the tablet war is heating up

[Felon]

But the good outweighs the bad, so, overall, not bad for $199.

Question: Do you have any trouble with the menus or the native apps, like Email? Is your vision 20/20? Mine is not, and I find it pretty insane that Amazon has made the design choices for display that they have. The font is stuck at a tiny size, and what's even more uancceptable is the color scheme: grey text on a grey background. Squinting my way through the settings menus, I find no options to change text size or contrast, no zoom, no magnifier, no nothin'. Can't imagine what they were thinking. If you want a device to succeed in the mainstream market, you gotta make alloances for all the people out there wearing glasses.

 

[Fast Learner]

Here you go...

Apple: Siri Only Works On iPhone 4S, We Have No Plans To Support Older Devices | TechCrunch

"Siri only works on iPhone 4S and we currently have no plans to support older devices" is not "only the iPhone 4S hardware is capable of running Siri". It's "we only provide Siri on the 4S and do not plan to provide it on older devices". Nothing is said of whether the hardware of older devices is sufficient.

 

[Felon]

Heck, even the Nook Tablet is supposed to support Flash at this point.

It makes me wonder how well the Nook Tablet browser would support my Marvel Comics Digital Unlimited subscription....

BARNES & NOBLE | NOOK Tablet? says they have a deal for marvel trades, so I assume (dangerus I know) that it must be built with it in mind....

I'm afraid it's going to be very much the opposite. If B&N is arranging exclusivity with Marvel, then pushing a digital comics service that Marvel's had for years isn't going to accomplish that. Also, the MCDU is something of a resource hog, so it may well overtax the Nook tab (although it does have more RAM than the Kindle Fire).

What they're probably talking about is selling a select group of Marvel trades in digital form.

 

[Umbran]

Yes. They have Marvel trade paperbacks in digital form, sold as books.

And I don't expect special support for MDCU. I'm just wondering if the Flash support is complete, the memory/processor has the oomph, and the screen size ends up with acceptable viewing.

I'm not really in the market for a $500 tablet. Just don't have the desire to use one quite that much - I'd put that kind of money into a new laptop. However, at $250 I start looking at whether the thing would do what I'd really want to use the thing for, because I have an X-mas list to fill out.

 

[Villano]

Question: Do you have any trouble with the menus or the native apps, like Email? Is your vision 20/20? Mine is not, and I find it pretty insane that Amazon has made the design choices for display that they have. The font is stuck at a tiny size, and what's even more uancceptable is the color scheme: grey text on a grey background. Squinting my way through the settings menus, I find no options to change text size or contrast, no zoom, no magnifier, no nothin'. Can't imagine what they were thinking. If you want a device to succeed in the mainstream market, you gotta make alloances for all the people out there wearing glasses.

I'm not having any problem reading the screen, and I can't even see the giant E on an eye chart without my glasses.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I'm not having any problem reading the screen, and I can't even see the giant E on an eye chart without my glasses.

That's actually a giant C.

 

[Felon]

I'm not having any problem reading the screen, and I can't even see the giant E on an eye chart without my glasses.

OK, let's back up a second. Maybe we're looking at different screens. Do you have grey-on-grey for your menus? Is the font small, like maybe a 5-point font? Because if that's all true, and you don't consider that hard to read, then you're doing better in the vision department than you might think.

 

[Villano]

OK, let's back up a second. Maybe we're looking at different screens. Do you have grey-on-grey for your menus? Is the font small, like maybe a 5-point font? Because if that's all true, and you don't consider that hard to read, then you're doing better in the vision department than you might think.

You're talking about the Kindle Fire, right? The color Kindle?

The only menu that I'm seeing that's grey on grey is the e-mail app. Everything else I've seen is white on grey.

 

[Felon]

Yeah, email would be the main thing. Also, the settings menus are grey-on-grey. This is apparently a default color scheme for Android devices, as I discovered when I started using my new Skyrocket phone yesterday. So far, that's been a happy discovery. The only hassle is finding that the iPhone, in true Apple fashion, does not provide any means for storing contacts on a SIM card, despite having a SIM card slot.

Wanted to let you guys know that this weekend BuyDig.com is selling the Toshiba Thrive for a discount using the code SDEALS070. Comes to $300 with free shipping. Compared to $200 for the Fire and $250 for the Nook tab, the Thrive offers a lot more bang for the buck.

Btw, my pre-ordered Nook tab never arrived. It was scheduled by UPS for a Tuesday delivery, then a Wednesday delivery, and then the last notice said that it had been transferred to the post office for delivery. Can you dig that? Pick up the package, sit on it for a couple days, then drop it off at the post office. Pretty sweet way to make a living.

 

[Banshee16]

Yeah, email would be the main thing. Also, the settings menus are grey-on-grey. This is apparently a default color scheme for Android devices, as I discovered when I started using my new Skyrocket phone yesterday. So far, that's been a happy discovery. The only hassle is finding that the iPhone, in true Apple fashion, does not provide any means for storing contacts on a SIM card, despite having a SIM card slot.

Wanted to let you guys know that this weekend BuyDig.com is selling the Toshiba Thrive for a discount using the code SDEALS070. Comes to $300 with free shipping. Compared to $200 for the Fire and $250 for the Nook tab, the Thrive offers a lot more bang for the buck.

Btw, my pre-ordered Nook tab never arrived. It was scheduled by UPS for a Tuesday delivery, then a Wednesday delivery, and then the last notice said that it had been transferred to the post office for delivery. Can you dig that? Pick up the package, sit on it for a couple days, then drop it off at the post office. Pretty sweet way to make a living.

As I understand it, there are several great sales on Android tablets this weekend....Transformer, A500, Lenovo, etc. Particularly the ones that came out earlier in the year.

If you get the Thrive, I'd be interested in hearing what it's like. It looked really interesting initially....but I ended up hearing from some reviews that the screen wasn't so great. In the store, at least, it looks pretty solid, and a replaceable batter seems like a great idea. Plus all those ports.

I saw the Razr in Costco yesterday....looks like a solid phone.

Banshee