<p>I am new to the tablet world. I have a business where I need to be able to sign documents while away from the office. I have seen (and had someone in our office test) an app called SIGNificant. Works on Android as well as Apple. Just what the doctor ordered for me so I will be buying a 10 inch tablet.</p>
<p>After looking at tablets I am surprised that everyone accepts not being able to replace a battery. Apparently the soon to come out Google Nexus 10 can’t access a USB (thumb) drive. The Toshiba Thrive had plenty of ports and a replaceable battery but it has been discontinued (still available refurbished but that seems like a dicey proposition). All the reviewers discuss how games and movies look on screen and overlook these real functional concerns.</p>
<p>Most of the business people I know use thumb drives to move data. Looks like the Toshiba Excite can do what I want. Has to be around 10 inches as that is all I am comfortable with. I guess also be able to play a movie, browse the internet. Reliable. Simple. What should I be looking at?</p>
<p>The Mini resolution and brightness is acceptable but not wonderful. That was a tradeoff to keep it lighter and thinner. As points of reference, it does not come close to the latest iPads, and is a bit duller than the Kindle Fire and the Nook. </p>
<p>While it does not bother me that much, a number of online newspapers and magazines might be harder to read than expected. Or better stated, harder than one would hope for.</p>
<p>I find that using the cloud is more convienent than a flash drive.I don’t have to worry about the data getting corrupted or grabbing the wrong drive.
I also haven’t had any problems with having to take the device in to be serviced to change the battery.
It’s been a long time since you could replace the batteries on a MacBook, but when have had to take it in, they found a way to just give us one.
I have replaced the battery on a classic video iPod, although it is a little involved.
I have an ipad3, but was considering the mini so my D could use some iPhone/ipad apps that help her with school but with a larger screen than her iPhone.
I really like the retina display, but it is a good point re:battery life.</p>
<p>How do you plan to carry the tablet around? If you have briefcase or a backpack, those can work but carrying it in a jacket or small bag is harder. This is the reason 7 inch tablets are doing quite well.</p>
<p>Replaceable batteries are a tradeoff between form-factor and perceived quality and it seems that most devices are going to sealed batteries. You can check the ifixit site to see which devices are easier to do a replacement on.</p>
<p>Regarding the thumb drive - you can connect the Nexus to a PC and a thumb drive to the PC and move files via Windows Explorer. You just can’t connect them directly to each other. If you want more PC-like functionality, you could look at the Microsoft Surface Pro when it comes out.</p>
<p>I will carry it with me. I don’t travel much but the thing will be valuable. I went to Best Buy to actually get a table in hand…I would be frustrated with the 7 inch.</p>
<p>I went to a legal / tax seminar a couple of weeks ago. When I arrived they handed out printouts of the power point presentations but also USB drives with 3 days worth of pdfs on them. Would have been convenient to load on a tablet. Also, my clients (I am a CPA) are probably a ways off of cloud computing…USB drives will be favored for the next couple of years.</p>
<p>Maybe these are exceptions. The seminar should have had the pdfs on their website beforehand. Anything coming from my office is not a problem.</p>
<p>rhumbob, i believe most of these devices have mini or micro usb ports… then you could just use a wire to convert it from mini or micro to regular USB and use your thumb drive… or your thumb driver reader to an SD card, like I have.</p>
<p>You’d need to have software on the tablet side that could read the thumb drive and the tablet would also have to be able to provide power to the device. I don’t know if power supply on the tablet is one-way only to the tablet from a power adapter or cable to a computer.</p>
<p>I found the information to do this. You need a connector that costs from $5 - $10. Then you need to root your device to install a device driver and add an app to be able to browse the drive.</p>
<p>As chance would have it, I ordered an iPad 4 today. We have a Kindle Fire that my wife loves but is too small for my fat fingers and poor eyes. Comparing the 8.9 Kindle vs. the 9.7 iPad, the iPad won out for its lager screen size (aspect ratio is important) and the fact the the big Kindle has yet to be released or reviewed. And I saved myself 7% by buying from a reputable online dealer vs. Apple Store. Free shipping, same price, no sales tax.</p>
<p>Google just announced an 11 inch notebook for $200. It’s a Chromebook with a 320 GB HDD, 3 USB ports, ethernet, Wireless, HDMI, VGA, full keyboard and 3.5 hours of battery life. It runs an Intel Celeron processor so you can run Windows on it if you prefer.</p>
<p>Running Windows on a Chromebook sounds like wearing ski boots in Cancun. Uncomfortable it’s even working.</p>
<p>The Acer C7 is a strange bird. A beast built for the clouds but with a 320 HD and a sub four hour battery. At 200 dollars MSRP, you must wonder how much Intel gets for the Celeron 847 chip.</p>
<p>I read an article on Barrons that Intel is discounting i3s and i5s and that AMD is doing fire-sale stuff with their processors. Q4 is not looking good for PCs. The Celeron 847 launched in 2011 Q2 with a tray price of $134. They run at 1.1 Ghz and they look like ULV variants. Desktop Celerons boxed run $49 to $60 at Newegg. My guess is that Intel is getting around $30 for these things - probably a lot less than they’d like given the die size (most likely quite a bit bigger than Atoms). I’d figure about $40 for the disk, $20 for the memory, $20 for the motherboard. You have to do the screen, case, power supply, documentation, warranty, cloud space and still squeeze that into $200.</p>
<p>The specs on the hardware should make it find for running Windows. This is essentially a netbook with much better hardware specs at the same price.</p>
<p>Why would anyone want a laptop that gets 3.5 hours - claimed so actual may be less - when that laptop is basically for surfing the web and email? You can get a tablet that lasts at least a day.</p>
<p>I also wonder about the flip over laptops. The very last thing I want is to have a 3.5 lb tablet, which is what one I saw advertised on TV weighs. I don’t see a big market for that.</p>
<p>I’d guess that the Celeron runs rings around the ARM processors too. ARM processors are more in the Atom x86 class. The Celeron processor has big cache, PCIe and a lot of other stuff on board. The Celeron tray price in 2011 was $134. Compare that to about $30 for your typical ARM processor. Google must have struck quite a deal with Intel to be able to build a device for $200.</p>
<p>Have my new iPad 4 up and running. It is lovely … and I’m still very happy w/ Apple for letting me swap my “new iPad,” which is now referred to as iPad 3, for this new faster iPad 4 that has lightning connectors that match my iPhone5.</p>
<p>I thought I had a power or battery problem, but once I set my email to fetch instead of push, my poor little iPad (and iPhone5) stopped working so hard. Now my battery lasts a long time (days?). </p>
<p>I don’t need the mini because I have the iPhone5, and I didn’t get the 3G/4G/LTE iPad models as my iPhone5 can double as a hotspot if I need a wireless signal when I’m in the passenger seat of a car or a similar place that doesn’t have wireless. </p>
<p>I just switched to fetch - push is nicer because you get it instantly and battery life isn’t a huge issue (I have two charging cables, one at home and one in the office). I might get a third for the car or an external power pack.</p>