the tablet war is heating up

[JoeGKushner]

I dig the Toshiba THrive. I've used MicroSD, USB and otherbits with it. The video taking thing is cool. THe screen seems fine to me but I'm definately not an expert. Reading PDFs is farily straightforward and I can see why PDF would hold tremendous appeal in this format. I've read several ebooks in this format as well. Good stuff as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Banshee16]

I dig the Toshiba THrive. I've used MicroSD, USB and otherbits with it. The video taking thing is cool. THe screen seems fine to me but I'm definately not an expert. Reading PDFs is farily straightforward and I can see why PDF would hold tremendous appeal in this format. I've read several ebooks in this format as well. Good stuff as far as I'm concerned.

That's cool to hear. The idea of having all those ports directly on the tablet is pretty cool.

How do you find PDFs? Generally they work well on my Transformer.....a few seem to really choke it, and I'm not sure why....my copy of Oathbound Seven, the Pathfinder rules adaptation of the Oathbound setting. Even though it's no bigger in terms of file size than other PDFs I read, for some reason it just makes the tablet gag. Other PDFs of comparable size seem to work fine, like the ones from Alluria Publishing work fine.

Banshee

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And of course, nonsense like this doesn't make ANY consumer happy:

Finding and cleaning out your smartphone’s Carrier IQ poison | ZDNet

 

[JoeGKushner]

That's cool to hear. The idea of having all those ports directly on the tablet is pretty cool.

How do you find PDFs? Generally they work well on my Transformer.....a few seem to really choke it, and I'm not sure why....my copy of Oathbound Seven, the Pathfinder rules adaptation of the Oathbound setting. Even though it's no bigger in terms of file size than other PDFs I read, for some reason it just makes the tablet gag. Other PDFs of comparable size seem to work fine, like the ones from Alluria Publishing work fine.

Banshee

I've read the old Doctor Who boxed set, Primeval (the BBC show, I have a preprint of the game in PDF that I used last Gen Con to run games), the Laundry, a few Rise of the Runelord PDFs (1st two), and a few others but I haven't had any problems.

I have NOT however, used anything like Pathfinder as I do not own it in PDF.

I hope that publishers, like Green Ronin, start working on PDF's optimized for the Tablets in the future. It only seems to make sense that they can go lighter on the graphics, better layout for that type of format, and more use of the material it presents?

 

[IronWolf]

I hope that publishers, like Green Ronin, start working on PDF's optimized for the Tablets in the future. It only seems to make sense that they can go lighter on the graphics, better layout for that type of format, and more use of the material it presents?

Yeah, I wish Paizo would release a tablet friendly PDF of their products. They render pretty well on my Gen 1 iPad with GoodReader, but I suspect they could be lightning quick with some toning down of the PDF in a tablet friendly weight.

 

[Umbran]

So, I happened to be down at our local Barnes & Noble this evening, so I fiddled with the Nook Tablet.

Specifically, I pointed its browser at marvel.com, where there are always a couple of their digital books you can read for free for promotional purposes.

I flipped though a couple of pages. The screen isn't an ideal size, no. But few things for under $500 are going to be. The image quality was good however. It was a little slow, but since I was in-store, where there were probably dozes of people using the wifi, so I don't know if that's telling. Overall, it seemed to manage okay. I didn't read through the whole book, or multiple books in one sitting, to know if it would flake out after time or volume, though.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I know the top of the line Nook is supposed to have an 8 hour operational battery life, same as a comparable Kindle.

 

[falcarrion]

I see the Dell streak 7 will no longer be sold.

 

[Felon]

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.

I got the Thrive. It's great. No problems with the screen. Anything you want me to try on it, just ask. Gonna take a shot at Skype next.

Having a microphone is actually a pretty big deal with an Android tablet. There's so much you can do without ever touching a keyboard.

 

[JoeGKushner]

https://market.android.com/details?...RfYXBwc19VU19fMV9wcm9tb18xMzIzMTk3ODYwNTMyIl0.

Some good stuff there. Sketchbook mobile is fun but I'm still getting the hang of it. Wish I had bought a better 'pointer'. SPeaking of which, anyone have any recommendations?

Papercamera is also fun. That's where I got my avatar on Facebook.

Just picked up Minecraft.

And man, everyone who owns an android device MUST check out the free app a day from Amazon. It's not that they're all great, but hey, the price is right and there are some GOOD apps that pop up.