Good value android tablet?

toby2111 · 30-11-2011 10:09pm #1

Looking for xmas present for the wife, was going to get a kindle cos she reads quite a bit but would also like the ability to do general browsing on the net.Saw an ad for a Yarvik 7" tablet in tesco for €149, its got a capacitive screen which I believe are better than the resistive screen.Is it a decent buy? Basically looking for something that she can use as an e reader and a bit of surfing.Feel free to suggest alternatives!

Zonda999 · 30-11-2011 10:40pm

I;m guessing you know about the Kindle Fire yeah? Thats from amazon and will do a bit of surfing, a bit locked down as far as an andorid tablet goes though, could fit the bill however

You could look at a HP Touchpad and port android onto it. The firesale was back in August but you will still get on Ebay for about €200 for a 32gb model. It really is a very nice device, not sure as to what limitations there are with having android on it though. Otherwise, for a small bit more(probably) the first generation motorola xoom shouldnt be much more than €200/250. The Hannspree Hannspad probably is still knocking around too, about €200 for that one too. The two i mentioned there are 10" tablets as oppossed to 7" btw

Tbh, it think the more established ones make more sense than that Yarvik tablet, you don't see to many recommendations around here for cheaper tablets like that, theres a reason for that ultimately. As a cheap yoke it'd probably do okay(€150 is far from the cheapest android tablets) but its stuck with 2.3 forever, forget about Icecream sandwich on it. If it was €50 or €70 more for an established brand, it'd be well worth it IMHO

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005HA9KCW/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1/279-0098526-2637374?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_r=1GMNWGAQJSVX2EY24TT9&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_i=B005A98WWO

toby2111 · 30-11-2011 10:57pm

Thanks zonda999-I don't know much about the kindle fire or tablets in general really.It doesn't have to run android, I just figured android tablets would be cheaper than others.So am open to all suggestions.
I'll look into those ones you suggested, thanks for the advice

Kev. · 01-12-2011 1:18am

Any more suggestions?

echosound · 01-12-2011 1:59am

I just picked up an archos 101 16gb tablet, wanted it for much the same reasons as your wife - browsing/reading etc. It's my birthday/xmas pressie too, but of course i couldn't wait til then to use it :-) Mainly wanted a tablet as i'm doing a distance course that's predominantly online material, and wanted to be able to study my material without having to always sit with a laptop as i get backpain slouched over a laptop for hours on end.

It runs froyo, has a capacitative screen, has a usb port so if your wife has e-books already stored (or photos/music/films etc) she can just plug the stick in with her stuff on it. 10.1 inch screen, wi-fi (but not 3G, you can tether it to a mobile if you want tho). Didn't want to spend a fortune so this fell just in budget at 199 euro. So far it does everything i want and more (I'm not overly bothered about the fact it probably won't run gingerbread/ice cream sandwich down the line etc). Can expand the memory with an sd card if you want to run a lot of apps.

I spent a good while reading reviews and comparing specs of all the tablets in this pricerange (didn't see either the hanspree or the xoom for less than 250-300 tho) and tbh i kept coming back to the archos. Couldn't fnd another tablet under 200 that seemed to have everything I was looking for. Of course i'm only using it the past few days so I can't tell you if any issues crop up over the course of it's lifetime, but take a look at archosfans forums to gauge how others have been finding it (I spentsome time reading up on various threads there too to see how others were fareing out with it).

So there's another suggestion for you. The hanspree one looked good too for 50-odd extra euro, didn't hear great things about the arnova. Other tablets i've heard good things about are the asus transformer (pricier again tho), and opinion seems split 50/50 as to the acer iconia -some love it, some hate it. I'd say you'll be waiting a while for the kindle fire to make it's way across the atlantic, no sign of a release date as of yet.

drunkmonkey · 01-12-2011 2:04am

HP Touchpad, best bang for your buck and easy load android on it.

LukeS_ · 01-12-2011 3:36am

Advent Vega. If you know how to root it and flash custom ROM's then you can have a very good tablet for a cheap price. There are tons of tutorials on YouTube explaining how to root etc.

