Android tablets vs ereaders (kindle, ect)

[wafool]

I was thinking about getting my girlfriend a kindle for christmas, until I started looking at the cost of a kindle versus any other cheap tablet on the market. Kindle would be a $150 device that as far as I can tell, is only really good at reading ebooks. I have a motorola Droid and I love it, and I see there is a kindle app for android for free. Quickly looking around, I see that there are some android 2.1 tablets for around $170, so why even buy a kindle at all when you can get the kindle software on a fully functional android os tablet?

Now I'm familiar with buying PC's and parts for PC's, I know what brands to look for. But the companies with android tabs on the market right now are companies that I've never heard of. At a glance, this thing ( Android 2.1 Tablet PC-aPad-MID-7 TFT Touch Screen-ARM 11-Telechips 8902B-720MHZ-256 DDR2-2G-Wifi-Camera(SMQ5821 ) - US$ 169.99) looks pretty darn good up front, and once loaded with kindle I think it would be perfect. This is after only a day of research, so I thought I'd see what the community thinks. If you guys were going to buy an android tablet for around or preferably under 200 bucks that has to be released and available before christmas, what would guy guys grab?

 

[A.Nonymous]

From what I've heard, the lower end tablets are crap in general. You kind of get what you pay for. I have a Kindle and love it. To me, it's got several advantages over a tablet. It's much lighter. The screen can be seen in bright sunlight with no glare. The screen looks nicer. It's battery life is measured in weeks, not hours. Now, it can't do email, Internet, apps and a number of other things that you can do with a tablet, so you really have to measure the pros and cons and figure out what you want. For a strict e-reader, I'd rather have a Kindle than an Android tablet for the reasons I listed above.

 

[abhishes]

I own a kindle. and I feel the biggest value add of kindle is the e-ink interface.

I personally find that very relaxing on the eye (others may differ in opinion)

So there is no comparison between a tablet and e-ink.... if you like to read and read a lot and find backlight as an eye strain then e-ink is for you.

if you want touch interface, apps, browsing and little bit of reading (or are very comfortable reading LCD/LED) then go with tablet (cheap or otherwise)

 

[wafool]

After a bit more research, I am starting to see problems with the under 200 dollar tablets, and I guess this is the fragmentation that apple likes to make fun of. Instead of access to the android app market, these cheaper android devices give you access to their own crappy brand of market. Who wants to get apps from the Cruz market? I've found that basically unless you see the android market icon on the home screen in the pictures of the device, it's because the makers of the device don't want you to know that you only get access to their own crummy selection of apps. Might have to up my price point, and I think I'll also have to limit my search to devices that I can get my hands on and play with before making a purchase. Twould be a sad christmas day when she tries to go the android market only to find out that she is instead shopping in Proprietary Store X and they want 6 bucks for their KendleX ereader.

 

[sideh]

Lack of android market on some of those tablets really annoys me. I was looking for a tablet and settled on an archos but it comes with something called appslib instead of the proper market. Would have bought it there and then had it not been for that.

The only viable options I see is the samsung tab which is way too pricey atm.

 

[A.Nonymous]

You can play with the Kindle and other e-readers at Best Buy. Personally I'd stick with an e-reader that's associated with a big retailer like BN or Amazon rather than a 3rd party reader just because it's easier to buy books for it.

 

[Martimus]

After a bit more research, I am starting to see problems with the under 200 dollar tablets, and I guess this is the fragmentation that apple likes to make fun of. Instead of access to the android app market, these cheaper android devices give you access to their own crappy brand of market. Who wants to get apps from the Cruz market? I've found that basically unless you see the android market icon on the home screen in the pictures of the device, it's because the makers of the device don't want you to know that you only get access to their own crummy selection of apps. Might have to up my price point, and I think I'll also have to limit my search to devices that I can get my hands on and play with before making a purchase. Twould be a sad christmas day when she tries to go the android market only to find out that she is instead shopping in Proprietary Store X and they want 6 bucks for their KendleX ereader.

One of the major reasons for the "fragmentation" that you speak of is that Google does not yet officially support Android tablets. Matter of fact there's some concern that Google's long term position towards tablets will be that they run Chrome OS rather than Android. Hopefully Google's position on tablets will become clearer as we get closer to the official release of Android "Gingerbread" to the retail market.

