iPad vs. Android tablet

Microcontrolled

Can someone here give an evaluation of the iPad vs the Android tablet? A close family member has been mentioning for some time that they wanted an iPad, mainly for email, web shopping, and (of course) running apps. They recently saw the Android tablet (for $360 less) and wondered if it could do the same thing. The only obvious reason I saw that the Android tablet is NOT good enough is that the apps this person wants to run may not be available on the Android.

If someone can give an evaluation to help on this, it would be appreciated.
Oh, and this person (regrettably) has no concern for open-source, closed system, or other things that I and most others here care about. Otherwise this would have been an easy decision. :-)

Thanks,
Micro

Leon

I got a Dell Streak rather than an iPad because it is cheaper, it fits in my pocket, and has more facilities.

Mike Green

I don't have an iPad although I have an iPhone with the latest OS version and I use it for many things. I don't have an Android although I read a variety of reviews and other, more informal reviews.

The overwhelming opinion I've determined is that Android is not yet ready for tablet use while the iPad clearly is. As a consumer device (as opposed to a developer or experimenter's device), I think the iPad is considerably more mature and "better" than the Android. I don't think this will last forever and, as Android continues to be developed, it will probably achieve some kind of parity with the iPad. If you're going to buy a device now for consuming media off the web and from your personal collection, if you want something that you can use to do basic "office" applications now, the iPad is the way to go.

I use my iPhone for web surfing, for looking up all kinds of medical reference material, for reading (and a little composing) e-mail, for other sorts of reading on a limited scale (because of the small screen). I also use it as a phone and for listening to music and occasionally watching videos. I would have a difficult time doing without it. I think of the iPad as a larger version of the iPhone. It runs the same OS and the same applications. I wouldn't use the on-screen keyboard much ... I've tried it at the Apple store ... my accuracy and reliability with it isn't that great. There are wireless keyboards that you can now use with both the iPhone and the iPad that I'd prefer to use.

Oldbitcollector (Jeff)

I'm waiting for my Android, (it hasn't arrived yet) but I can tell you why I ordered it over the iPad. Price was the first issue, but not the total one.
iPad gives me the sense that once you purchase the device, you are buying an entrance to the Apple Store. With Android the apps appear to be open and freely available.

I could be proved wrong, but it has influenced my purchase.

OBC

icepuck

Too bad they weren't a programmer, you could point out some the programing options available to the android platform. that alone might change their mind. That in do time there will be a more verity of programs that aren't censored.
-dan

Leon

Android also has the excellent Swype keyboard system, which will probably never be available to Apple. I've been using the Streak Beta version for months, I hope that Dell will bundle it with the new version of the OS when it comes out.

Forrest

There's a reason the iPad is the best selling tablet - it has the largest screen, best performance and the most Apps available. Check the online reviews from any site if you don't believe me. There are thousands of free Apps for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch and there are thousands more in the $.99 to $1.99 price range.

WebheadFred

I have the iPod touch and the iPad. This post is from the iPad 3G and the keyboard is highly usable. I haven't used the android but the larger screen and larger 'keypad' make the iPad highly usable for surfing forums while on the go. My email stays on the server when I check it with the iPad and it's then available at home as well. I love it.

Regards,
Fred

localroger

I just got one of the cheap Chinese android tablets for $99 from eBay via erco's link here: http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?t=126539

The browser is very usable. I use web mail so all I care about is access to Yahoo's web mail interface, which is very usable. It is supplied with a breakout dongle that lets you use a USB keyboard, USB memory stick, and direct ethernet connection. The wifi works well (but it is a hassle to put in a hexadecimal WEP key since the on-screen keyboard has to be mode-switched between letters and numbers). I got a couple of must-have apps, including the task killer and statistics package, which help manage the rather limited battery life. Downloading android apps off the app store went seamlessly once I set up an account.

It did refuse to recognize the 4 gig uSD card I got for it, which worked in both my phone and USB adapter, so I just put the 4 gig USD in my phone and put the 2 gig from my phone in the pad. I am also having a bit of trouble getting it to connect to my MiFi 2200 3g-wifi bridge, but in fairness I had trouble with a hundred dollar AT&T access point too, so that's probably the MiFi.

The processor is a bit on the slow side for the screen, and switching from one app to another or from portrait to landscape display can take a second or two. I haven't tried watching video with it, but it would probably perform poorly. It runs some simple flash apps but crashes reliably on youtube (exiting gracefully to the OS, though, instead of resetting the whole device). There doesn't seem to be a PDF reader available of it. It's running Android v1.6, and the only apps I could find seem to require 2.1. Reports of upgrade success are mixed, and it has absolutely no identifying marks as to manufacturer or model -- I only know it's a Gome FlyTouch because Bill Henning said so here.

Oh, it shipped directly from China and the first time I opened the browser, the homepage was Google -- in Chinese.

All in all it's a neat little gizmo and I probably will download the free SDK and have a hand at programming it precisely because I can do so without a bunch of cost and hassle and I can distribute whatever I write to my friends without cost or hassle. No matter how good the iStuff is I have a real problem with the development model.

If I can get control of the serial port, which is broken out to pads inside the dongle but not to the outside world, it will become an extremely useful device at work since it's much more handy than the computers we normally use for serial comms troubleshooting.

wjsteele

Ok... here it goes from a true unbiased person. (I'm a Microsoft employee, but as a part of my job, I have several competitors products including the iPad and several Android devices.)