I've messed around with the Eee Pad Transformer, Sony Tablet S and Xoom for quite a while, and once the vega is on honeycomb with hardware acceleration, it's just as good as those tablets, for less too!

pickarooney · 01-12-2011 9:36am

I'll be blunt and say ignore all the hoo-ha about flashing ROMs and Ice Cream Sandwich as the odds are your wife will not give a damn about any of that as long as it does the basic things well (and trust me, you really don't want to go down the road of bricking her device the same day you give it to her, which has of course never ever happened to me not even once).

That Yarvik looks pretty decent to me, if you think 7" is the right format for her.

toby2111 · 01-12-2011 10:01am

So,I take it its not possible to upgrade these tablets to the newest version of android?
As pickarooney says,the wife wont really mind what its running,once it can do the basics of surfing,mailing,watching youtube maybe even skype(although I presume that will require a built in camera which will be more expensive?).Also 7" would do but obviously I'd go for a bigger screen for an extra few euro,in or under €200 maybe.

I'll look into all the other recommendations,were's the best place to look?Bricks and mortar store or online i.e amazon,ebay,pixmania,komplett?

mark2409 · 01-12-2011 10:40am

Any of you a500 owners out know if the device you have now will be upgradable to 4.0 (ice cream sandwich) in jan, or would i be better of waiting for the pre packaged unit in Jan? By the way doing this on an ipad which i can not wait to get rid of. Apple lack of flash and cross compatabilty does my head in.

pickarooney · 01-12-2011 10:53am

Skype is one thing that will require a recent version of Android, at least 3.0 I think; someone with a honeycomb tablet can probably confirm. In that case you're instantly looking at almost double the budget.

A big screen may not necessarily be better. It would be my personal preference but people with smaller hands who intend to do a lot of e-reading might appreciate a lighter, smaller model.

I would strongly recommend a device that you can actually touch and hold before making the purchase as no amount of reading about a tablet will really tell you what it's like to use. Once you're happy with your choice you can then shop around for the best deal.

toby2111 · 01-12-2011 11:08am

Forget Skype so,we have a laptop that we can use for that.
I'll pop into Currys and PC World and see what they have but their selection could be well beyond my budget.
I've friends coming home from USA in a few weeks,was half thinking of getting them to bring home the Kindle Fire(as mentioned above,did a bit of research this morn and it looks decent),but not sure if it fully works here.Still might do the job if she can surf and download books but.Any opinions on that?

pickarooney · 01-12-2011 11:18am

The Fire looks very nice but I imagine there could be big issues with content access. Have a good read around.

toby2111 · 01-12-2011 11:51am

Yeh,I'd love to know if anyone here has one and if its worth getting from the US

pickarooney · 01-12-2011 12:25pm

Going by the comments on this review it could be impossible to buy any content for the Fire if you're not located in the US. As it has no external SD or USB ports this would make it nigh on impossible to actually put any books or paid apps on it. Bit of a poisoned chalice for an Irish user's Christmas I fear.

More here.

toby2111 · 01-12-2011 1:40pm

So the Android Market app wont work on it?

pickarooney · 01-12-2011 1:58pm

Nope, nor the Amazon cloud.

toby2111 · 01-12-2011 2:01pm

Back to the drawing board so!Pity cos it seems like a fine piece of kit.
HP Touchpad looks interesting,must do a bit of research on it.

toby2111 · 01-12-2011 10:43pm

Just having a quick browse on amazon,came across this-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tabtech-A816-now-added-Bluetooth/dp/B005CWUXVW/ref=sr_1_15?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1322773706&sr=1-15

Seems decent enough to me but then again I'm no techie expert!Anyone got any opinions on this one?

Or this-
http://www.amazon.co.uk/NATPC-M7-L-Gingerbread-Responsive-Capacitive/dp/B006DCDHMW/ref=sr_1_5?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1322775728&sr=1-5

pickarooney · 02-12-2011 10:36am

The first one is a resistive screen, other than that it sounds nice. They do mention in brackets that it's the best resistive screen they've tested but it's still going to be less usable than a capacitive.

