I want to buy my wife a 7" tablet for Christmas. Desired specs are: Android 2.2+, easily rooted and market install(I have rooted and installed market on a Pandigital Novel 7" table and a Viewsonic Gtab with a lot of help from members). She primarily uses it for crossword puzzles(shortz) and web surfing. I would like for it to be able to access a ad-hoc wifi, the Pandigital(hers) can not do this. I do not think she would need a lot of storage(memory?). Would 512mb of ram and 1ghz processor be over-kill? And it needs to be in the $150.00-$200.00 range. Could go slightly higher for an exceptional deal. Thanks
Amazon Fire easy. Dual-Core, best deal available, root should be available soon, maybe even a Honeycomb port!
Maybe look for a Dell Streak deal. Waaaay underrated. The resolution is criticized as being limited, but that's a little silly. It's a 7 inch screen so you can only REALLY use so much resolution before the letters get to small to read. The real problems with it are (I have one) poor battery life and poor viewing angles. Neither are big issues for many users. If you are sharing your 7 inch tablet with many viewers and have to watch from a wide angle, you may be unhappy if you are viewing from 50 degrees off-angle. In reality, it's never been a problem. Battery life really does suck...6-8 hours of "on time" and 4-5 or a little less with constant use. If that's not enough (it's not always for me), then just be aware. Ergonomically, it's among the best I've used. There's nothing on the market today in the 7 inch size compelling enough to make me change.
Sent from my Touchpad (with Android) using Tapatalk
I'm feeling somewhat disappointed on Asus's decision to move the transformer towards the direction the ipad is taking by making slight hardware changes and massively bumping up the display.
I remember when apple invented the 'retina display' buzzword for ips panels a few years ago - marketing them as having the most pixels your eyes can see from a holding distance. Now apple is keeping the tablet the same size and bumping up the pixel density 4 times with suspected plans of marketing that as being better. How? They've already stated more pixels would be redundant.
At this point the tablet to buy isn't looking like the ipad 3 or the tf700, lenovo is sweeping in with the ideapad k2 to offer more hardware changes (usb on the tablet, 1.7ghz t3, fingerprint scanner, possible keyboard dock) as well as a high def display.
What kind of change will these displays provide? Drastic?
Cons
decreased battery life slight
slightly decreased performance..
more screen defects ( however you would never notice a dead pixel! being so small)
higher cost of the tablet most high resolution tablets will start at 599 including the iPad3
most people will not be able to tell the difference
Media in that format (2k) would fill your 32gbs so quickly!
Less vivid colors/contrast ratio/refresh rate? (correct me if I am wrong)
Pro's
about Twice the amount of pixels! (4x the pixels in the case of the iPad3)
sharper text!
better looking movies if you can fit them on the tablet!
Bragging rights?
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
Can you actually see the pixel difference on a 1920x1200 screen over the primes?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've counted them (the pixels) and the difference is that the count took two times as long!
But seriously, there is a point when it would be hard to see a difference, where more pixels would NOT really make a clearer screen.
I was offered a full refund on my prime and dock and am thinking about taking it... and seeing what MWC has to offer... maybe the samsung galaxy note 10.1 or something else lenovo maybe.....
maybe they will pull something off and release a Nexus tab
or windows 8......
idk what to do but I want this things headaches gone.....
Wordlywisewiz said:
I was offered a full refund on my prime and dock and am thinking about taking it... and seeing what MWC has to offer... maybe the samsung galaxy note 10.1 or something else lenovo maybe.....
maybe they will pull something off and release a Nexus tab
or windows 8......
idk what to do but I want this things headaches gone.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Useless post...
Sent from my ROOTED Transformer Prime
Yes
10char
Wordlywisewiz said:
I was offered a full refund on my prime and dock and am thinking about taking it... and seeing what MWC has to offer... maybe the samsung galaxy note 10.1 or something else lenovo maybe.....
maybe they will pull something off and release a Nexus tab
or windows 8......
idk what to do but I want this things headaches gone.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am sorry that you are having problems with the Prime. However nothing you have said is actually relevant to the conversation that this thread was started with. Please try to keep on-topic, there are plenty of other threads where you can discus your tablet problems.
