What tablet?

I remain totally in love with my N7. Its ability to fit into the back pocket of my pants or breast pocket of a coat is awesome, and it's actually reasonable to use without propping it up on something like you basically have to with a 10" tablet.

Unlike my 2.3 phone, Chrome on the N7 is fast enough to make pinch-zooming the occasional site that looks weird on a 7" display painless. Games are great; most things designed for a smaller phone display actually play better on the N7, and even 10"-primary games work fine.

Of course, Android doesn't have any games so I'm probably hallucinating that last part.

Enh. iOS feels kludgy to me as a primary Android user, with frequent "wtf why can't I do that?" moments.

It is simple, though, you've definitely got me there.

Again, some things are probably what you're used to. Of course switching OS will always involve getting used to new and not necessarily better way of doing things. And of course some things are merely a matter of personal preference.
And if you after having tried both equally, actually prefer Android, more power to you. You made the right choice.

Saying that iOS is a more polished, more intuitive and easier to use OS is however not a controversial position.

Saying that more games are made for iOS than Android, is not either. Glad that the ones you like aren't the ones missing. The great board games not made for Android yet, works best on 10" anyway.

I think that pretty much sums it up, yeah. About the only thing you didn't mention is that for both iOS and Android, the current small tablets have worse screens and slower processors than the big ones. But in practice, for just about any given use, the form factor is more important than that difference.

It does seem a bit silly to get both, but on the other hand, a Nexus 7 + Nexus 10 (Nexus 17?) costs $600, which isn't a particularly extravagant price on the scale of computer hardware -- it's a budget laptop, a high-end videocard, a decent monitor, or a Surface with cover.

Burn.

I would be in the same boat as Ned, if I didn't already have the Kindle for just reading.
When that is said, it's also very much a matter of personal preference and what you'll use the tablet for the most - I really don't find the large iPad that heavy and don't agree that "you pretty much has to prop it up anywhere". I never do and I use mine every day. The only time it's not in my hands or on my lap, is when I'm using it with the Logitech Keyboard Cover and writing on it. I'm pretty sure I'd feel the same about a 10" Android device.

I was about to ask what kind of gigantic pants you're wearing, but then I tried for myself and the Nexus 7 REALLY fits in a standard jeans back pocket! Astounding. What an unexpected benefit.

Aren't you, like, worried about sitting on it when it's in your back pocket? Because that's totally something I would do.

Eh. Allow me to quelle my surprise that "everybody knows" how "kludgy" Android is and why would we even talk about this because the truth is self-evident, duh.

It fits; it's not so tiny that it's weightless or unnoticeable. I haven't had a problem.

Of course, my pockets also don't project an entropic field that destroys electronics either. So I've got that going for me.

(p.s. fuck you Chrome, "entropic" is a word and not even a terribly unusual one.)

My specific fear is that I'd sit on it. I'd sit down for lunch or something and CRACK. Maybe the device is just robust enough to have my fat ass sitting on it? I don't know; I just imagine that the process of being sat on while in my back pocket would apply all sorts of unpleasant forces with the potential to break the thing. Also I hate putting anything in my back pockets. Maybe it's just me!

That thought has cropped up, as well as just the discovery that this thing (Nexus 7) slides easily into back pocket of jeans and cotton pants and short and hoodie pocket… …usually it just in the pocket until I reach my destination as a pedestrian; then it goes to the desktop.

Regarding Android v. iOS -- as I wrote earlier (in this thread and in an Android thread), there are plus/minus factors and Android has really come along well (though Java still sucks!). But iOS is still way more polished and there is still a lot of goober-ness in Android. But the big advantages for me are how much better than Google stuff works and displays (gmail, google searches, etc.…) on Android than iOS. And the "back / home / taskbar?" software bottom dashboard v. iOS "home / doubleclick for task tray" is a win, though Android gets confused sometimes (like when tapping the Chrome app lands me in Google Play or tapping Flipboard lands me in the YouTube app).

My current quest is to find an suitable iTunes replacement. It seems on iOS, a lot of basic functionality comes built-in (iTunes may not be the be-all end-all but it handles podcasts and even the new free podcast app makes it simple to download a podcast for off-network consumption). Something that in Android it looks like I must seek a pay app and I am reluctant to spend money on inferior software, especially for a task that should be "built in" by default). Tried Doubletwist but you need the pro app for offline podcast listening. Pocket Cast comes highly recommended, but I've been trying to see how long I can hold out on pay apps (and even on iOS, have not paid for an app in over a year).

