Hi, Has anyone bought a new laptop or tablet recently? If so, why did you buy the one you did? I don't have a tablet. It seems you have to have a good internet connection to use one as the Hard Drive (or SSD) is small necessitating downloading stuff from the cloud.
You'll need to be near a wifi or have a SIM in the tablet for it to be much use other than to read eboos or play music.
And now you can go for 4G. EE appear to be expanding this service and aim to cover the entire country (UK). The infrastructure for 4G is already in place in the UK, its just a case of making final connections in all new areas (so they tell me). I notice that Vodaphone are into 4G now, also. And O2 are gearing up for it. EE 4G (and 3G) coverage checker. https://explore.ee.co.uk/coverage-checker I notice that my old address in Manchester is covered but not my old address in Aberdeen. 4G mobile broadband coverage extends to 50pc of UK "The rollout of 4G mobile broadband has now extended to 50 towns and cities, covering half of the UK population." "EE, the first mobile phone company to provide faster 4G mobile broadband, has announced that the service – launched five months ago – will now reach Bradford, Bingley, Doncaster, Dudley, Harpenden, Leicester, Lichfield, Loughborough, Luton, Reading, Shipley, St Albans and West Bromwich in addition to the 37 towns and cities already covered." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...broadband-coverage-extends-to-50pc-of-UK.html
Since this is the British-Filipino group I assume the tablet will need to be used in both countries. Roaming is expensive so an unlocked tablet is recommended. I got a cheap and cheerful Chinese tablet to see whether it would be useful without committing to several hundred dollars. CDR King does a tablet for around $125 that you can put any SIM into if there isn't a wifi around.
To avoid roaming charges or hotel wifi charges, when I was in the UK last week I bought a EE sim and got a good 5 days 3G use out of it, on our tablet, for £3.00. 3G on a sim seems to have become quite affordable right now.
Since this is the British-Filipino group I assume the tablet will need to be used in both countries. Roaming is expensive so an unlocked tablet is recommended. I got a cheap and cheerful Chinese tablet to see whether it would be useful without committing to several hundred dollars. CDR King does a tablet for around $125 that you can put any SIM into if there isn't a wifi around.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines.... MANILA, Philippines - "“The Tattoo 4G Prepaid Superstick is the perfect companion of the busy, mobile subscriber who needs to keep constantly connected but does not want the inconvenience of always trying to look for free public WiFi to fire up his gadgets,” explains Dong Ronquillo, head of Tattoo Nomadic Broadband Business. “There are lots of subscribers with multiple devices such as laptop, tablet and mobile phone and they all want these devices to be fired up and online all the time. Tattoo 4G Prepaid Superstick is the answer to that.”" http://www.philstar.com/gadgets/2013/03/31/925055/tattoo-4g-superstick-now-more-affordable
I stand to be corrected, but I don't believe that an iPad is locked to any carrier. I imagine if the device had been purchased as a 'special' when signing up a contract it might have been locked, but I have no knowledge of that scenario. We have an iPad and have used it 'on the go', so to speak ,in quite a few countries (including USA and Philippines) with local SIM and not encountered any problems. Well accept for the usual network issues in Philippines. We bought the iPad specifically to use when travelling. We've actually discovered that when connecting to WiFi it's much faster than a laptop. I know it's size may not always be convenient but for us that's not so far been an issue. We've even used it as a camera/video and the results are outstanding. Video streaming is very quick too and with the right 'apps' it's easy to watch 'TV or catch up TV'. Whilst looking to update my trusty old kindle to a faster, colour screen model with backlighting I accidently discovered that the iPad has a Kindle App. It works perfectly and is just what I wanted in a modern e-book reader. I can decide to access from the cloud or the device. If in the Philippines where mobile connection speeds may be disruptive I simply download the books I want from my cloud collection to the device. These can be changed around next time I have access to WiFi. Incidently, we found Hotel WiFi in the Philippines to be just great. We also have apps for translators (text display and voice) The sheer number and diversity of quality apps is amazing. To be honest, at first I wasn't convinced a tablet had anything to offer. It was just another gadget my wife wanted. But now I've learnt so much and am very satisfied with it. Mike, I feel the price is still way too high to give tablets a 5 star rating IMO, but if you have budget ......go for it, but only after researching and being sure that there are cost-benefits to be realised for you.
