Ash UK/US

I will be using it for personal/pleasure. Our desk top was getting extremely slow and at 6 years old it was ready to be updated, I orignally wanted to get rid of the desktop and replace it with a laptop so that I could use it when we travel and so that I was not tied to a desk when I wanted to be online. That said, my hubby was against the idea of replacing the desktop with a laptop (that we would travel with too) because, even with external backup/memory, he was worried about it being lost or stolen with all our document/photos etc. I found a Pandigital Planet Ereader, I took it with us when we travelled and really liked it. So we decided to replace the desktop with a desktop and upgrade the tablet as I used the Pandigital so much.

As I mentioned earlier I am torn between the 2, I have heard good and bad on both sides.

Ash UK/US

Thanks to everyone for the info

Bob

Well yes, there is that.

A lot of companies probably aren't much better, but then they also aren't sitting on $100 billion in the bank either

fatbrit

It's certainly degrees. But Apple is undoubtedly #1 for disgusting business practices.

BritishGuy36

This.

Paying a couple hundred extra because it's an apple product just isn't justifiable unless you worship at the church of mac.

Android has become such a mature, stable, smooth operating system that I wouldn't even consider an iPad even if I had the extra money - it's still money - that could be spent on something else.

Steerpike

Having got used to the convenience of a laptop - browsing / editing photos / etc while sitting comfortably on the sofa - I could never go back to my desktops which sit in my mostly unused office.

You are wise to worry about the loss of a laptop. I've been forced to consider this as my company deals with medical info and we are required to encrypt everything, and this has made me cautious about my own data.

At work, we use a combo of encrypted drives (FDE - hardware encryption) and 'bitlocker', but for personal use I use the free/open source 'TrueCrypt' software to create an encrypted 'drive' on the main drive, and it's working great. I also use it to encrypt all my external USB hard drives.

All my personal data (statements, tax files, etc) are stored in the encrypted virtual drive and I notice no performance hit.

Regarding the Galaxy/iPad decision, I've had both (though iPad2, not 3) and I feel the Galaxy is more flexible/geeky, but the iPad has the bigger range of apps and if you already have an iPhone, is an easier device to get used to. And if you've already spent time setting up iTunes and your music library, the fact that the iPad just sucks all that up and works is a big plus if you like the idea of a media player on your tablet. I heard that the recharge time on the Galaxy is bad (I just do it overnight so I don't ever measure it but it's supposed to be much greater than the Apple device).

Not only does the iPad have iTunes (good or bad, depending on your tastes), and a lot more apps for it, but the Android apps are less likely to display right on your Galaxy. Because there are many flavors of Android devices (many tablets and many phones), there's a good chance the app won't correctly detect 'what it is running on', and will not handle the display as well. Many android tablet apps just simply 'scale up' the small phone screen display so you end up with a large lo-res version on the Galaxy.

Finally - if you go with the Galaxy, the default browser sucks; it failed to correctly render 3 mainstream web pages out of 10 I tested on the first day (CNN, SFGate, and some other very common sites). I downloaded the 'Dolphin HD' browser (free) and it does a much better job.

HarryTheSpider

If they had a smaller margin, same as other players, would they still be #1 for disgusting business practices? Almost all players use Chinese contract manufacturers like Foxconn, so where else does Apple differ in the shit business practices stakes? From a shareholder perspective investing in a company that has the lion's share of the market profits seems like the right way to go...

I'm genuinely curious, because I don't know too much about the business practices of any of the players... And that Asus Transformer still looks very inviting...

Bob

iPad 3 takes 9 odd hours to do a full charge from dead...no idea about the Galaxy.

Safari is shit on it too and Dolphin is a much nicer browser on the iPad as well, the gestures work really nicely with it, much better bookmarking than Safari too.

If you've got a newer Mac, I think the iPad would work pretty well, because iCloud isn't to bad, but if you've got an old Mac and stuck with the now defunct Mobile Me, that's ballsed and without paying for a OSX update, you're up creak and it doesn't play well at all with the iPad.