And befuddling to me is how the Google Play ereader/music built-in apps are so limited in feature set (even regressing, as I understand there was a Google Listen app that got axed that indeed provided a "add a podcast" function) -- their Google Books app does not let you add your own .epub (something even iBooks and Kindle, proprietary apps enable, though in Kindle you have to convert to *.mobi or *.pdf first), and Google Play music seems to be totally oriented to purchasing from Google Play store. #bigfail

I was going to like your post, naum, but then you did the hashtag thing and now must be hunted down for the good of the species. Apologies, but the hounds are already on their way.

I sometimes worry when I have my iPhone in the front pocket and bend to tie my shoelaces. The new longer and thinner one doesn't alleviate this (and it's not even made of plastic).

My ass is big, but not big enough to comfortably have a Nexus in the back pocket. Perhaps it's because I wear jeans. I'm also a klutz so I'd definitely sit on it and while sturdy, I don't think that would be good (big ass, remember).

The "appliance vs. computing device" from that Anandtech review mkozlows posted is still the best way to look at it, instead of saying that iOS is inherently easier to use, or Android is inherently more powerful. It's more about what the makers (and the audience) prioritize -- a lot of people obviously think Android is getting easier to use and makes more sense to them than iOS, and a lot of people have figured out ways to do more than just reading books and playing games on iOS devices.

The only issue I have is that the Anandtech review makes that declaration after several pages of detailed hardware specs. From their perspective, it's going to be a draw (or actually, that the Nexus 10 is the clear winner for anyone who doesn't want iOS). But I think that still underestimates what a big deal iOS, and why the iPad took off when TabletPC failed for years. It's kind of like the philosophy of the original Mac was validated, on a machine that wasn't a Macintosh -- a lot of people who are perfectly capable of dealing with a "real computer" just want a computer that works as an appliance. It's not as arbitrary between iOS/Android as people make it sound.

That also means, I think, that it's silly when Apple tries to compete on specs. Which is why I think the whole "Retina" push has been a bad idea, since they quickly lost king-of-the-hill to the Nexus 10 for people who care about that kind of thing.

Speaking as a fellow big-assed gadget hound: back when the Palm V was the fanciest and shiniest way to pretend that you were living in Star Trek, I got one of those wallets with the little bar inside, so you could slip it into the Palm V's spare stylus slot. It only took about a week before I forgot to take my wallet out before sitting down, and I cracked the screen.

Yet another reason the iPad mini's size is Undeniably Superior (TM): it's just too big to fit comfortably into any pocket.

The appliance/general-computer divide really is an interesting one. Back when smartphones and tablets were new and the world was young and wow that was just a few years ago... anyway, back then, it was clear that these things were adjuncts to real computers, they were peripherals, the spiritual heir to the Palm and the Treo and the PocketPC. I mean, you hooked them up to your computer to sync stuff up and to install new firmware. They were limited in capabilities, with little applets that ran in little silos doing toy-type things. They were revolutionary and awesome, but: peripherals.

But when I got that Transformer this summer, I realized that this wasn't the case anymore. The tablet had evolved upward into the computer. It operates wholly independently, and it has powerful programs that can interoperate and work together in ways that are actually richer than on the desktop (legacy Windows doesn't have anything as rich as Android intents; the closest you get is tying associations to file types). Except for software development, every single thing that I do on my legacy laptop is something I can do on my tablet -- but there are tons of things I can do on a tablet that I can't do on the laptop.

To me, that's what makes tablets exciting: That the long-awaited "we need something better than this crappy windows/menus/desktop/pointer paradigm" revolution is finally happening, and that we're getting a new set of interface conventions and models for how an OS should work that jettison the legacy garbage of the past.

And from that perspective -- definitely not appliance-like -- iOS just doesn't even begin to measure up. I can imagine using Android as my only computing device soon, but iOS just isn't trying to do that, and would be terrible at it. And it's possible there are technophobes whose needs are fully met by an appliance -- certainly that's the argument behind ChromeOS, and iOS has somewhat richer capabilities than ChromeOS in practice -- but that holds little interest to me. What I want is a full-on, all-out, wholly-capable computing device that runs a modern OS that's jettisoned as much as possible of the legacy past, and Android is where that's at. (Or possibly Win8/RT, if Microsoft's draconian restrictions weren't unacceptable to me.)

Yeah, technophobes.

So I went to the mall today, and while I was there, I stopped at the Apple Store. Wow, they are really pushing the Mini. I actually had difficulty finding the place where they were selling the classic iPads, because the front half of the store is just Mini-Towne.

