[James Malloch]

I'm looking to get a tablet to store Uni notes etc on so I can annotate them and transport them around a bit easier.

A friend has an 8" Samsung Note which looks great, but it's pretty pricey. Seems a good size though. The 7" tablets seem a reasonable amount smaller (from memory).

Anyone got any experience on these? Are the 7's a bit small?

Also, I've mainly looked at The Samsung Tab 3 and the Nexus models, purely because I've heard of them. Are there any other cheaper brands which are worth looking at?

Thanks!

[SA Chris]

http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php?topic=20557.50

[lagerstarfish]

We got a Nook HD+

9" decent screen (big enough for "keyboard" to feel useable for me), takes micro SD cards to 64GB meaning file transfer'storage is easy, bluetooth, feels nice to hold, microphone for recording voice notes

I think it's a dual core processor

majority of Google Play stuff works on it - this is an upgrade/unblocking from when they were first released - meaning it's a lot more useful than a Kindle Fire

really nice to read comics and watch films on

the kids love playing games on it - they are fairly intolerant of stuff that doesn't perform as it's meant to

£129 for the 16GB version

get one from John Lewis and you get a 2 year guarantee

doesn't have a camera, GPS, gyroscope (does have accelerometer) or compass

Blackwells and John Lewis have some on display to play with

they also do a 7" for £79 - I think it's a less good procesor, but nice screen and it takes micro SD cards

[lagerstarfish]

oh - and it can be set up with several user profiles - adult and kids

only really useful to limit what the kids can mess up, install and uninstall

in the adult profiles, log on details for for Outlook, Chrome etc are saved to the tablet itself rather than separate profiles - I get round the problem of messing up each others accounts by assigning different browsers to each account


the data/charging cable is not a standard cable and it only comes with one

[SA Chris]

No consultancy fee for recommendation?

[Evil]

I've got a Google Nexus 7" tablet. I think if I was going to be making a lot of notes on it, I'd want to plug a keyboard into it or buy a stylus, which I've not done, so can't offer any opinion on how well they work. I find the touchscreen keyboard quite slow for long typing on, but I think that holds for all tablets. 

I'm pleased with it as a tablet. It's quick, runs proper non-cut down android (unlike for example the Kindle Fire). I've done a little android programming and used it for testing. It's easy to find help online for doing whatever you want as it's a popular tablet. I think they're cheaper than the Samsung stuff (or at least they were when I bought one).

[Paul B]

I've got a Google Nexus 7" tablet. I think if I was going to be making a lot of notes on it, I'd want to plug a keyboard into it or buy a stylus, which I've not done, so can't offer any opinion on how well they work. I find the touchscreen keyboard quite slow for long typing on, but I think that holds for all tablets. 

You do know (the Nexus 7 II) keyboard has swype style functions? I didn't notice until I dragged my finger a lazily.

[slackline]

They all should since Google are modularising everything including the Google Keyboard.


Nexus devices should be receiving updates to Android 4.4 this week (some people with Nexus 7 devices have already received them).

[Evil]

You do know (the Nexus 7 II) keyboard has swype style functions? I didn't notice until I dragged my finger a lazily.

Yeah, I've also got the phone, so I also use it on that, but I still find it slower than normal typing, and much more prone to wrong words, as there are swype combinations which could be a number of words, and the one it chooses is not always what you mean...I need to check my text messages more carefully before hitting send!

[lagerstarfish]

No consultancy fee for recommendation?

I'm on a % for this one, so no direct fee to the buyer

[slackline]

Move thread to Computers, technology & internet?

[Bubba]

[gmod]I've merged this into the existing topic that tackles this subject[/gmod]

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

If you're not bothered about having the latest version Argos has the original Nexus 7 for £129 which is basically free for something that good.
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Search/searchTerms/1079061.htm?tag=ar:search:nexus46

Confusingly they don't call it MkI or 2012, but don't be fooled into thinking it is the new version...
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/1388381.htm

[magpie]

I've got a Nexus 7, I like it and it works well for surfing the net and general messing about but if I had the choice I would go for the bigger size, I find the & a bit small for watching films / tv.

[slackline]

Thats easily solved, just hold it closer.

[underground]

A question about Google parental controls / safesearch on Android:

Just collected and spent all night messing with a Tesco Hudl, very cheap with clubcard and so on, gets good reviews and seems to be a good bit of kit after a few hours - which is Android 4.2.2 apparently - and my main goal was to set up Strict safesearch, which I thought I did by activating when logged in to my account, locking, then logging out. Google tells me this will also apply to youtube (which is my daughter's main focus at the moment, one direction) yet I can still see Eminem ' Rap God (Explicit) as one of the suggested videos (incidentally on evidence of that, he isn't, in any way, 8 mile was a blip). I can also see the beheading videos, which I've not looked at but I'm pretty sure will play. That was through Chrome pages and the youtube app.

My concerns are (notwithstanding the device itself), is this right (i.e is something wrong with Google) - tried it with my own account and a new one specifically for this?  Can any kid using tablet owners offer their advice on how to stop this? Am I being too worried? Daughter currently borrows her mum's 15" laptop to look at youtube so we can have an idea of what's being played - the concern is she'll be able to slip a 7" device into bed and maybe stay up all night looking at filth / depravity, just by being led from the homepages. Yet, friends at work have bought their 4 and 5 year old kids Kindle HDs and all the rest and obviously haven't worried about it. I just do.

In retrospect the Nook HD+ looks ace - initially rejected for lack of camera but previous experience shows that any camera device would end up with 9000 shit pictures in an hour and I'd have to sort it out... She's 9 by the way.