I bought my iPad from HMV and my wife's from Apple. Neither were locked to any network. If the iPad is too big then the iPad Mini is a more manageable size and much cheaper than its older brother.
Original question of have you recently bought ?... I bought two Samsung galaxy tablets (10.1) for my wife and son for Xmas.They both love them. My son uses his for downloading games and playing 'live' with his friends. My wife uses hers for F/B and email,...and taking photo's and videos. It has a good quality camera both front facing and rear.She also uses it for Skype-ing her family back in Phils. We took it on our recent holiday there,..linking in to the airports and hotels free-WI-FI networks. I must say that they both seem very happy with their 'toys'! As long as you have a wi-fi signal either free or with a pass-code, you can quickly link up to the internet. Cheaper than the ipad and just as good for non- business users.
Forget the Ipad, the Google Nexus 7 is like £179 and will get you onto the internet nicely and sit on your coffee table easily.
I was thinking about this as well as the wife and me both have the old 3G kindle. I was going to upgrade to the HD fire but was worried about using a backlit screen because it'd be like reading off a computer screen wouldn't it and strain your eyes quickly?
Not a bad idea as I'm very anti apple and only got a Iphone for the wife and me because I can use face time at work.
Maybe. Most tablets can be adjusted for screen brightness etc Don't know about HD Fire, but would have though screen brightness could be controlled?
Actually on the kindle HD fire you can turn the page background sepia to take the glare off as well. I wonder if there is that option on the Nexus 7?
Thanks for all the comments so far. I am on a "3" Network mobile dongle for internet for the time being. I don't have a tablet, just a laptop and a stack of hard drives full of stuff. I use the laptop for many things but I just can't see the point of tablets at the moment. I know they are light but what is the point of them if they only have 32GB storage? I know that if you have fast internet access you can use the cloud to store and retrieve files. In my position without home broadband what benefits would I see in having a tablet, am I missing something here?
One of the advantages of the recent advancements in technology is that you don't have to physically possess a particular video, for example. You might purchase it but it will remain in the "cloud" for anytime you would want to use it. Hence you wouldn't need a lot of storage space on your device or your home. You would simply stream from the "cloud" to your device, through your sim - from anywhere. With 4G you perhaps might not even need broadband at home as you could simply do all you need through your sim, owing to the speeds available. Especially as 4G gets cheaper and cheaper. The whole thing is a moving target right now. But you can get a feel for the way it is all heading. To take advantage of 4G, one will of course need a 4G enabled device. I was reading the other day that all new cars in the UK will have online connectivity in a few years. No doubt that will be through a sim and 3 or 4G connectivity - a sim in the dashboard maybe? 'Every new car' connected to web by 2014 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21411335 A Ford with an IP address: "Ford’s new plug-in Focus Electric, which it officially launched at CES today (2011), for example, features a built-in wireless connection that connects the car to the cloud and allows owners to communicate with the car from their smartphones and through a mobile-optimized website." http://siliconfilter.com/why-your-next-car-will-have-an-ip-address/
I still don't have limitless access to the internet for the cloud, John........ So, how would a tablet be helpful to me now?
I have a similar view Mike, for me personally I can't see the point, but for people who are consuming online services of one kind or another and who need a video communications device then I think they could be quite useful. I also see the Kindle e-reader as a separate application, I would far prefer to read books on a Kindle rather than any back illuminated screen. One day I will no doubt get a tablet of some kind but not till they are a good bit cheaper and have a lot more local solid state storage. Colour front illuminated e-readers will start appearing this year, colour depth will be limited but may well make reading magazines this way a good option, but the screen response times on these devices is likely to remain too poor for other applications for a while. The other thing I would say is that I would only consider a tablet with its own independent 3 or 4G wireless, I would not want to rely on a WLAN point being available, ever since I installed an internal 3G wireless card into my laptop (running a Three sim) I would not have a laptop without that feature now.
