Current best 7" Tablet?

entropism said:
Meh. Comcrap gave me a new iPad (9.7", 128gb) for $100 on a promo they were having, and I like it a lot. Android on a tablet has always been a sub par experience, IMHO.
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I've never understood this.

What is a tablet, if not a smartphone with a really big screen? And that's what Android does for tablets.

I'm not really interested in all the silly extras. Keyboards, stylus, etc. If I want a more capable experience I'll use a laptop, or better yet a desktop.

A tablet to me is just the smartphone experience with a larger screen.
 
entropism said:
Same, but I'd also like to see that larger space optimized better. Once Android got away from their Tablet UI it got BETTER, but there needs to be a happy medium.
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Are there even any Android tablets released after ~2015-2016 or did they completely die off?
 
Samsung still releases their overpriced Tab series. I know the chinese companies still have their crap. Apparently LG still claims to have a few models out there.
 
Grabbed a Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 (but the 10" version) from Best Buy's ebay story for about 200 below retail. All I really use the thing for is watching movies/shows when I am not around a TV (or it is in use by someone else), or browsing the web in bed on a decent sized screen. I can also use it to remote into my Linux PC downstairs and play around on it, and even a little Steam Play but I do this less than I thought I would, as i find the overall experience is just lacking.

I think at this point, tablets are just a more convenient laptop for consuming content.
 
ThatITGuy said:
Grabbed a Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 (but the 10" version) from Best Buy's ebay story for about 200 below retail. All I really use the thing for is watching movies/shows when I am not around a TV (or it is in use by someone else), or browsing the web in bed on a decent sized screen. I can also use it to remote into my Linux PC downstairs and play around on it, and even a little Steam Play but I do this less than I thought I would, as i find the overall experience is just lacking.

I think at this point, tablets are just a more convenient laptop for consuming content.
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Personally I use my 8" LG tablet for one purpose and one purpose only. As a Waze navigation device.


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I like having the larger screen as it makes it easier to quickly glance at, so I take my eyes off the road for less time than I would with a smaller screen.

I guess with my usage scenario I don't have to be all THAT concerned about security. I could just uninstall all other apps except Waze and not worry about security.

Still though, if I want to get Waze app updates I need to be signed into google, which puts all of my google stuff at risk.

I'm just uncomfortable using a device with a security patch level older than a few weeks.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
I've never understood this.

What is a tablet, if not a smartphone with a really big screen? And that's what Android does for tablets.

I'm not really interested in all the silly extras. Keyboards, stylus, etc. If I want a more capable experience I'll use a laptop, or better yet a desktop.

A tablet to me is just the smartphone experience with a larger screen.
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I think it's very reasonable to expect that a device with a larger screen would make better use of that screen, even if it's not as powerful as a laptop. Merely stretching out a smartphone app doesn't always work.

This is part of why Apple still leads the tablet landscape. Basically, you have reasons to get an iPad instead of a big iPhone, since apps will usually do more. Google's perpetual problem is that it just doesn't seem to care about fostering tablet-native Android apps, and that's reflected in the lack of interest in Android tablets. Why bother when you won't really gain much over using an app on a big phone?

I do think the attempt to push tablets as laptop replacements is sometimes misguided, but let's put it this way... if I didn't need more for work, I'd probably use an iPad Pro as a laptop. I like the ease of use and sheer portability.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Personally I use my 8" LG tablet for one purpose and one purpose only. As a Waze navigation device.


I like having the larger screen as it makes it easier to quickly glance at, so I take my eyes off the road for less time than I would with a smaller screen.

I guess with my usage scenario I don't have to be all THAT concerned about security. I could just uninstall all other apps except Waze and not worry about security.

Still though, if I want to get Waze app updates I need to be signed into google, which puts all of my google stuff at risk.

I'm just uncomfortable using a device with a security patch level older than a few weeks.
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Just to confirm, you are tethering the tablet to your phone to get the data needed for Waze Navigation?
 
ThatITGuy said:
Just to confirm, you are tethering the tablet to your phone to get the data needed for Waze Navigation?
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I used to do that way back, but it was kind of a pain. Turns out Google Fi gives you additional data-only SIM cards for other accessory devices free of charge, you just pay for the data, so that is what I do now.
 
I have the same tablet, I should do that for my wife's car. They want to charge $400 to add CarPlay/Android Auto at the dealership, and we have a pair of tablet lines on T-Mo that gives me 6GB/mo free.
 
entropism said:
I have the same tablet, I should do that for my wife's car. They want to charge $400 to add CarPlay/Android Auto at the dealership, and we have a pair of tablet lines on T-Mo that gives me 6GB/mo free.
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That ought to be more than enough.

I use Waze during my daily 50 mile each way commute. I think the max it ever used for this purpose was about 350MB in a month.
 
Not worried about the data really. T-Mobile whitelists all music/video, and maps doesnt use much at all.
 
entropism said:
Meh. Comcrap gave me a new iPad (9.7", 128gb) for $100 on a promo they were having, and I like it a lot. Android on a tablet has always been a sub par experience, IMHO.
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because no one produces any decent Android tablet anymore.
 
Vengance_01 said:
because no one produces any decent Android tablet anymore.
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Has nothing to do with that. The software experience is sub par, plain and simple. Google shifted their focus to Chromebooks (which work great), and left the Android Tablet UI to rot.
 
entropism said:
Has nothing to do with that. The software experience is sub par, plain and simple. Google shifted their focus to Chromebooks (which work great), and left the Android Tablet UI to rot.
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Mind you, that feels true of pretty much every Android implementation that isn't on a phone. Google has this habit of pretending that it can support an entire category of devices just by giving developers a few lines of code to rescale their apps. Encouraging true optimization? Running dedicated, easy-to-find app stores? Pah! That would involve too much work, it's just easier to let the platform flounder.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I used to do that way back, but it was kind of a pain. Turns out Google Fi gives you additional data-only SIM cards for other accessory devices free of charge, you just pay for the data, so that is what I do now.
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Why do you care about security updates then? It's running on it's own SIM card, right?

It's not like you using this for banking, or having it pair with a device you do your banking on. You will be just fine running it until it dies. The best an exploit can do ( WPA, for example) is let people, snoop on the data viewed by THAT device over WIFI, and only that device.

I ran my Galaxy S4 for 3 years without and update, and never once had my identity stolen. Because I knew better than to do any banking on it. I bough a Pixel 2 for longer support, but even when that ends I'm going to keep using it, until it s too slow to use.

No one cares about your GPS use, except companies who want to sell you things.
 
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