I need advice regarding buying an iPad or Android tablet, I know I have to have a good idea of the uses I intend to purchase it for, and I summed them up here:

1- Education: iBooks will soon come with College books support, so this will make my uni life easier, also, pdf files are supported and Microsoft is to launch an office suit for iPad. (Am I right or not?) so iPad beats Andorid here.

2- Movies: my main concern here is storage, Android comes with microSD slots that allow me up to 64gb extra space! which is amazing for movies as well many of the movie file types are fully supported so no need for long time conversions, iPad 64gb version is really expensive especially that I am looking  to buy the 4G supported pad. Is there a way I can increase the capacity of my iPad? cloud services needs subscriptions and fast internet, wireless hard drives? Any idea?

Everything else shouts iPad in my mind, except for storage, I even find the UI for Andorid a little better than iPad, but still buying an iPad is like owning a Ferrari and it keeps its value well for reselling, it is toughly built with great metallic finishing, but it lacks interest in the STORAGE department.

Any replies would be helpful…

How do you like them Apples?

Herp Derp

Where it says that Apple contended that the Tegra 3 had 1x the graphics power of the A5X, does that mean the Tegra 3 is 1x more powerful than the A5X in Graphics? Please help me, is it saying the Tegra 3 or the A5X is more powerful? Or is it saying they’re equally matched????

Thanks Slashgear

Though other standard formats also exist but those are used rarely and mostly for artistic purposes.

Leaving the vast majority of everything from novels to magazines to fall into the general 4:3 aspect range for page by page viewing.

Really, aside from watching wide screen movies and such there isn’t really much that actually needs a 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratio.

While most of these tablets are too small to comfortably read two pages side by side, at least all the time, and besides it’s more normal to read one page at a time unless it deals with something like artwork or photos that span pages.

Prior to these HD resolution screens also meant lower pixel when a 16:9/16:10 was used in portrait mode versus a 4:3 screen, along with being forced to reformat the page layout or zooming. While not all digital text is easily converted.

Not to say that the iPad is all that great either for reading. Bright backlit displays can mess up your internal time sense and keep you from sleeping properly for example. While our eyes are less strained by reflected text that better simulates normal paper and text reading.

Just that the iPad uses the 4:3 aspect for a reason and others use the 16::9/16:10 ratios for their own reasons.

Neither is a perfect solution, with both having their own strengths and weaknesses depending on what they are being used for but that’s the general consensus of where they generally fall into.

 Besides, we’re more likely to see hybrids like the Asus Transformer.  MS even recently put forth a patent request for a dock design that would turn a tablet literally into a laptop or even desktop when docked by switching to a more powerful processor when docked and is more easily implemented with existing technology.

Not to mention physical keyboards not only provide tactile feedback but physical movement that makes tapping them less strenuous than even a touch screen with haptic feedback.  Along with being easier to replace and giving more screen real estate than an overlay keyboard…

Also, you’re more likely to not need a adapter for a Android device than for an iPad due to Android devices more likely having things like USB ports build in, which can make such peripheral usage a bit easier and more practical.

Of course it also depends on how much a given user will use such peripherals and other factors such as whether they prefer iOS or Android, but that’s why it’s generally good that we all have choices.

For regular Apple consumers, the former could be preferable.  Especially if they make a point of going to an Apple store and having one of their so called specialists explain everything to them.

While version number may be preferable for non-regular Apple consumers.  However, that too may be confusing when one model only has few changes over the previous model and only one or two of them are really significant changes.  Especially if the newer model is not necessarily better at everything.

Like the new iPad taking a lot longer to charge than the iPad 2 for example.  While most version changes that have been done before included more significant changes like going from a A4 to A5, mind that the new iPad is just a modified A5X and Apple still has plans for the A6 and that may be what they are saving the “3″ for…  Just like they did with the iPhone by naming the last one the 4S instead of the 5.  Or like the iPod they may prefer switching to “Gen” reference instead.