The iPad:

Pros:
Wonderful user interface.
Very crisp and precise.
Lots of Apps - most iPod/iPhone apps even run on it
Beautiful hardware design
iPod/iPhone Accessories mostly work (lots to choose from)

Cons:
Price
Size (large?)
Closed Store
Closed OS
No Flash/Silverlight
HTML 5 (Apple's version... not yet standards based.)
Lacks USB
Lacks Expansion
One Vendor


Android Tablet:

Pros:
Various Sizes
Multiple Vendors
Low Price (Caveat Emptor)
Flexible Development Environment
Multiple App Stores (good and bad?)
Open OS
Vendor Specific Customizations can be nice

Cons:
Multiple App Stores... only one "official" Google App store.
Unprotected OS... prone to abuse already
Some software vendors are having trouble with the OS being too open.
Fragmented OS arena (multiple versions out already)
Cheap Chinese Manufacturers for most (but not all!)
OS Not Designed for Tablet... but also not bad on mine.
Some Cheap units do not perform well. Go with a name brand!

These are just a few that I can think of... I'm sure there are more.

Personally, if I were choosing:

If it is for someone who is not computer literate and has the money... easily hands down I'd get the iPad. However, if the person was price conscious... then I'd go for a mid range Android tablet (like the Galaxy Tab.) If they're computer literate and price conscious... then definetly go for an Android device with a Capacitive screen... avoid the $99 units at all costs if they don't have it.

Bill

localroger

Sounds like good advice, wjsteele. I would say there is one very good use for the $99 tablet based on my experience with it -- if you need something to do basic browsing and email, or to run some specific app that you've written that works through the network, and it has to be disposable (*cough* TSA *cough*) because it might be seized or searched, then the pad might be just the thing. For frequent steady use, though, between the short battery life and resistive touchpad, yeah, it would probably be worth the upgrade to a better unit.

In my case, though, I probably wouldn't have ever bought a pad at all if this one hadn't been cheap enough to pique my curiosity. I may now be tempted to buy a better pad if I find some use for this one that really gets me wanting to use it a lot.

Adam Wiesler

I have not used an android tablet, but from what I have heard, the software is just not as usable as iOS. I do have an iPad though, and it is great. From a pure design/hardware standpoint, the iPad wins hands down. When you pick it up, you feel like it is going to last a long time, and not just be another piece of plastic with a resistive touch screen. The biggest problem is getting custom software on it, but I think Javascript and HTML5 will solve that problem in the future.

wjsteele

Adam,

Agreed... the iPad stands well above most of the Android devices.

However, not all the Android devices are that bad. Only the inexpensive ones. For example, the Dell Streak and Samsung Galaxy Tab are great devices from a usability and hardware standpoint. And they also have capacitive screens instead of the cheaper resistive touch ones.

I've actually got several Android devices, including the KMart Augen cheapie. That's equalivant to a door stop... honestly, it's about the worst piece of Smile out there... but there are some real gems in the lot as well.

Bill

Unknown

Microcontrolled wrote: »

Can someone here give an evaluation of the iPad vs the Android tablet? A close family member has been mentioning for some time that they wanted an iPad, mainly for email, web shopping, and (of course) running apps. They recently saw the Android tablet (for $360 less) and wondered if it could do the same thing. The only obvious reason I saw that the Android tablet is NOT good enough is that the apps this person wants to run may not be available on the Android.

A relative of mine owns the iPod touch which looks close to the iPhone. I don't like it because the screen is too small and my fingers are too big. It is hard to type on and I've had problems with message boards losing my messages or the cache.

Apps like Pandora are pretty cool.

I read about the iPhone teardown. It is epoxied together which makes it rugged but where do you get it fixed if something breaks? You probably don't unless you know how to remove epoxy.

It is like my Tom Tom that broke. I haven't figured out how to get it fixed because I didn't have a costly replacement plan. Putting all that money into something that can break might be for you but not for me.

Mike Green

The iPhone, like a lot of modern gadgets, isn't meant to be easy to repair. You need special training and special tools. Part of the reason is that they achieve their magic compactness by crowding everything together which makes things hard to disassemble and harder to reassemble. Part of the reason is that proper RF behavior of the phone requires that things be put together exactly right and with all the little plastic and metal foil bits stuck back into the right place.

Don M

I was checking out the Viewsonic 10" tablet at my local Staples store yesterday. The nice thing about it is that it has Android 2.2 installed. The Tap n tap GUI interface is very clunky and slow. The capacitive touch screen works very nice. It does not come with Gmail or Android Marketplace however there is a whole community out there that relishes hacking these devices and have come up with some great upgrades that allow you to install Gmail, flash and marketplace and make this unit pretty inviting.

The $399 price is a bit beyond what I feel comfortable with spending for something to hack around with but I may cave in.

If you want to look into this further here is a website for more information on hacking the tablets: http://forum.xda-developers.com/index.php?

wiretripper

I'll give you a not so analytical answer to your question. The iPad doesn't support flash, so web sites that rely on flash for its major functinality wont work with the iPad. The place where I work discovered this the hard way. Many of its advertisements rely on flash.

Heater.

wiretripper,

...iPad doesn't support flash.

I knew the iPad must have some good points:)