There's also now no working Google Music app for the iPad, so if you were using that for your music storage, you're kind of stuck, which is a shame because it's a nice way to store up to 20K songs for free....iCloud stores iTunes purchases free but charges for your own ripped material.

Anyway, while there are so many Mac guru's here. Anyone got an idea on how to make the front facing camera on the iPad work nicely with Skype?

Chatting with the in-laws and it was junk, utterly shit, slow, pixellated and terrible.

Shame as the rear facing camera is awesome, that looked amazing and worked great even in lowish light...but the folks wanted to see the kids so had to use the front facing side.

Bob

I think any company that is sitting on $100 billion in the bank, if they really gave a shit about these things could ask companies they deal with to be more socially aware and to improve things for their workers or risk getting the manufacturing moved to another company.

Any slight increase in manufacturing costs could be swallowed by Apple and they'd still roll in the cash, perhaps just a few pennies poorer per unit, but considering the iPad2 cost about $100 a unit to manufacture and the rest being a good chunk of profit...

Steerpike

Are you referring to their labor practices (cheap manual labor in China), or their desire to maintain a 'closed' technology system? I would agree that the former is an ethical problem, but the latter is simply a business decision. I cannot deny that the Apple presents a more refined, smoother experience and I believe this is a direct result of their 'closed' approach. But they did that with their laptops (Macs) and have sat solidly in last place in terms of market share, so they are not benefiting much from that strategy there. Now, with the 'tablets', they are enjoying the benefits but - I suspect it won't last and they'll end up back at the bottom due to having a closed system.

fatbrit

I'm talking about their whole caboodle. When Jobs took over for the second time, every move was based purely on his narcissism.
-- get the cheapest slave wages in China (despite the fact that you could afford to build it in the US and still make a profit.
-- sit on a pile of cash when the economy is starved of it.
-- put competitors out of business using ridiculous patents.
-- close the system and make sure only you can profit for it -- not many rich app programmers, are there?
-- try to take over content providers not to provide a better service but to take their profits, too.
--etc, etc.
Every time there's a decision to take, it's all about me and my profits. Exclusively! They're worse than IBM or MS ever were. c.f. Google, a company of similar size, with a nice mixed bag of doing a bit for us, doing a bit for everyone else.

BritishGuy36

Agreed.

They never learned anything from the Mac vs Microsoft battle in the 80s/90s. Push out a closed system the way that you want people to use it and people can either take it or leave it. They left it. Windows is now on 95% of computers, MacOS less than 5%.

Now it's the same all over again with Android, iDevices will be fighting for any significant market share soon enough, now that cheaper, high quality android devices are flooding the market.

willmore

Over and above all the wonderful technical advice you've been given. Here's my experience with my ipad.

I bought it a few months ago intending for the ipad NOT to replace my macbookpro, but to use the ipad only for travelling to keep in touch with family etc.

I dont know if you have used a tablet before, but I found the keyboard on the screen and having to change from the alphabet keyboard to the numeric one a bloody pain. The keyboard takes up at least 1/4 of the screen at the bottom. I finally found a keyboard that also works as a cover for somewhat protection of the ipad but it was difficult to use. I finally bought an wireless keyboard which had issues with the ipad. As well, I had to buy a stand for it to keep it secure. I must have gone through three or four different stand and couldnt find one that I was satisified with. I took the ipad in the car, ferry and train to see if it would be stable without a firm support and found it annoying and unsuccessful.

Bottom line - Im giving my ipad to my sister and bought a macbookair. Granted it is a little heavier than the ipad, but is much easier to use and I love having a proper keyboard.

This is just my experience with the ipad. I hope you will be very happy with whatever your choose.

Cheers.

BritishGuy36

http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_...sformer_TF101/

Bob

I was playing around with one of those over the weekend and do want!

Was really nice and responsive...felt much nicer than the ipad, especially with the dock, but as it was tethered to the shelf, couldn't really see how light it really was, or how well using the front facing cam could be on Skype v the iPads front facing camera.