So what I'll say about it is that the display was better than I was expecting, in that it was bright and vibrant and all that. If you put it side-by-side with the Nexus 7 showing a low-detail photograph, I bet most people would prefer the Mini's display. But when it came time for text, yeah, it's still the same sharpness as the iPhone 3G, and it looks it.

For the rest of it, it had that paradoxically-cheap feel to it, where pretty much any device that's too featherlight feels flimsy (it's the opposite of what reviewers always refer to as "reassuring solidity" or "decent heft"). Even past that, though, it didn't strike me as particularly jewel-like or amazingly precision-machined in any way. There was nothing wrong with it, but I wasn't blown away by its externals the way that I sort of expected to be.

But I will say that the screen size seems nice-ish. I know that Samsung's had a 7.7" tablet before, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a bunch of 8" Android tablets soon, because while 7" is a good tradeoff point between device size and screen size, it seems like 8" would be another reasonable point, especially as phones start edging over 5".

Overall, I guess my opinion comes down to the reviewer-consensus opinion that it's a nice device whose major flaw is its low-res screen and a crazy-high price tag. I'm pretty sure if I were in the iOS world, I'd just buy an iPad 4, and would wait for next year's Mini to be better. Unless I got drunk and went to the Apple store page, I guess.

(Also while I was there, I looked at an iPad 4 to see how its screen compares to the N10. I think it's less sharp in visible ways, but... honestly, I'd have to see them side-by-side to tell for sure, and I don't think anyone is going to complain about the i4's resolution either way.)

I have it. It's the best piece of hardware I've ever owned. Fortunately, it was a gift from work—the whole 7.7" 1280x800 Super AMOLED Plus display means it cost about $500 for the non-cellular version. There wasn't a huge market for an iPad-priced premium Android 8" tablet, and Apple shut down sales in Europe on a design patent claim anyway, so I don't think it can be had anymore.

So it turns out the Nexus 10 isn't available in Ireland, so there goes one of my big Christmas ideas. How does the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 hold up to it, does anyone know? Or should I just spring for a Nexus 7 (is that big enough to watch videos on?) and take the hit on the smaller screen.

You mean the Galaxy Note 10.1, and not the older Galaxy Tab 10.1, right? If so: It's slower and has a much, much worse display -- literally 1/4 the pixels at 1280x800. I would not consider a 10" 1280x800 tablet, personally.

That was my initial thought when I saw the model earlier today but I thought maybe there was something I was missing? I guess not :)

A couple of tabletty thoughts:

1. I bought a Zagg Flex keyboard/stand combo for my N10, because a big tablet without a keyboard is semi-pointless. So comparing the stand/keyboard model to the keyboard dock model of the TF700, it's... different. It's less useful as a laptop replacement, because it's awkward on the lap (though workable). But on the other hand, it's easier as a tablet, because you don't even have to snap it out of a dock, you just grab and go.

So I've left the stand and keyboard sitting on a counter that's basically standing-desk height. I use the tablet around like a tablet, and when I get to something I want to type, I wander over to the counter, set the tablet down, start typing, and bam. Then I pick it back up and walk away again. I'm going to try using this as my exclusive home computer for a while now, and see how that goes.

(The other nice thing about a stand is that a dock forces you into landscape, but a separate stand lets you use the tablet in the vastly superior portrait mode while still using a keyboard.)

2. So I was looking at the N10's 300 dpi screen, and noticed that I could see aliasing on some letters. I wondered if this was a problem with the N10, so looked at my >300 dpi phone, and saw it there, too. Then I wondered if it was an Android rendering problem, so looked at an iPad 4, and nope, definitely there.

Basically: Go to your system's default browser (Chrome or Safari), and start typing www, and look at those letters in the URL bar. There are jaggies on the w's legs, sure enough. They're not monstrous in any way, and you're still looking at screens that are phenomenally better than any laptop screen ever, right, but: They're visibly imperfect.

So, that means there's definitely a point in higher-res screens, and that our 5" 1080p displays will be better in ways that matter to human eyes and not just microscopes.

Professional printing uses 1200-2400 dpi for monochrome text, so there's still a lot of room for improvement in screens.

That's certainly the naive conclusion, but people like Ray Soneira have been saying that 300+ dpi screens are outresolving the eyeball already, and I've heard (in this thread, maybe even?) that part of the reason for the discrepancy is that pixels are multicolored, whereas printer dots aren't, so to get different shades of gray or colors on a printer would require a lot of CMYK dots (effectively acting as subpixels), but it only requires one pixel on a screen.