The second one has a capacitive screen and is a smaller 7". It has no full USB port, which is standard for that size tablet but the rest of the specs sound excellent, almost too good to be true. For that price I'd be tempted to gamble on it.

k123456 · 02-12-2011 10:51am

Without Bluetooth or USB, what options are there to transfer file from laptop to tablet,

Is is possible using Android to get to a share (\\share)on your Win laptop ?

Dropbox would work, but there must be a better way to share/transfer files

pickarooney · 02-12-2011 10:59am

MicroSDcard (with a USB adapter for the laptop if it has no built in reader) would be the most common way I'd say.

You can access shared drives on the laptop as well but I've always found it extremely slow to copy via samba shares. There's probably some way to speed it up that I've not looked at.

toby2111 · 02-12-2011 11:39am

pickarooney wrote: »

The second one has a capacitive screen and is a smaller 7". It has no full USB port, which is standard for that size tablet but the rest of the specs sound excellent, almost too good to be true. For that price I'd be tempted to gamble on it.

Yeh,thought that second one looked half decent.What does "no full USB port" mean?Is there none at all?For example,could I transfer pictures from a camera onto that tablet?If not,is there a way how I could?

pickarooney · 02-12-2011 1:18pm

There's a mini USB port so although you can't connect a USB stick right into it you may be able to connect a camera if that camera has a cable with mini USB connectors on both ends. (do those exist?)

I have to be honest and say I don't really know the limitations of a mini USB port but with a microSD slot on the tablet you have that option for transferring the files (assuming again your camera will read microSD with or without an adaptor).

In practice, I tend to just the pictures on Picasa from my PC and access them that way from the tablet.

toby2111 · 02-12-2011 1:56pm

I'm tempted to get that second one above,only has 1 review on amazon(even though its very positive!)
Would I be better looking at 10" tablets or are 7" ones sufficient?

Krusty_Clown · 02-12-2011 2:07pm

echosound wrote: »

opinion seems split 50/50 as to the acer iconia -some love it, some hate it. I'd say you'll be waiting a while for the kindle fire to make it's way across the atlantic, no sign of a release date as of yet.

Was looking at picking up an Acer Iconia in the US next week. Any idea what people don't like about it?
$249 for a 7" with 8GB, doesn't seem too bad. Seems to have pretty good connectivity too.

daveob007 · 02-12-2011 5:08pm

i got one of those yarvik tablets from tesco last week and very happy with it,4gb memory but takes micro sd also..it has usb connection and internet just a bit slow but works fine,great for playing angry birds or watching movies,,did some research on the net and it gets great ratings.
well worth 150.
try youtube for reviews before you buy anything but the yarvik is great for the money,,

Ste- · 02-12-2011 5:15pm

daveob007 wrote: »

i got one of those yarvik tablets from tesco last week and very happy with it,4gb memory but takes micro sd also..it has usb connection and internet just a bit slow but works fine,great for playing angry birds or watching movies,,did some research on the net and it gets great ratings.
well worth 150.
try youtube for reviews before you buy anything but the yarvik is great for the money,,

What model number is it ?

daveob007 · 02-12-2011 7:16pm

Ste- wrote: »

What model number is it ?

its the tab250

megapixel · 02-12-2011 10:07pm

I got one of these for my niece.
Was hoping to put kindle and flash on it, any ideas?

toby2111 · 03-12-2011 4:04pm

Ok,its decision time.I've narrowed it down to 3
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yarvik-TAB250-7-inch-Tablet/dp/B005HA9KCW
or
http://www.amazon.co.uk/NATPC-M7-L-Gingerbread-Responsive-Capacitive/dp/B006DCDHMW/ref=sr_1_6?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1322924372&sr=1-6

Possibly leaning towards the second one.Then I saw this over on Bargain Alerts from buyincoins
http://www.buyincoins.com/7-epad-apad-wifi-2gb-camera-android-2-2-mid-tablet-pc-product-3429.html
Its a very low price and seems to run well when rooted(which I haven't a clue how to do but seems doable).For what the wife will be using it for,it seems grand.Or is it too good to be true?Plus I dont think I'll get it in time for Xmas if I order from them?

Which one would you pick?Or am I missing out on a bargain elsewhere?!!Thanks in advance!

Good value android tablet?

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