone apps on a tablet, it’s just wrong. So, so wrong. I cringe when I see them, it’s bordering on painful.

Some links below to help inform.

But whatever floats you’re boat, knock yourselves out.

K.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/04/ … -apps-ios/

http://gigaom.com/2012/10/04/android-ap … ios-chart/

http://mobiledevices.about.com/od/kinda … lopers.htm

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/09/25/i … jelly-bean

[bagman]

Re: Samsung Galaxy tab

See, I knew this would happen….

I’m tempted to post about those review sites, but then it just becomes what it’s already in danger of becoming, and that’s something I’ve seen and read a thousand times (no exaggeration) at the very least.

We can both counter each other till the end of time regards operating systems or restrictions, or specs, or ease of use, usp, etc etc.
Bottom line is that there is only one right answer and that is… whatever works for you.

I used to work in IT, and I’ve seen these arguments going back to the spectrum/C64 days. Nothings changed, and in 50 years time people will still be arguing. That is the only real constant.

Apologies to the OP, sometimes we get carried away 😉

[Toni]

Re: Samsung Galaxy tab

Now I’m really confused 😕
Not decided what to get yet, but may wait a month and see if anything happens in the sales, (which will probably start next week 😉 )

[kwatt]

Re: Samsung Galaxy tab

TBH Toni, Bagman is right in many ways, as am I and, that’s the problem. There is no “right” answer really and opinion will always be divided between the various camps.

My opinion is, if you want a small cheap tablet get a 7″ Nexus as it is (IMO) the best of that ilk. And I have to say, it is very good as I have one we use in the work for stock etc.

Full size tablet, if you like or are happy with Android the new Nexus 10″ one or whatever it is seems to be a good bit of kit and considerably cheaper than an iPad.

If you want the simplicity and are happy with your iPhone (if you have one) or you’re already using Apple stuff then the iPad makes more sense for many people, even at the higher initial cost.

Any of those three are good bets but I’d steer well clear of some of the low cost ones now floating about as some of them are pretty horrific to use and slow as slow can be.

K.

[ELDAR59]

Re: Samsung Galaxy tab

I can stream from NAS directly transcoding along the way via Plex or a number of other apps very easily. Trust me, I have over 30Tb of stored stuff here that I want to do it with so it’s sorta important to me.

What the heck does that mean??

Is it just me?! 😐 😐 😥

[kwatt]

Re: Samsung Galaxy tab

At the risk of going way off topic…

I store all my movies, photos, music and TV on Network Attached Storage (NAS) drives that are basically big pots of hard drives used for data storage.

Then I “stream” that media to other devices on demand as I want.

So music can go into a Sonos system, iTunes, HiFi system. Movies and TV can go to a media streamer or HTPC (Home Theatre PC) and so on in multiple rooms. Or, indeed, to a tablet or phone that is capable.

I’ve been doing this for donkey’s years, probably the best part of a decade or more and in that time I’ve built up a sizeable collection of media as I rarely delete stuff.

It all started when MP3 was invented…

K.

[ELDAR59]

Re: Samsung Galaxy tab

Thanks ken.
All clear now!!

[Author]

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