With regards to pixel density... it very much depends on how you use your Prime. If you read a lot on the Prime and have noticed pixelation in small text, then yes, upping the pixel density would improve your tablet experience. If you mainly watch videos then you probably won't notice the extra pixels on the size of screen that the Prime has.
The exact same debate took place when 1080P TV's came out. People that already bought 720P used the same defenses as to why 1080P TV's are overkill. 80% of high-def TV's sold last year were 1080P. Does anyone not think Apple's going to spend a gazillion dollars convincing the world life as we know will end if you don't have a retina (HD) display? Asus, Acer, and Samsung aren't introducing HD displays because it's practical, it's to combat Apple. How many of you expect your next phone to be qHD or 720P? And its only got a 4-5" display. Whether you personally care or not, tablets with HD displays are going to become the norm (potentially impacting the resale value of those that don't have it).
Wordlywisewiz said:
Cons
decreased battery life slight
slightly decreased performance..
more screen defects ( however you would never notice a dead pixel! being so small)
higher cost of the tablet most high resolution tablets will start at 599 including the iPad3
most people will not be able to tell the difference
Media in that format (2k) would fill your 32gbs so quickly!
Less vivid colors/contrast ratio/refresh rate? (correct me if I am wrong)
Pro's
about Twice the amount of pixels! (4x the pixels in the case of the iPad3)
sharper text!
better looking movies if you can fit them on the tablet!
Bragging rights?
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How is 1920x1200 = 2k?
And because the prime has that resolution doesn't mean there will be a lot of content using the extra 120 pixels lol.
it will be 1080p content with black bars on top and bottom, no difference in file sizes at all.
I guess it depends. In my opinion its all about what you're used to. For example, i'm used to gaming on a PC. There you use Anti-Aliasing on the games in 1080p, so i'm used to perfectly sharp images without any jagged edges. If I see the same games on a Xbox i always think the graphics are horrible, while most people think there are some amazing looking games on the xbox...
And i used to play Tomb Raider 1 on my old PC in 320x240 on a 15" CRT monitor. That was bad dpi. I still enjoyed it very much
So atm i have a 27" PC/TV combo monitor with 1080p. Thats what my eyes are used to. So my prime looks sharper to me than my PC monitor, and i think my PC monitor is more than sharp enough i hope you see now where i'm getting. I also cant tell the difference in dpi from my 800x480 4.3" phone to the iphone display...
What i'm trying to say, no one needs that kind of resolution. Its just nice to have, and once you got used to it, you probably dont wanna go back. All things aside, I think the Prime's screen is absolutely beautiful.
So if I had to compare 2 devices with different resolution the one very sharp, the other very very sharp I would look on all the other features first.
For example if the TF700T would have like 1 hour less battery life and would be heavier i'd still go for the Prime.
If we're talking RUMOURED ipad 3 resolution, well just think about this. Watching movies in that resolution (you first had to get them somehow, as far as i know all movies are max 1920x1080 today?) would be pretty sharp right. But because of a screen format that hasnt been used anymore since 10 years you will only be using a very small part of that screen to actually watch that movie.
Now everyone has to decide for themselfs, but for me there are FAR FAR more important features than resolution (especially if the difference is barely visable for me).
But people have spent huge amount of money on unuseful tech for lesser reasons
Off course yu can see the difference. Just take a look at your phone display(800*480 or higher), you'll notice that it's much sharper than any tablet screen.
The biggest "problem" of resolutions that high is that the graphics processor has to deal with much more pixels(in our case 2304000(1920*1200)/10024000(1280*800)=2,25 times).
In the case of games this could mean games running at less than half the speed(FPS), assuming it has the same CPU/GPU combination.
YoMarK said:
Off course yu can see the difference. Just take a look at your phone display(800*480 or higher), you'll notice that it's much sharper than any tablet screen.
