Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge geek note - Android tablet

Picked up a Toshiba Thrive to test some Android apps I am writing (I love my job). So far:
Ios on my ipad is slicker and the App selection is better
Honeycomb is very nice if not as slick as IOS and I have found apps to correspond to MOST of the apps I use on my I pad.
Real multi-threading rocks!
Nice to have flash functionality back.
Much better connectivity - full sized USB, HDMI,SD, and docking port

Edited to correct error pointed out below...

I tried googling this Samsung Thrive. There isn't one. Are you talking about the Toshiba Thrive or the Samsung Galaxy?

Sorry, Toshiba Thrive is right. I have been caling it a Samsung since I bought it. Should have turned it over, or maybe Toshiba should have put their name on the working side.

Well I didnt understand but 2 things you said. USB and APP.

Is this a clone of an I pad? is it cheaper and i have heard that android has a lot of glitches. Are you saying this is all worked out?

It's nice to see the pad market beginning to become a real option.

Beamer... the history of pads and touch computing aside an I pad clone is an apt description. Is Android 100% bug free? No. Closer to high 90's. In the tablet market this is the early 1980's when a big player has proven the market exists with a closed proprietary OS and hardware and now competitiors are entering the market with a cheaper, more open OS and hardware. I am no apple hater, I own several IPads and a couple of Mac books but as Ed pointed out, this will, increase choice and eventually the viability of the tablet market. Oh, and it is wicked cool.

I love my Android phone. I've got 7 or 8 sundry computers sitting around (not counting the Androids)for various things but the one I never pick up anymore is my iBook. I tried so hard to like that thing but I just don't.

The more I observe the smart phones and pads the more I think that there are two camps: one that just wants a tool to use and one that wants to customize every setting. Seems like Apple is the former and Android/PC the latter and there is plenty of room for both. I spent the past week on my off days trying to stabilize the tour manager's Dell after a worm intrusion and I was so glad to get back to my powerbook...

So it seems like I just want my devices to work without fiddling so I can fiddle with my bikes :-)

I suffer from a disconnect on the tablet. I travel with a 200 buck netbook with a full keyboard and 10" screen. 3 usb, external monitor capable, card reader, windoze xp, and 250gb HDD and attach my air card to it.

As tablets are all the craze is it because they are thin and light? Or, do they do more stuff?

Ron,

I have net books and a small light MacBook air, even. For me, the tablet is all about media consumption. The addition of the accell
erometer means more than gaming, it makes it far more useful for reading everything from articles to wiring diagrams. Media consumption on the net book is a compromise, as is working on the tablet.

I get it. If you are returning 45 emails a day connecting to wireless printers, writing letters, using Office appz all day the tablet is not the tool.

They look really cool though! Kinda like a Kindle on steroids lol.

Got me the iPad2 a few weeks ago, and I love that gizmo.

There's a lot of people that don't get it, though. Trouble is that they start using it from the box, and then decide that it is a fun thing for an hour, but will not replace my computer.

It is not about to replace the full-on desktop or laptop computer. BUT, the genius of the thing is in the expandability from loads of apps, free or not, that expand the capabilities of the tablet AND your mind.

The ways to use this are endless. I am finding myself using it to create music from keyboards and guitars while connected to my e-drumset, get a quick reference on the net, show some pictures or videos to my students, dictate some text I will later use or email, read a book on the bed, video chat with my mom on the other side of the planet, ...

But, I have seen it less and less since my wife discovered how to use it.... she seems to own it more than me now! ha ha!

Wives are like that. I had a Kindle once. My wife seems to have one that looks just like it.

A little off topic here but related to the MAC discussion VS PC. I know things have changed quite a bit by now. My first 2 computers were MAC and I loved the OS and interface and they were very user friendly but I couldn't run most of the things I wanted to run so I switched to PC grudgingly. I would have loved to stay with MAC but as Chet said I needed to communicate with the outside world.

Linux if free so to speak. Same thing. The Linux community liked keeping it a little hard to use. Like you said, hard doesn't work for the masses.

I think Microsoft won because they got themselves bundled onto the large production computers. Way back in the Packard Bell days they won the OS race. The advantage was they don't make hardware just the OS. Once bundled the 3rd party software companies wrote for the masses. Why write a Linux or Apple app when you can write a MS app and get paid big bucks by lots of people.

I truly believe that Apple computers are way faster than the PC and I believe the Apple OS is more stable. Most of my friends with Apple have Windows installed too. Now they have about 2 grand tied up in a laptop. I can buy 4 Winbloze laptops for that.

oppps, I am sorry Thom, really drug off topic now. My bad.

Price was what made my decision on the last puter I bought. Apple (from what they claim) would now run all the Windows stuff so I was happy until I saw it was going to cost me $1500.00 US more for the same machine if I bought Apple , so I opted to save the money.

I've been building my own computers from scratch for about 13 years (and working on others before that). In fact, waiting on my doorstep right now should be a new motherboard, processor, memory and video card for my desktop unit. Those current components in my PC are about 5 years old. Last year I upgraded hard drives, case, power supply and OS, to Windows 7/64bit.

You can't do any of that with a Mac. Apple is a fashion statement. Anyone who says you have to have a Mac to be creative is full of crap.

I could run Linux and have on certain machines, but I won't give up Photoshop or my PC-only games. No, I'm not going to run an emulator, whether on top of Linux or Boot Camp on a Mac.

I have an HP laptop for my side business that also runs Windows 7/64bit. It's an appliance, nothing more. My files are all backed up do an external hard drive and Carbonite. If it pukes, I go to Costco, get another one, load Adobe Creative Suite 5 and download my files from the cloud. It's like a microwave or refrigerator.

(Disclaimer: in the mid-90s I had one of the first PowerMacs running System 7. Cost a small fortune. It died after a couple years and no one could tell me how to fix it. The web was in it's infancy and information and parts were nearly impossible to get. My only option without sending the now out-of-warranty thing back to Apple. More than anything that's why I went to PC and never looked back.)

I am really not, generally, a rabid fanboy of any one platform / company (witness my list of motorcycle makes - Triumph, Yamaha, Suzuki, Honda). I have been lucky enough over the years to work with most of the major OSs and even hardware (although it has been a good while since I swapped out any cards, etc). I have Windows machines, Apple Machines and at least one netbook running Linux in the office. I now have and work with both iOS and Android mobile devices, but I have also used windows mobile. I understand the appeal to various audiences of each of them and am just happy that gadgetry is part of my compensation plan.

I've put 7 on several computers. It was pretty painless and fairly quick compared to other OS (I've done Microsoft and Apple upgrades).

I initially installed it June of 2010. Can't remember how long it took but I seem to recall it being fairly painless.