 

[mc48]

Kindle? why would you want a kindle when you can get a nook for basically the same price ($149 or less for the wifi) and not have a closed proprietary system like the Kindle. You can sideload any epub or pdf file to the Nook. The Barnes & Noble Nook IS android based and it is a great little e-ink e-reader. There is a wifi and a wifi/3G version. the Nook has a color touchscreen and web access as well although it is not very practicable for much web surfing.

And the Nook Color is out this week. It has a full color lcd touchscreen (as opposed to e-ink). It is harder on your eyes for serious reading than the e-ink version (and thus harder on the battery) but is good for reading children's picture books and the like, magazines, manga and graphic novels, comic books. You can surf the web, check emails, facebook, etc. It is basically a smaller iPad at about $249.

 

[slbailey1]

I own a kindle. and I feel the biggest value add of kindle is the e-ink interface.

I personally find that very relaxing on the eye (others may differ in opinion)

So there is no comparison between a tablet and e-ink.... if you like to read and read a lot and find backlight as an eye strain then e-ink is for you.

if you want touch interface, apps, browsing and little bit of reading (or are very comfortable reading LCD/LED) then go with tablet (cheap or otherwise)

Also the battery life on the Kindle is great! That and the e-ink comes in handy when I read non-stop, except for maybe 8-10 hours, between Friday night and Monday morning.

 

[A.Nonymous]

Also the battery life on the Kindle is great? That and the e-ink come in handy when I read non-stop, except for maybe 8-10 hours, between Friday night and Monday morning.

I can get a week easily with wi-fi turned on. With wi-fi off, battery life is 2-3 weeks easily.

 

[slbailey1]

Kindle? why would you want a kindle when you can get a nook for basically the same price ($149 or less for the wifi) and not have a closed proprietary system like the Kindle. You can sideload any epub or pdf file to the Nook. The Barnes & Noble Nook IS android based and it is a great little e-ink e-reader. There is a wifi and a wifi/3G version.

You can sideload any pdf file to the Kindle. You can also sideload any non-DRM eBook, once converted, to the Kindle. Calibre is a great eBook Management System and it's open source and free. All you do it set your default convert format, mine is Kindle; add any non-DRM eBook to the Calibre library, ePub, LIT, PDF, etc; and with one click of a button it will convert your book, except for PDFs, to the default format and copy it to your eReader, mine is the Kindle!

The Kindle has a wifi and a wifi/3G version also.

I'm reading a book, I don't need color for words!

 

[slbailey1]

Kindle? why would you want a kindle when you can get a nook for basically the same price ($149 or less for the wifi) and not have a closed proprietary system like the Kindle.

Yes, B&N books are ePub books; but they are DRM protected books. You cannot purchase a B&N book and load it to another eReader that reads ePub books.

 

[A.Nonymous]

And the Nook Color is out this week. It has a full color lcd touchscreen (as opposed to e-ink). It is harder on your eyes for serious reading than the e-ink version (and thus harder on the battery) but is good for reading children's picture books and the like, magazines, manga and graphic novels, comic books. You can surf the web, check emails, facebook, etc. It is basically a smaller iPad at about $249.

Last time I checked, you couldn't check emails or Facebook on the Nook Color. It has a web browser, but that is it.

 

[Hajile_Ibushi]

After a bit more research, I am starting to see problems with the under 200 dollar tablets, and I guess this is the fragmentation that apple likes to make fun of. Instead of access to the android app market, these cheaper android devices give you access to their own crappy brand of market. Who wants to get apps from the Cruz market? I've found that basically unless you see the android market icon on the home screen in the pictures of the device, it's because the makers of the device don't want you to know that you only get access to their own crummy selection of apps. Might have to up my price point, and I think I'll also have to limit my search to devices that I can get my hands on and play with before making a purchase. Twould be a sad christmas day when she tries to go the android market only to find out that she is instead shopping in Proprietary Store X and they want 6 bucks for their KendleX ereader.

There seems to be quite a bit of confusion regarding the android market.

It's not actually integrated into the OS. It's just another executable like any other app. Putting it in is no different from you downloading a utility off the internet and running it on your PC. No hacking or rooting needed.

This isn't the iPad. Android tablets aren't locked down.