The biggest "problem" of resolutions that high is that the graphics processor has to deal with much more pixels(in our case 2304000(1920*1200)/10024000(1280*800)=2,25 times).
In the case of games this could mean games running at less than half the speed(FPS), assuming it has the same CPU/GPU combination.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, it won't have the exact same GPU, and the iPad 2 has a pretty ridiculously powerful PowerVR GPU. However I question Apple's choice to use GPUs that tend to focus on polygon performance instead of fill rate performance particularly when they're looking to dramatically increase screen resolution.
Apple is running out of things to say is best with the iPad / iPhone short of gimmicks like Siri and "retina" displays. They're going to pay for it in other areas though, they're going to need to have a GPU with a killer fill rate, and though the current SGX543MP2 can probably manage, doubtless they'll cram something that eats even more power into the iPad 3.
The thing that most Apple users don't know is that most of the tablet apps they'll be buying off the market won't make use of the high resolution or the processor, as the majority will have been built to run on the now-comparatively-pathetic iPad 1. At least we're seeing THD apps that make use of the additional processing power our tablets have to offer. I've yet to hear of Apple app developers doing the same, though I assume it'll have to happen at some point.
And finally, to answer the question of the OP, I highly doubt there will be any noticeable difference at the distance most of us hold a tablet. It's a little different for the iPhone; with a 3.5 inch screen you have to hold it a lot closer if you're reading text because it's that much smaller. Comparing smartphone display resolution to tablet display resolution is rather pointless as we hold them at different distances from our face depending upon the size of the display and the text / images on the screen.
Holding my TFP at its general 2-foot viewing distance, I'm hard pressed to make out any individual pixels, and my vision is 20/20. I won't be trading in my TFP for an iPad because of of difference in pixel density I may never even notice!
ickkii said:
I'm feeling somewhat disappointed on Asus's decision to move the transformer towards the direction the ipad is taking by making slight hardware changes and massively bumping up the display.
I remember when apple invented the 'retina display' buzzword for ips panels a few years ago - marketing them as having the most pixels your eyes can see from a holding distance. Now apple is keeping the tablet the same size and bumping up the pixel density 4 times with suspected plans of marketing that as being better. How? They've already stated more pixels would be redundant.
At this point the tablet to buy isn't looking like the ipad 3 or the tf700, lenovo is sweeping in with the ideapad k2 to offer more hardware changes (usb on the tablet, 1.7ghz t3, fingerprint scanner, possible keyboard dock) as well as a high def display.
What kind of change will these displays provide? Drastic?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I personally think that for most people these super high resolutions on small screens are pretty pointless. Maybe it's because I'm 35 and don't have the same vision I did 15 years ago
All I know is I'm perfectly happy with 1920 x 1080 on my 70 inch TV
Of course you can... but who cares?
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
pdanders said:
All I know is I'm perfectly happy with 1920 x 1080 on my 70 inch TV
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Think from what distance you look at your TV. And then think from what distance you look at your tablet. Compare the relative sizes of the devices in your field of view. I use 23 inch screen for movies but I look at it from 50cm - it's bigger then than typical cinema screen (I'm nearsighted so I like it that way).
pdanders said:
I personally think that for most people these super high resolutions on small screens are pretty pointless. Maybe it's because I'm 35 and don't have the same vision I did 15 years ago
All I know is I'm perfectly happy with 1920 x 1080 on my 70 inch TV
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Man you have the 70 lol? I was happy as hell when i got my 60" Samsung Smart TV a few months ago. Then they had to go and introduce the 70" & 80" Sharp LED's! Damn you Sharp hahaha!
I told my GF 60" is the biggest ill ever have to go. WRONG!
Wordlywisewiz said:
Cons
decreased battery life slight
slightly heavily decreased performance (compared to smaller displays)
more screen defects ( however you would never notice a dead pixel! being so small)
higher cost of the tablet most high resolution tablets will start at 599 including the iPad3
most people will not be able to tell the difference
Media in that format (2k) would fill your 32gbs so quickly! I think there is not even any 2K media (like cinema films) for end users available.
