Tablet advice (again)

[cняis]

overclockers.co.uk have Motorola Xoom on offer for around £320 (ex demo units)

Or refurbished Samsung Galaxy tab 10.1" on ebay for around £270

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SAMSUNG-GALAXY-TAB-16GB-10-1-TABLET-10-1-/290615055276?_trksid=p4340.m185&_trkparms=algo%3DDLSL%252BSIC.NPJS%26its%3DI%252BP%26itu%3DUCI%252BUA%26otn%3D10%26pmod%3D300591540184%26po%3D%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D4003312582442837627#ht_4551wt_1046

cheap enough for some upgrades?

[Jay]

Having extensively used a XOOM I would say only go for it if you want cheap HDMI/SD expansion and USB connectivity. 99p cables from ebay work and it looks lovely on the telly, pity the free keyboard and mouse with the XOOMs ended. The Samsung is nice, it's also light and very thin which I love about it.

[golf-sib]

Still having a hard time deciding as nothing out there to tick all the boxes, the Asus Transformer seems to be the only unit I like and still I can't justify it even though it won a lot of awards, but the "Transformer prime" should be revealed in a week, so lets see what that brings.

I know the touchpad which is an ipad look a like has got dual boot and great specs with the community developing cyanogen for it, which seems ideal. But HP said they will allow extended support soon to enable it to be able to boot "windows 7", anyone know how true this is?

My boss was asking about tablets as he was thinking of going ipad2 tablets for the business trying to go paperless as a whole in the company and using the tablet for site visits etc but it needs internet access via a mobile tariff as not all sights you visit have wifi, then theres the issue of app development on the iphone to extend the business's function of tasks. He can't find anything suitable tablet wise either 

[Jay]

I very much doubt there is a tablet that'll fit your requirements and won't be for some time yet.

I know the touchpad which is an ipad look a like has got dual boot and great specs with the community developing cyanogen for it, which seems ideal. But HP said they will allow extended support soon to enable it to be able to boot "windows 7", anyone know how true this is?

Windows 7 won't run on the touchpad as it's a different CPU architecture, however, Windows 8 ARM will run on it - how well depends on the specs the ARM version needs as it's rumoured to not include the normal Windows UI I suspect it will have a lower footprint.

As for business apps, I'd say write them for the web. HTML4 or 5 will run on iOS, Android, and Windows.  Write smart, write once.

[golf-sib]

I took the bullet, got a Asus TF101

Unfortunately when it arrived the touch screen did not work, after all the hassle it was a software bug that requires recovery mode to correct. Asus tech support helped me out and sorted it, chuffed now! Brilliant piece of kit, got it for £375 with dock 

[Ben Lessani]

Looks nice, where did you get it from?

[golf-sib]

very catalog, played around with online vouchers and cashback idea's but the lowest I could find it for was £400 and as a new user you get £25 off making it £375 with the voucher, that was the best deal I could get, yet today the price has jumped to £430 so I was lucky, its possible to get it down to £380~385 at the moment via various means.

Brilliant battery life on the device its insane, when people said a charge will last 2-3 days off good use I thought it was nonsense, but they weren't lieing, battery is amazing.

Could wait around as a week ago they announced the new asus transformer 2 (prime), wasn't heavily over keen on the specs and its going to hit the US markets in december, no EU dates yet though, but once it hits the EU shortly after the Transformer should drop by £50-£100 at a guess.

[Ben Lessani]

I'm tempted to get one (as it just looks cool), but I really can't think of any reason to use it.

The keyboard/dock is a good idea and makes it more usable, but the OS limits what you can actually use it for. Its a shame Windows doesn't run on ARM, dual boot Android/Windows would be handy!

[Jay]

Why'd you think I'm waiting for Win8  Best of both worlds then

[golf-sib]

Aye, the community with android is brilliant, win8 as said will hopefully support ARM and no doubtfully it should support the tegra 2 as this will become a favourite chip with manufacturers especially with the tegra3 expected Q4 of 2012... reducing the tegra2 price.

But knowing the android community etc I'm sure they will work out a way to dual boot it eventually.

Gaming wise the Asus transformer is amazing, you can get a bluetooth controller, link it to the telly via hdmi and use it as a mini console which is pretty neat, they had an article regarding this in the tegra market which looks quite cool, the email in honeycomp and the bigger display makes it a lot better. It does almost everything I want it too, hopefully it will eventually get win8 and let me use its full potential in terms off apps that the android market doesn't.