Ipad alternative, which Android tab?

[bononos]

I fear that this sort of question may have been beaten around alot on AT before but I need some recommendations to help my dad get a tablet and I'm relatively clueless about tablets myself.

He's not tech savvy but know how to use a PC. The market for tablets has gotten pretty wide with plenty of brands, is there a good Android tablet which has distinguished itself from the field or is the Ipad still the thing to get for a tablet?

 

[Ns1]

just suck it up and buy him an iPad, if for no other reason than sending him to the apple store when he asks you 38904753908 questions.

 

[Sid59]

if you're against ipad .. Google is expected to announce a "pure" android tablet from Asus.

 

[dagamer34]

iPad.

 

[Skott]

IMHO the only tablet of the 10" variety that can even come close to Apple's is the Asus Transformer 2. Their next improved version was suppose to come out but got delayed apparently. Apple iPad is still the one to beat.

 

[Ravynmagi]

I have an iPad 3, but if I were to buy an Android tablet right now, it would definitely be the ASUS Transformer TF300.

And I really do want to get a new Android tablet (currently using an HP Touchpad with ICS), but I'm trying to hold out for the next Transformer Infinity TF700 tablet with the 1920x1200 display coming this summer.

 

[bononos]

just suck it up and buy him an iPad, if for no other reason than sending him to the apple store when he asks you 38904753908 questions.

lol he's ok in that regard, he hasn't got any problems apart from a virus attack years back.

So....
1) Which are the top 2 or 3 Ipad alternatives apart from the Asus Transformer? He doesn't really need any apps apart from the browser.

2) Which Ipad version is good and why is Ipad still that much superior compared to Android tablets?

 

[Zaap]

What does your dad actually need/want?

If it's a full-sized, full featured tablet and its in the budget, then go with an iPad. Personally, I wouldn't spend anywhere near iPad price on anything else.

If your dad just wants a cheap tablet to surf the web, use as an e-reader, play a few games, etc. then look into the Kindle Fire, Galaxy Tab, or any of the better 7" Android Tablets.

 

[bononos]

What does your dad actually need/want?

If it's a full-sized, full featured tablet and its in the budget, then go with an iPad. Personally, I wouldn't spend anywhere near iPad price on anything else.

If your dad just wants a cheap tablet to surf the web, use as an e-reader, play a few games, etc. then look into the Kindle Fire, Galaxy Tab, or any of the better 7" Android Tablets.

I would say his needs and wants are on the low end scale.
I don't know enough about tablets to figure out what the best possible choices are. I don't like Apples proprietary thing with their products where you have to go back to their stores for a battery replacement.

 

[Bateluer]

I would say his needs and wants are on the low end scale.
I don't know enough about tablets to figure out what the best possible choices are. I don't like Apples proprietary thing with their products where you have to go back to their stores for a battery replacement.

Not sure about the Fire/NookTab, but the Galaxy Tabs have integrated batteries too. Not sure how difficult it would be to swap one out your own, but its a trend that happening slowly. You can fit a larger battery in the device when you don't need to have a mechanism to remove it.

I'm not a fan of the Fire or NookTab because of their closed ecosystems, when you can get a 'full' Android experience for the same price or slightly more.

For a 7in tablet, I'd vote for either the Galaxy Tab 2 7in @249 or the Tab 7 Plus for ~350. In the 10in range, the Asus Transformer Pad TF300 is a damn nice tablet for 399. Supposedly, their TF700, their premium Infinity Pad model, will be officially launched at Computex this week. Should be the best aspects of the Transformer Prime TF201 and the TF300 models.

I agree with your sentiments towards Apple products, voluntarily surrendering into the close system isn't a good thing.

 

[notposting]

Just get the Apple refurbed iPad 2 16GB wifi model for $319 when it is available:
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/ipad

In and out of availability (currently in) but comes from them with full warranty.

 

[Mopetar]

I would go for a Nook Tablet. I played around with a friend's a while back and found it to be a well-designed device. It's also cheaper than an iPad and should be able to suit your father's needs fairly well. Also, he can get some support for the device at Barnes & Noble stores if there should ever be a problem. It's probably nowhere near as good as what you could expect at an Apple store, but it's probably better than the support hell you'd get with other tablets.

 

[Ns1]

lol he's ok in that regard, he hasn't got any problems apart from a virus attack years back.