What I don't want to do so much is have to create a whitelist, as that defeats the point of providing a tool to research stuff, she obviously wants to look at youtube, and I particularly don't want to have to enter a pin or personally monitor (too closely) what's being looked at. Maybe I had too much faith in safesearch and integration across Google apps.

Oh, and - there's no way I can find of creating an admin account even though admin accounts are viewable in settings...

Currently I'm thinking along the lines of using a kiddie app only allowing wikipedia and the youtube one direction channel, and hoping for the work to come when she gets back into SFA, Gorky's, Futureheads and Jazzanova.

Most likely solution is sending it straight back to Tesco.

[lagerstarfish]

on Youtube, have you switched the "safety switch" on?

it's at the bottom of the page

bollocks, just realised that this is on the PC, but this is on Go Ogle support site

Safety Mode is available on mobile and the YouTube app through the use of the SafeSearch functionality.

with the little kids profiles on the Nook I haven't allowed access to anything that can be used for searching (or viewing my comics) - they can use apps and watch media from their memory card. the 13 yr old is simply not allowed to take the tablet upstairs, although I'm sure that the rest of year 9 share enough filth at school to satisfy her curiosity. Besides, as soon as the little kids are in bed or out of the house she leaps towards the PC to play Skyrim

you can have a drive of my Nook HD+ if you want Underground - the separate profiles thing isn't quite as great as it initially sounds for mulitple users, but you can effectively have a password protected "admin" type setup to control what the child profiles can use

[Johnny Brown]

the concern is she'll be able to slip a 7" device into bed and maybe stay up all night looking at filth / depravity,

My wife insists on turning the wifi off at night. Admittedly this is to 'stop the wireless giving us cancer', but it should serve your purposes too.

[lagerstarfish]

the small risk of cancer is worth it for the increase in knowledge that you get from leaving the wireless on overnight

[SamT]

My wife insists on turning the wifi off at night. Admittedly this is to 'stop the wireless giving us cancer', but it should serve your purposes too.

But that would stop UG looking at filth and depravity all night after hours.   

In a freaky parallel world kind of way - I too have just bought two uber cheap (£60 each with vouchers)  Hudl's  from Tesco's having finally caved into the fact that the all the boys friends do actually have tablets at home and we are being horrifically antiquated draconian Luddites by denying them access to one.

I spent a little while late last night setting them up, but haven't quite got round to setting up the parental controls yet.  My 7 year old is starting to come home from school with suggestions of things to look up from other boys (i.e. the ones with older brothers).  'Postman Pat swearing' was yesterdays treat.  So now 7 year old is teaching 6 year old the F word.   

(mind you - they hear that from me most mornings on sharrow head roundabout )

So - just had a quick play on youtube and turned on the saftey button on.  Lo and behold, Postman Pat swearing still comes up , as does a rather filthy version of Fireman Sam as a suggested video.  Well done Youtube    )

Suddenly regretting buying the Hudl's as pressies for them now and perhaps some Victorian household values.

Oh well, guess they'll be watching bukkake bondage scat videos before they're ten 

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

Not that I'm a big fan of strict internet filtering, more an advocate of educating kids from a young age about the types of stuff out there. (as someone suggested, you can't filter what they get exposed to in the play ground). That said I can see it is useful in the home. The best way I have found is get yourself a Netgear router with LPC, this applies a filter at router level so any connected device is filtered. Live parental controls uses OpenDNS as a filtering caste. This is used by a lot of US schools. The free version has four levels of filter, strict, one that lets in social stuff then lower ones for just malware etc. You can time accounts so for example daughter could be allowed on FB after homework time. Also bypass accounts for 'grown ups'. Not sure if it would partially block YouTube or totally block it.

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

They start around £40

[slackline]

'Postman Pat swearing' was yesterdays treat.

Postman Pat or Boro Pat?

[Jaspersharpe]

In a freaky parallel world kind of way - I too have just bought two uber cheap (£60 each with vouchers)  Hudl's  from Tesco's having finally caved into the fact that the all the boys friends do actually have tablets at home and we are being horrifically antiquated draconian Luddites by denying them access to one.

Fuck that. Access to one maybe (like lagers is doing) but I see absolutely no need for our nearly 7 year old to have his own tablet / phone or whatever. Not having a go at you btw Sam, just the idea that every kid should have one.

He gets to play games etc on our phones, uses the laptop for other stuff and seems happy with that (despite occasionally mentioning that some of his friends have their own iPods etc). He loves playing on tablets when he gets his hands on one but just plays the same games as on the phone on a bigger screen.

Surely giving a little kid their own device just increases their frustration when you ration their time using it. Taking your phone back making more sense to a small person's mind than taking "their" toy off them.

Yet, friends at work have bought their 4 and 5 year old kids Kindle HDs and all the rest and obviously haven't worried about it.

Did you ask them why though Jim? Honestly, I'm not a total luddite but a four year old should be reading a fucking book for fuck's sake. Sorry, this subject winds me up.

[SamT]

Like I say - starting to regret it (I was seduced by the fact that a: I've been hankering after one b:they get good reviews and yet with vouchers, they are practically free c: the kids constantly pester for one like their mates have got).

We just keep going to other kids houses where their kids are playing on their tablets, DS lites, Wii's, PS3's  etc  etc, non of which we have, where we respect the parents and have fallen into the trap of thinking we were being a bit harsh on them.

The Boys get half and hour each on the laptop a day, and occasionally my phone (such as swimming lessons when one is in the pool and the other waiting - they get the last 15mins on the phone out of half hour lesson, providing they've done their reading in the first 15 minutes)

We of course have every intention of limiting their use. (yeerrr - that'll last wont it  ).