Take me to tablet school.

[OtisBlkR1]

My wifes asking for a tablet for her birthday. I know Zero about tablets. On Amazon ive found Ipads and Galaxy tablets, although the price is pretty far apart. Whats the difference between the $200 Galaxy and the $400 Ipad and the $600 Ipad ?

My wife likes the case that has a built in stand and wireless keyboard for the Ipad. (fyi)
She uses her smartphone for craigslisting, ebaying, facebooking. She wants a tablet as she's tired of using her phone for these applications.

We have a laptop but its pretty old and she hates using it.
We live in the sticks and our internet provider is Verizon (using a jetpack) and frankly its pretty slow.

I told my wife i was going to pose this question on a few forums as i dont know whats good , whats great, and whats "must have".

For you savy types out there please refrain from using alot of computer/tech/lingo.. as im NOT savy..

with that said, somebody teach me something.. i will be buying a tablet of some sort fairly soon.

 

[dhldmoore]

You didn't mention what type phone your wife has but I suspect it is an iPhone. If so, go with an iPad as she is already used to the look and feel. Don't worry so much about getting the newest iPad, save yourself some $$$ and get an iPad 2.

 

[BobsArmory]

Depends on how fast she takes onto new tech. If her smart phone is android get the android. Same goes if she has an Iphone. My opinion only.

 

[Dakota1820]

I have the galaxy 10.1 and absolutely love it. Battery last for ever easy to use beautiful screen and expandable memory . I bought it over the iPad and don't regret it at all. I paid 350 for mine at best buy

 

[OtisBlkR1]

Originally Posted By: dhldmoore
You didn't mention what type phone your wife has but I suspect it is an iPhone. If so, go with an iPad as she is already used to the look and feel. Don't worry so much about getting the newest iPad, save yourself some $$$ and get an iPad 2.


no sir, we both have samsung phones, i have a nexus and she uses a galaxy, im not exactly sure what model she has, its around 6 months old and was pretty "new" then. its a 4G phone although that doesnt matter much as most days we can barely pull in signal at our house.. sometimes we can get 3g.. although its rare.. when were in twon and using our phones the service is amazing.

 

[Mr Nice]

The Nexus 7 gets good reviews for $200
They have the new Nexus 10 recently released.

 

[bmwtechguy]

Take a look at the Lenovo A2109, a 9" android tablet. I just bought one on sale at Office Depot today for $229, reg $299. I wanted the larger 9" screen, but also wanted a more "open" Android operating system than the newest HD 9" tablets from Amazon Kindle or Barnes and Noble's Nook. I got a 32GB microSD memory card, which gives plenty of room for apps and movies or whatever. I can easily upgrade to 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system on this. Came with 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS. Also got a case with built in stand. It is fast and the screen is good in my opinion. Movies look very good. Maybe a full 1080 HD screen on more expensive models would be even better, but I don't see the need for it. This is 1280 x 800, which is pretty close and considered HD, like 720p or so. The 7" Google Nexus is probably good too, but wanted something a little bigger. The sale price was the deciding factor today. It is not the state of the art like some of the 10" Androids, which would have cost more and put me into laptop price range. But it is plenty fast and so far I really like it. Read the reviews at least.

 

[asiancivicmaniac]

Get her something that's 9-10 inches since she's using it as her primary means of computing.

 

[OtisBlkR1]

so basically push comes to shove (ive been reading a little) this is just like the Android v.s. Apple in cell/smartphones..

its screen size and memory and operating system is driving the cost ?

 

[simple_gifts]

Nexus 7; price is right.

I will never spend >$300 for something someone can sit on.

 

[bmwtechguy]

btw, you can get a bluetooth keyboard for not too much money and pair it to an android or apple tablet. Apple tablets are probably the best overall, but too expensive for me when looking at laptop price range. The 9-10" androids work well for half the cost or so. I recommend to go to a store and talk to someone knowledgeable and play with a couple different units. If you are already familiar with android os, then learning curve will be shorter. Also, if you buy locally as I did, you have 14 days (at Office Depot at least) to use the thing and decide if you want to keep it or return it and keep looking....

 

[OtisBlkR1]

good points.

 

[morris]

my no#1 son gave me a Android. i like it much. a lot to learn. he loaded some games, it will get on the internet with WiFi on your computer, works good.

 

[Clevy]

I've got an iPhone and an iPad 2. I bought my boy an acer tablet for Christmas.
I think I like the android operating system a bit better however my iPad is idiot proof which is necessary because I'm not very tech savvy.
I tether my iPad to my phone for Internet access.
The difference between the 400 dollar iPad and the 600 dollar one is the 400 dollar one only works through wifi or Bluetooth tethered to a cell phone. The 600 dollar one doesn't need to be tethered to a phone. It has the hardware/software to run through a cell carrier.
I love my iPad. I use it pretty much exclusively to surf the net. My computer never gets turned on anymore.
I don't know if androids can get viruses but I've never had anything like that with my iPad. And the apple apps get scrutinized pretty intensely by apple so they don't tend to have serious bugs,in my experience anyways.

 

[BearZDefect]

The Lenovo A2109 look interesting, but beware it has a TN LCD panel. It's a pity that Lenovo put such poor display quality panels in their devices, just like the standard panels they put in their laptops.

 

[OtisBlkR1]

at this point were leaning towards the galaxy.. im going to take her to the store on Sunday and let her choose one.

 

[bubbajoe_2112]

Pretty pricey right now, but the new Surface with Win8 Pro will be out starting tomorrow....

 

[OtisBlkR1]

i took her to sams club yesterday and she fell in love with the samsung galaxy 10.1, so thats what i got her. At this point she seems to be very happy with it. thanks for eveyones input on this topic.