So....
1) Which are the top 2 or 3 Ipad alternatives apart from the Asus Transformer? He doesn't really need any apps apart from the browser.

2) Which Ipad version is good and why is Ipad still that much superior compared to Android tablets?

I can only speak to number 2, but the browsing experience on my ipad3 is lightyears ahead of the browsing experience on the samsungtab2.

I would actually go on to say the browsing experience on an ipad2 is lightyears ahead of the browsing experience on the samsungtab2.

if I could go back, I'd suck it up and spend the extra money to try out the transformer tablets.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

So remember when the iPad came out and we made fun of it? Oh it's just an oversized iPod, etc etc. Okay. That may be if you run the exact same OS, the exact same apps, see the exact same crap blown up to 9.7"

But that's not the case. The iPad has amazing content and that's what drives it. Compare to Android tablets. It's the same concept. You need content to drive tablet sales. If Android apps are already taking a back seat, then what about the Android tablet apps? (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) The regular phone apps took years to catch up to iOS standards, so what would you expect of the Tablet version?

True apps like Flipboard are coming, but how long? The phone version is meh, as you can ask any iPhone user as the iPad one just blows the competition away.

Here's what I learned about Android:

- You can buy a product and hope that its customizability will allow it to catch up.
- However, ROM development is no joke. Look at the TouchPad. People bought it hoping to put Android on it. It happened, but it's not a finished product. The battery drains in 3 days tops, compared to 30 days for an iPad. You can say it was never intended for this, but my 4 Android devices, 1 of which was a Nexus S, only the Nexus S has reached "near finished" state for Cyanogenmod. Everything else has been a WIP. A continuous WIP. For example the SGS2 may never have a fully working GPS or a properly working auto brightness working in ICS/CM9. By the time this gets sorted out the SGS3 is probably near EOL and we're waiting on the next Nexus/SGS4. Is it really worth it? I can name too many features that were implemented in my old Motorola Droid in 2010, a time when the phone was far too slow and frustrating to use.
- You're constantly waiting on devs and by the time you get close to a good product, the next one comes out and they jump ship. This happened with SGS2 development. The top kernel developer jumped ship go the SGS3. Hooray?
- You can definitely jump to newer devices all the time, but nothing will ever be perfected in custom ROMs due to fragmentation.

Anyway, I enjoy tweaking. I don't want to generalize too much, but I think that my fun with Android is really with the tweaking. It's not so much using. I get so absorbed in today's ROMs and bug fixing and talking to devs and doing QA work that I don't really get to enjoy my device. I feel I need an iPad for content consumption while I mess around with my TouchPad. That's precisely what I did before I sold my iPad 2. I can guarantee you content consumption on the iPad 2 will blow any Android tablet away.

Ok I digress, but if you were to pick an Android tablet the Transformer Prime or Galaxy Tab2 I suppose.

 

[Ns1]

^^

I loaded up the google play store and imagine my surprise when I couldn't find flipboard and bamboo paper.

I mean FFS Wacom just came out with what they are marketing as an android/ipad stylus and they can't come out with an android app?

 

[SunnyD]

iPad for dumb people. I wouldn't put a computer novice in front of an Android tablet in like ever. If your dad is just going to use the tablet to browse some websites and play Angry Birds, just get an iPad and be done with it.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

^^

I loaded up the google play store and imagine my surprise when I couldn't find flipboard and bamboo paper.

I mean FFS Wacom just came out with what they are marketing as an android/ipad stylus and they can't come out with an android app?

Slightly off topic but if you want a good app for handwriting notes on Android check out Quill. It's very nice and only $1 on the Play Store.

 

[Ravynmagi]

lol he's ok in that regard, he hasn't got any problems apart from a virus attack years back.

So....
1) Which are the top 2 or 3 Ipad alternatives apart from the Asus Transformer? He doesn't really need any apps apart from the browser.

2) Which Ipad version is good and why is Ipad still that much superior compared to Android tablets?

1. On the Android side, and in my opinion, ASUS is just way ahead of Samsung, Acer, and others. ASUS is really good providing updates to Android in a timely fashion, they've been faster than Acer and Samsung has pretty much not been updating much at all. ASUS keeps the OS mostly vanilla, unlike Samsung. And I think ASUS has done a good job with design and features.