And that’s not even considering privacy and security concerns with cloud storage…

However, not everyone can abide by how strict Apple controls their products and/or the usage limitations they impose on their device designs.  OS like Android are in large part intended for a different kind of core consumer base than iOS.  So opinions will vary but still be valid as there is no perfect solution that will fit everyone’s needs perfectly and all solutions also include different kinds of compromises.

While opinions should also be tempered with the fact that part of Apple’s present dominance is simply due to the fact they started earlier than the others, with a significant period of virtually no competition, and haven’t had to deal with all the issues of a more open market/business model that the rest of the ARM market represents.  However, real competition is starting to become apparent and market momentum only lasts so long.  While it’s also still many versus one against Apple holding onto that dominance for more than another year or two.

Never mind whether the upcoming desktop OS options will prove to be a game changer or not for the mobile market and effect the future of both Android and iOS.  After all, mobile OS were created because of the need caused by insufficient performance of mobile devices to run more powerful software but when the typical pocket device can run a desktop OS then it becomes questionable how long we will continue to use limited mobile OS.  Though how well any of those desktop OS will work on mobile devices for convenience and UI efficiency remains to be proved to be good enough or not but if nothing else don’t expect the market to stay the way it is for much longer past this year.

So the upcoming GT will mainly just provide roughly the same pixel density but provide a wider and larger screen that’s better for watching movies.  While the iPad 4:3 ratio is better for things like e-reading.

The configuration of Exynos 5250 chipset with a 2GHz, 32nm, Mali-T604, dual core CPU and 2GB of RAM with a memory bandwidth of 12.8 GB/s though would provide it higher specs than the new iPad but it’s unknown yet when Samsung will release it.

Though being a 32nm FAB, which incidentally has already produced samples, means it’s more likely to be out pretty soon.  Unlike the other Cortex A15 solutions that are waiting on 28nm productions.

There is also the question of weight and run time.  Since the high resolution screen and more powerful GPU performance also increases power consumption. 

For example, the new iPad achieves roughly the same run time as the previous iPad 2 by increasing the battery capacity from 25WHr to 42WHr.  However, this means it takes longer to charge, up to 7 hours when off and up to 18 hours when charging while in use.  So unlike the iPad 2, you can’t count on a 15-20 minute charge to get you through the day of even light usage anymore.

While continuous movie watching will only last you up to around 8 hours and while not getting too hot it does run warmer than the iPad 2 when pushed.

The higher resolution screen also means more work load for the system.  So that partly counters the benefit of the improved graphics as well.  While the 4x claim of being better than the Tegra 3 is a bit exaggerated.  Since comparisons to the iPad 2, which is included in the claim have already been made and those show that the Imagination PowerVR GPU isn’t that much better at everything.  It’s mainly things like Texture rendering that the Tegra 3 gets close to that much of a difference but other things like shaders aren’t that deficient for the Tegra 3.

Though being based on Cortex A15 means there is a good chance that at least most of the performance will be more power efficient for the Exynos 5250 than the Apple A5X, but depending on when it gets released Apple could counter with their upcoming A6, but it also depends on how competitive Samsung and others will get with pricing as to whether Apple will get pressured to release the next iteration earlier than originally intended for now.

There are of course other similar high end offerings coming out from other companies as well.  So if nothing else the tablet market should get much more interesting soon.  Especially with desktop OS like Windows 8 and Ubuntu Linux, and others, coming out before the end of the year.

Will this always be the case?  I doubt it.  Google has released user experience guidelines for Android and developers continue to get better at optimizing to the ever changing range of Android devices.  This being a significant part of the challenge.  The variance in screen resolutions has an impact.  I’ve run across several apps on the Note that don’t work well with the resolution of the device for example.

But as of now the iPad, especially the new iPad, is the best experience I’ve come across and allows me to just get to the task at hand without the device becoming the context.