Tablets, Tablets, Tablets

[Brad]

Regarding orientation, the android tablets are a 16:9 aspect ratio whereas the iPad is 4:3 I think (or close to that). It just seems more natural to use the ipad in either orientation whereas android tablets just feel weird in portrait.

[egparadigm]

Ah, yes, that makes sense.

[dvdx2]

I have both an asus and ipad and the ipad wins hand down for screen, responsiveness, weight etc etc

[charlesr]

Regarding orientation, the android tablets are a 16:9 aspect ratio whereas the iPad is 4:3 I think (or close to that). It just seems more natural to use the ipad in either orientation whereas android tablets just feel weird in portrait.

Weird. I'm totally the opposite. The ipad mini I browse in landscape (never portrait), but the Nexus 7 I browse in portrait (because it's thin enough to hold in one hand i.e. with thumb on one edge and fingers on the other). All the literature and adverts have them portrait too. And the camera is well placed (in the top middle) for skype and that.

[Brad]

^^^^ weirdo! lol.

[egparadigm]

Went into Apple shop and asked some complicated questions of them.

OS takes up 3GB, which I hadn't thought about previously. So real space is likely to be 12GB, notwithstanding future updates to iOS. They suggested it a question of how much management of space I was happy to undertake. They felt my intended use of reading probably meant that 16GB should be more than sufficient.

Cloud storage may help with this. From what I understood the Cloud is more like a DRM thing which, rather than storing copies of your magazines, etc, in fact stores your access to re-download them from suppliers? What is DRM like on an iPad? Is it linked to your Apple account or tied to the pad itself?

I also asked them about sharing files with an iPad. Syncing seems like the simplest option, although I'm not sure how easy it is to do in practise. They also suggested sharing via dropbox – which seems pretty stupid to me (having to upload and then download a file?!)

I also compared the screen on the iPad Air with an iPad 2 – I didn't see anything that worried me, thankfully.

[wakka]

Weird. I'm totally the opposite. The ipad mini I browse in landscape (never portrait), but the Nexus 7 I browse in portrait (because it's thin enough to hold in one hand i.e. with thumb on one edge and fingers on the other). All the literature and adverts have them portrait too. And the camera is well placed (in the top middle) for skype and that.

I think a 7 inch tablet in 16:9 is OK. It's when you're dealing with 10 inch tablets that it becomes ridiculous when they're 16:9 vertical.

[charlesr]

16GB should be fine for light usage. Only if you are trying to store many photos or vids it will be a problem.

Your apple account will be transferable between devices. e.g. if you buy a mag to read on the ipad, you can read it on an iPhone too.

Sharing files on an iPad requires you to install iTunes on your PC or Mac and then sync (during which iTunes converts everything to Apple formats. There is no drag and drop. When I went on holiday (before I had the Nexus), I wanted to take the iPad for quick viewing of photos from my camera, but to achieve this, I had to buy ?20 SD card reader cable. ?20! And I had to take the card out of the camera to do this. I have no idea why Apple users put up with this stuff. So the next holiday (by which time I had got too annoyed with the iPad and got a Nexus), just took the Nexus which connects to the camera with a USB cable without having to remove the SD card. Over which I could also drag and drop films off my PC before leaving without having to install any software or spend any time converting.

[egparadigm]

My Dad bought a WiFi SD card for my Mum's Camera – it uses an app on the iPad to sync. Pretty stupid, all round.

The only thing that concerns me here is that I'm thinking about possibly feeding photos from my android phone to iPad for Hipstamatic... Maybe a dropbox solution is simplest. This may be a stupid idea, but I would like the superior image files.

I quite like the idea of having one iOS and one Android device, although I wonder if I'll have it the wrong way round...

[wakka]

I use one Android device and one iOS device. Just use platform agnostic services (Dropbox, Spotify, Netflix, etc) and you're golden

[CMcK]

What do you mean when you say the screen is calibrated? Monitors need to be calibrated every few weeks in order to maintain colour consistency.

Apple calibrates the screens in the factory for accurate colour reproduction. I don't think monitors need to be recalibrated so frequently as you mentioned.
I had Lyris calibrate consumer TVs, both CRT and LCD, and they are still ok months later.

[EvilBoris]

There are free apps you can get for both android and iOS devices that allow you to transfer photos across wifi.
e.g.

http://phototransferapp.com

this would save you needing to have an internet connection on both devices and would be quicker.

The other option is to get the USB adapter and connect your Android device as a mass storage device and copy the photos from the phone to the tablet.

Apple's DRM is unusually flexible, it is tied to the account . There is nothing to stop you logging in on a friend's device and redownloading games or apps for them to use on their machine too.

iCloud does storage both your purchases and it physically uploads files and stores them, any images or externally synced music on your iPad will be backed up to the cloud, as are contacts and certain documents stored on the iPad. All App settings are also stored on iCloud.
You get a 5GB free, but I turn mine off for many things as it quickly fills up and constantly prompts you to buy more.

[egparadigm]

Thanks for all the info, Boris. Is it possible, then, to use mass storage to back up files? I mean, can you use USB sticks as well as connecting a phone? Didn't know this was any kind of option. Do you have to copy files to the iPad before you can use them?

Apple calibrates the screens in the factory for accurate colour reproduction. I don't think monitors need to be recalibrated so frequently as you mentioned.
I had Lyris calibrate consumer TVs, both CRT and LCD, and they are still ok months later.

It depends how critical the colours are. For editing photographs it is so. I actually only do it once a month when working on photography. Colours do shift over time – the longer the display goes without calibration the bigger the shift.

However, of course, a once-calibrated screen is better than one that never has been.

[smouty]

I have an ipad and a Hudl (Tesco) android tablet for ebook reading and they both have their pro and cons.
The Hudl for ?60 with clubcard vouchers is an absolute bargain.
You should be able to use BTsync to copy data between devices securely.

[kryss]

Nexus 7, 7FHD (2013 model) and 10 here.

Resolution upgrade on the newer 7 is immense. I use it for everything and my 10 get neglected a lot these days. If there's an update for the 10 I will certainly be getting that and using my 2012 n10 for school instead of my 2012 n7. I use ES FileExplorer to transfer photos wirelessly from my PC as it supports SAMBA file transfer protocol. I also use it to stream video in MX Player as well. I'll admit to using Dropbox to upload from my tablet but the cameras on the n7 FHD do suck, with the n10 not being much better. I thought the n10 supported HDR like the n4/n5 do but I was apparently mistaken.

I saw a book on camera apps for tablets. I laughed as I walked away from it.

The SwiftKey/Swype stuff that Charlesr is talking about is actually mimicked by recent updates to the Android Keyboard btw.