If you don't want to spend $400 on an ASUS TF300, then maybe the $250 Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7 inch. Just don't count on any updates in the future.

2. For me the quality of apps seems better on the iPad side. Both Apple and Google have enough apps to destroy the world a thousand times over. But it seems developers are able to do a bit more with iOS apps since there is less fragmentation. And since the iPad is so dominate, it tends to get a lot more attention first.

Another is the 2048x1536 resolution display. I really love this when I'm surfing the web on the iPad. Small fonts are still sharp and easy to read. If you don't surf the web much, this might not be so important, since I don't really think it does as much for normal apps. But it's still quite nice looking.

 

[runawayprisoner]

I would say his needs and wants are on the low end scale.
I don't know enough about tablets to figure out what the best possible choices are. I don't like Apples proprietary thing with their products where you have to go back to their stores for a battery replacement.

You have to bring most Android tablets on the market back to the store for a battery replacement just the same way.

That's why iPad is currently the most practical choice unless you want to explore options and don't mind "beta testing".

 

[bearxor]

Just get the Apple refurbed iPad 2 16GB wifi model for $319 when it is available:
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/ipad

In and out of availability (currently in) but comes from them with full warranty.

This. Android just isn't there yet with regards to tablets. It's not like your dad is going to root his tablet and sideload apps. He doesn't need to browse the file system. Buy him an iPad. Buy yourself an Android tablet to play around with if thats what you want to do.

 

[DaveSimmons]

What does he want to do with it? Is 10" the right size, or would 7" - 9" work better? 7" is better for a text ebook reader pr music player for example, but is a bit small for reading comic books.

The iPad is the safer, easier, lower-support choice unless he has a lot of Amazon content.

I'm mostly happy with my Kindle Fire, but I already buy my books and music from Amazon so it's a natural fit, and I know enough to be able to sideload without installing malware.

The Fire is nice for a $200 tablet, but touch is less responsive than the iPad and there's no camera or mic if he wanted to use Skype.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

1. On the Android side, and in my opinion, ASUS is just way ahead of Samsung, Acer, and others. ASUS is really good providing updates to Android in a timely fashion, they've been faster than Acer and Samsung has pretty much not been updating much at all. ASUS keeps the OS mostly vanilla, unlike Samsung. And I think ASUS has done a good job with design and features.

If you don't want to spend $400 on an ASUS TF300, then maybe the $250 Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7 inch. Just don't count on any updates in the future.

2. For me the quality of apps seems betters on the iPad side. Booth Apple and Google have enough apps to destroy the world a thousand times over. But it seems developers are able to do a bit more with iOS apps since there is less fragmentation. And since the iPad is so dominate, it tends to get a lot more attention first.

Another is the 2048x1536 resolution display. I really love this when I'm surfing the web on the iPad. Small fonts are still sharp and easy to read. If you don't surf the web much, this might not be so important, since I don't really think it does as much for normal apps. But it's still quite nice looking.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Fragmentation. I am a big android supporter and former Mac hater, but I've come to realize that the custimzation of Android is it's greatest strength, and weakness. You can achieve amazing things with an Android device. There is virtually no limit. However, this means that every company that sells an Android powered device, can make it unique to them. If implimented properly, it's awesome, but for the most part, it isn't done well and only serves as a deternt to Android adoption.
iOS is for the most part iOS whether it's an original iPad or an iPod. It's uniform across devices. If I can do X on one, I can do it exactly the same on another. Android, is completely different between 2.x, 3.x and 4.x.

 

[AstroManLuca]

If you're okay with a 7" tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 is a good option for just $250. Runs regular Android instead of a terrible customized version of it like the Nook Tablet or Kindle Fire. Of course you can still get ICS on either of those, but it takes some work and the out of the box usability isn't very good.

If you're going to spend $500, get an iPad. I think the point people are making is there are alternatives that don't cost $500.

 

[tdawg]

I'm not sure what he's expecting to do with a tablet, but for a web content device / couch surfing device, my transformer is perfect and never leaves me wanting an ipad or any other tablet (until x86 windows 8 tablets hit the market).

 

[poofyhairguy]

I have a freaking Transformer Prime and I still say iPad.

NOTHING comes close to an iPad for regular people. I wouldn't want one and I have my Prime due to a list of the iPad's shortcomings, but every reason why I like my Prime doesn't apply to regular people.