Less vivid colors/contrast ratio/refresh rate? (correct me if I am wrong)
Pro's
about Twice the amount of pixels! (4x the pixels in the case of the iPad3)
sharper text!
better looking movies if you can fit them on the tablet! You won't see that at "movie-distance"
Bragging rights?
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Corrected for you
Vcolassi said:
Man you have the 70 lol? I was happy as hell when i got my 60" Samsung Smart TV a few months ago. Then they had to go and introduce the 70" & 80" Sharp LED's! Damn you Sharp hahaha!
I told my GF 60" is the biggest ill ever have to go. WRONG!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now imagine if a TV of those size existed in the 1990s. It would weigh nearly a ton, resolution would be 640x480, and would probably cost about $3,999 dollars since anything over 36 inches was unheard of.
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10characters
The difference will be noticeable, but it's up to you whether you care enough to pay another 100 [insert currency here]. Was actually slightly disappointed with the display quality when viewing text on the TFP, but perhaps I'm just being ultra-picky. Can't be bothered to wait another 6 months at this point though.
I know this sounds like quite a simple question with an obvious answer, but numbers alone can't really give you a proper idea of what the screen size will be like. Sony Tablet S has a slightly smaller screen than other tablets, and at the moment it's stopping me from making a purchase. Is it noticeably smaller than a 10.1 inch screen? Does the slightly smaller screen make much of a difference when web browsing or editing Word docs or viewing PDFs? And is it much of a step up from the 8 inch screen?
Also, if anyone can suggest a 10.1 inch tablet that meets my needs (3G, USB host on board, priced competitively!), that would be great. The Sony Tablet S is currently £386.56 on Amazon.co.uk, just to give an idea of what price range I am looking at, and I was also considering the Acer Iconia A501 but I'm not so sure that the screen is as good as the Sony tablet's, from what I recall.
I just bought a new TS Prime last week and have 30 days to return. I'm thinking of doing so in favor of the TS Infinity. I'm worried that if Asus is no longer shipping the prime due to "defects", that the development community on the Prime will be fade quickly and become very small. I'm curious to see if the new Transformers will be similar enough that roms for each will be easy to port over. Also a full HD screen would be nice but will I be sacrificing smoothness and a lot of battery life as a result?
I'm very torn. I have had no issues with the Prime I just got. Wifi is as good as my Nexus and my GPS locks on in less than 10 seconds every time (only tested indoors). A micro usb slot would be nice but it appears as if none of the new Transformers will have that either. So I'm just asking for some opinions on why I should keep my Prime or return it and wait for the Infinity. If I'm spending 500+ dollars on a device, I'd like it to be pretty future proof.
I don't know of any future proof devices for less than $500. I saw plans for a time machine on ebay but I don't know where to get the crystals.
Just keep the prime. It'll be fine. We already have great developement.
demandarin said:
Just keep the prime. It'll be fine. We already have great developement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While this is true ^ for people like me who mostly use their tabs for media, the 1200p screen is great.
Yeah but prime screen is just as good. No one will be able to tell the difference between a 1080P movie and a 720P HD movie on a 10.1 screen. Both will look great. The only difference is text will look a little sharper on infinity pad.
Not saying you, but people forgetting Prime was already crowned the best display out of any tablet before new Ipad arrived. So prime display is still great for watching media also.
Some people get stuck on the 1080P vs. 720P, too much, on a tablet if they want to use it for media. Human eye won't detect a difference in quality on a screen this size. On a big flat screen, yes. But even then its a slight increase in quality.
Now if you want it to read books and magazines then infinity display will be better for that and that's about it. Web pages and such still look very sharp and crisp on prime display. 1080P won't even be useful for gaming because there are no games running at that "true" resolution. THEN although tegra3 will handle it fine, if the exact same gpu or gpu clock speed is used, infinity pad will likely not perform as well as prime. Meaning prime will push faster FPS on games/movies..etc..
