Tag Archives: 3g

Which Tablet?

I was recently asked to recommend a tablet. I thought my reply might be generally useful, so below is a lightly edited version of what I wrote.

The machine I’d recommend depends. It depends mostly on how much you want to pay and what it might used for. The good news is that, by and large, you get what you pay for. (Corollary: don’t get any of the really cheap ones. Argos, for example, do a really cheap one. Avoid it.)

The main ones I’d consider are:

Kindle Fire HD 7″ £119

By far the cheapest but very much tied to Amazon — indeed it’s pretty much sold at cost with the expectation that you’ll spend more money with Amazon later on. That means there are fewer apps (games), you can’t download/rent movies from iTunes, etc. But if you just want to surf the web, check email, etc. and play some big names games it would be fine. Probably worth spending the extra £10 to get the version without adverts (“special offers”) though.

Google Nexus 7 £199

Nicer hardware than the Kindle but mostly what you get is access to the Google App Store, which has far more apps, lots of which are free or very cheap. It runs Android, which is the main competitor to Apple and is generally considered to be pretty good, though I’ve not used it much myself. It’s also not tied just to Amazon (though you still can’t get iTunes) but you can get most of the Amazon stuff. Like the Amazon one, it’s cheap because Google expect to make money from you in other ways.

Apple iPad Mini £249

Better hardware than either of the previous two (metal rather than plastic case) but, arguably, a worse screen than the Nexus (physically bigger but fewer pixels).

iPad gives you all the iPhone and iPad software — which is typically better than Android. Also gives access to iTunes for music, movies and TV shows. The iPad software is often considered to be bit easier and less confusing than Android and you’d get stuff like FaceTime and iMessage (free text messages with other Apple users) which you can’t get on Android.

iPad mini with Retina display £319

As above but with a far nicer screen and is about four times quicker. It will probably last longer as it’s more future proof (but that’s obviously speculation at this point). Possibly hard to get hold of right now as it literally just came out and it “supply constrained.”

Apple iPad Air £399

As above but with a 10″ screen rather than 8″. I have an older versions of this, though the mini didn’t exist when I got mine…

(The prices above are “retail” prices. Some of the links go to the same product but for a lower price.)

It’s also worth noting that you can get more expensive versions of all of them that come with more space and/or cellular radios (so you can access the Internet when you’re out of the range of a friendly WiFI network).

It’s even harder to give general advice about this than the tablets themselves. In general, the more you want to download movies and large, complex games, the more capacity you’ll need. If you mostly surf the web or read books even the smallest versions should be okay. (Indeed, that’s what I use.)

The 3G/4G question is tricky. Me, I get the cellular radio because I do travel with my iPad and I have a Pay As You GO SIM which means I don’t pay a penny in months that I don’t use it. But it does cost more. You might prefer to spend the extra to get a larger storage capacity.

When I first got an iPad, it was because users of one of my apps were asking for a version that used the iPad’s bigger screen. I was skeptical that I would actually use it. These days I probably use it more than my Mac. I guess what I’m saying is that it’s worth getting the right product rather than just the cheapest.