But still and all, I remember seeing 300 dpi B&W and noticing how much crisper 600 dpi was (re previous "sad geekdom" references -- I pined for a 600 dpi printer as a teen, no shit), and while I definitely think 300 dpi screens are sharper than 300 dpi print, thanks to anti-aliasing, it's nice to be able to remove the debate from the realm of theory into the realm of empirical observed fact for me.

Photos and similar color images use (and need) less resolution, to be sure, but standard black-on-white text printing has real actual 1200 or 2400 dpi resolution. That's necessary, too, because our visual system is extremely well attuned to high-contrast edge recognition.

I saw my first Surface in the wild yesterday, being used by a woman at Panera.

Coincidentally, the day before I stopped by the Surface display in the middle of our mall. That keyboard was already driving me nuts. Tapping on keys that have no give, thus no feedback made me pound on them, which made my fingers hurt in short order. Even so, my keypresses didn't always register, and since I'm a touch typist, I rest my fingers on the home row when I'm not typing, so sometimes I'd hit a J or an F while trying to read things.

I asked the guy why the regular keyboard was more expensive than the newfangled keyboard, and he said it was to drive people to the new stuff. He was a 20-something just pulling an answer out of his butt, but that's what he told me. I then said the whole thing seemed a little pricey to me, and he defended that with "It costs about the same as an iPad and you get Office too!"

But if the keyboard costs $120 on top of the tablet, and half the 32GB version is taken up by the operating system and Office, then does it really cost the same as an iPad?

And plus, at 1366x768, isn't it really more like the iPad 2, so comparable to their $399 unit? And also, no matter how you look at it, isn't it vastly more expensive (and underspecced) than the Nexus 10, without even the "it has a lot of apps" thing of the iPad to be a justification?

Yeah, Surface is a concept product only, really. It's hard to imagine actually recommending it to anyone in any circumstances.

A friend bought one, got a hands-on experience… …it is pretty slick and a lot of nice things about it, but there is a three-fold problem with it:

1. As a tablet (form factor) it does not beckon to be held and touched like an iPad or Nexus 7 -- it just feels bulky in that UX mode.
2. As a laptop, it seems inferior to MacBook Air -- less storage, even full keyboard feels less than optimal, does not feel right resting on your "lap" -- kickstand deal works best on desk/table top - if the price for this was less than $400, OK then that would be a worthwhile tradeoff but at present, it is priced like a laptop
3. App ecosystem -- might grow but right now Windows 8/Metro is slim pickings compared to iOS, Android, Mac OS X, Windows 7

Got my free one, still trying to find the good things to do with it. So far, it's mostly my time waster while watching something I'm not that interested in on TV. So mostly browsing the web. Remote Desktop works well though.

The Nexus10 is nowhere to be found in the (e)shops and Google doesn't sell directly to this country - so my money went to Apple. At least I had prior hands-on experience with the Ipad and know what to expect. Your loss, Google.

I must say I'm impressed with the ipad's battery life. Two days without charging and it's at 55%. And I've been playing plenty of Bastion on it.

How much memory did you get with your iPad, candide?

Um I dunno what the specs on the new ipads are? It has 1gig I think? If you mean storage, it's the 64GB model. See I wanted it for reading technical ebooks and such but deep down I knew I'll play games on it instead.

Yeah, I meant storage. I'm trying to decide whether 16 or 32 GB would be enough for my needs. I wouldn't load it with a lot of music and videos but it would only take a few large games to make 16 feel a bit small.

I have a 32GB iphone and it's nearly full, so I sure wish the idevices has a microsd card reader. Maybe now that the witch is dead apple will relent on that front.

They won't.

16 is too little unless you want to shuffle games on and off, and since you need iTunes for that let me tell you, you don't want to do that.

I have 32 Gb and never use it for music, and it's still too little sometimes.

You can't delete and redownload ota?

FWIW, my 16gb tablet is mostly full, with two users' worth of data and apps (though most apps are shared), but I still would be unable to recommend the 32gb version, because c'mon, a hundred bucks? I'd rather delete off a bunch of stuff, if need be.

Yeah, you can.

And when they improved the AppStore so you can see and search everything you've ever bought, that's probably the way to go. I haven't gotten used to doing that. It's still annoying busywork, but with the prices Apple charge for extra storage, I understand why people would.

Those keyboards look like shit in the ads and it's not surprising to find out they suck IRL.