I keeping my prime till the new Asus Transformer pads with tegra4 release at end of year or Q1 of 2013. A prime to an infinity is not really much of an upgrade. Newer tegra4 transformer pads will likely have 1080p screen also. Then tegra4 will perform better than tegra3 at that same screen size resolution. Since tegra4 will be far more powerful than tegra3. IT HAS BEEN SAID Tegra4 will likely use same 4+1 core set except this time it'll be with Cortex [email protected] 28nm. Plus it's highly likely its gpu will be keplar based. Now that's something worth waiting for
Thanks, these replies have been quite helpful. Think I will stick with the Prime. I've kinda been falling in love with it. I guess there is always something new on the horizon. So the dockfor the prime won't be compatible with future models, correct?
One more thing, what is currently the best rom on prime. I'm new and just jumped on virtuous cause it seemed popular.
The only reason I'd think about upgrading is with regards to reading ebooks... Guess the better screen will shine on that area. But otherwise there is not much reason, wifi is good enough and couldn't care much less about GPS.
Apart from the screen there is not much reason to upgrade...
About roms, running WSG0.0.6 now which is one of my favourites although the Android Open Kang project rom from jermaine151 is very sweet as well.
>The only reason I'd think about upgrading is with regards to reading ebooks...
The higher res isn't needed for ebooks. If legibility is a problem, you'd just enlarge the fonts. Ebooks are mostly text-only, so content can be reflowed, and it will just fill more pages.
What higher res would be good for is documents with mixed (text+graphics) layouts, and not specifically designed for tablets, eg mags and scientific/academic/trade docs in PDF format. Because text can't be reflowed without messing up the layout, you may not be able to enlarge text font. Then, the higher res allows small text to be more legible. If these types of docs aren't on your menu, then "hi-res" confers no benefit in this area.
One can make the case that "hi-res" would benefit web pages with small text. That argument would work for small displays like smartphones and maybe 7" tabs, but a 10" with 1280x800 is already a larger display res than most web sites are designed for.
That iPad 3 has a "better" display than previous iPad is more due to its better color filters (which allows for richer colors) than its increased res. Hi-res is good to have as a spec, because a quad-XGA will always sound better than just XGA, and 1080p better than 720p. But by itself it's not good enough as an eyes-on benefit. Apple understood this, and also boosted the color rendition.
Im in the market for a 7 or 8 inch tablet, but upon searching google for the best android tab every site is raving about the z4 tablet.
Is it really that much better than the z3?
i doubt no matter how light it is, that ill feel like an 8inch tho
For me bigger iswhat i need . MOvies and animes.
Butit bcame a hassle when cant potrait lock
GreeleyXda said:
Im in the market for a 7 or 8 inch tablet, but upon searching google for the best android tab every site is raving about the z4 tablet.
Is it really that much better than the z3?
i doubt no matter how light it is, that ill feel like an 8inch tho
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it mainly depends what size you prefer. obviously the Z4 is a little bit more cutting edge with a higher res display, faster processor, better camera, but both are lovely tablets that can still run anything at their respective resolutions.
i always thought i'd go for 7-8" tablets when i bought one because they are a good portable middle ground, but phones are already quite big these days so i went for a Z4 so it actually makes a noticeable difference in experience compared to the phone, and the Z4 is one of the lightest 10" tablets ever made and as a result feels really easy and comfortable to hold even in one hand compared to other 10" tablets that might have given you feeling that they are too big.
Ive played with a samsung tab s 10.5 (its pretty light too) and i just prefer a smaller footprint. My old nexus 7 was the perfect size but im willing to go up to 8inches if the z3 is the best smaller android tablet
I've got both and surprisingly the performance of both isn't too different to each other, even though one has a QualComm 801 32-bit v 810 64-bit. I think there are still optimisations yet to come for the Z4.
Its down to screen size for now and if you really want that expensive keyboard. For me, yes, 10.1 inch screen for fun + work / productivity is great. Z3 is still an excellent tablet.