 

[ArthurIhde]

i have ordered one thanks

 

[gamul1]

Or, you can get the upcoming Adam tablet from Notion Ink, which has a dual screen technology for both full color LCD and an eInk style screen for reading in full day light. Yes - its more expensive at around $500 but with this thing you will not want anything else.
Notion Ink Adam

 

[dbpaddler]

Yeah. You can't buy into Jobs' hype because every bargain asian manufacturer sees dollar signs. Not google's fault corporate greed has them ignore their warning about the OS not being ready, and you can't blame them for low quality crap like with old and slow ARM processors and low res resistive screens. Blame the consumer trying to get something for nothing, willing to buy the crap.

One of the major reasons for the "fragmentation" that you speak of is that Google does not yet officially support Android tablets. Matter of fact there's some concern that Google's long term position towards tablets will be that they run Chrome OS rather than Android. Hopefully Google's position on tablets will become clearer as we get closer to the official release of Android "Gingerbread" to the retail market.

 

[abhishes]

This is a good point, does anyone know which Android version would officially support a tablet?

Yeah. You can't buy into Jobs' hype because every bargain asian manufacturer sees dollar signs. Not google's fault corporate greed has them ignore their warning about the OS not being ready, and you can't blame them for low quality crap like with old and slow ARM processors and low res resistive screens. Blame the consumer trying to get something for nothing, willing to buy the crap.

 

[dbpaddler]

I thought honeycomb was supposed to be the official one that was tablet ready, but I think gingerbread brings more to the table than froyo. Think they're rushing to get gingerbread dual core ready at least since the Nexus S will be dual core.

 

[mindwave]

personally i dont see what the big deal about market place is.

android is OSS as is many of their better apps. I admint some of the things you may want may ONLY be available through then market place (Epocrates for example) BUT there are STILL ways to get them if you have to have them.

J

 

[dbpaddler]

The big deal about the marketplace is it's seamless, integrated and just works. Something the masses want in a convenience luxury type product. We might be able to handle workarounds, but the general public wants something that just works, hence the iphone and ipad are so successful.

 

[wafool]

Lots of good insight here, though I am still somewhat torn. Mainly because of the versions of Android that are on certain products. Keep in mind that I personally wouldn't have any problem rooting an android device and making it do what I want it to do, I've already done that on my phone and if I really screw up and brick an android device, it's only my product and cash out the window. This is for my girlfriend who isn't really tech saavy and I don't think she would even want me screwing around with the thing.

That said, I have been to B&N and checked out their Nook Color which right now is looking pretty good. I do not like how B&N tried to lock it down. Now I didn't see it booting up or anything, and the person there to answer questions was probably in her 60's and knew all about reading books on the thing, but I got deer in the headlights whenever I asked a technical question relating to the OS. I got to play with it for about 2 minutes since it was crowded, and what worried me about it is the lack of a "home screen". My only exposure to android on my phone, thats what I'm used to but pretty much all android devices follow the model of home screen. I was told that the home screen on the nook is simply what you get when you press the tab at the bottom. That pops up just a few options. There were settings, ereader, extras, and web. Maybe one more that I'm forgetting. She told me that was the home screen. Under extras it had music player, pandora, and a few other things. It seemed pretty barren for an Android device and the little old lady couldn't really answer my questions. I might have to swing by best buy and get a somewhat techie view on the thing.

What I'd like to know is what version of android is it running and does it get OS updates?
Does it come with Flash or can it get flash without needing someone familiar with the ins and outs of the os to play with the thing? Can it play videos, though more importantly, can it play videos that are shared on another computer? Again I saw no market place where someone can get easy access to apps and features like flash or media players.

I also really really really hate to say it, but for the purposes of this gift, Apples iPad looks real good, if not for the price point. I swore some time ago that apple products would not infiltrate my home, but good, solid, feature rich tablets on a solid OS seems to have a huge gap in the consumer market right now. It's either the universal, always supported, always updated iPad; or some other brands Android tablet that could be stuck running 1.6 with no flash support, no market support, and no plans for updates.

Sometimes I hate technology.

 

[Mangomann]

...and the person there to answer questions was probably in her 60's...and the little old lady couldn't really answer my questions.

I ran into the same "deer in the headlights" lack of knowledge re: the Nook Color from a B&N employee who was on the near side of his twenties. He barely even knew how to navigate the thing.

That bias about older generations & tech stuff is a throwback to the past decades that we've hung onto long past its relevancy. It ignores the demographics of today's Facebook user. It ignores the reality that Wozniak himself is 60.