The Android Tablet Watch Thread

[DaFace]

A couple first impressions of the Prime. The caveat here is that this is the only Android tablet I've held for more than 15 seconds in a store, so I'm not going to be very good at comparing this to others out there.

• The immediate eye grabber is that the Prime is both thinner and lighter than about anything else I've seen. It's noticeably thinner than the iPad and is technically a little thinner than the iPad2. It's pretty comfortable to hold in your hand, though it's a little too large to be an ideal e-reader. Not that I mind, but it's a little tougher to one-hand than my wife's Kindle Prime.
• The screen seems pretty fantastic to me. I doubt it's dramatically better than other 10.1" tablets out there, but the screen is very clear and crisp. The Prime has a built-in brightness adjust, so it is brighter when you're in bright light and dimmer than dim light. However, I'm a fan of bright screens, so I've overridden it a time or two.
• If you're the gaming type, the graphics are damn good for a tablet. I played around with a couple demo games with "HD" graphics, and it performed flawlessly. It actually ships with a special "app store" specifically with games designed for the Tegra chip.
• The ICS update was very quick and easy. It took maybe 10 minutes to download and 10 to install, and that was on our slow work network. I never really used Honeycomb, but I've read that it wasn't great at web browsing and that type of thing. I don't have any complaints about the speed of the browser or anything, so I think that's a positive.
• Other things that I THINK are ICS-specific are a dedicated area for widgets in the "app listing" window, a dramatically improved settings window (compared to Gingerbread at least), and a better system (swiping) for removing apps from your "last used" list.
• It ships with Polaris Office, which makes it pretty easy to open up documents from email and that type of thing. Coupled with Dropbox, it makes for a pretty quick and easy way of viewing documents on the thing. I might actually be productive on it from time to time!

Anyway, I certainly don't have any complaints. If any of you are thinking about it and have any questions, let me (or Swanman) know. I'm sure we can answer anything you want to know. To me, though, it just works.

[Swanman]

Originally Posted by DaFace

A couple first impressions of the Prime. The caveat here is that this is the only Android tablet I've held for more than 15 seconds in a store, so I'm not going to be very good at comparing this to others out there.

• The immediate eye grabber is that the Prime is both thinner and lighter than about anything else I've seen. It's noticeably thinner than the iPad and is technically a little thinner than the iPad2. It's pretty comfortable to hold in your hand, though it's a little too large to be an ideal e-reader. Not that I mind, but it's a little tougher to one-hand than my wife's Kindle Prime.
• The screen seems pretty fantastic to me. I doubt it's dramatically better than other 10.1" tablets out there, but the screen is very clear and crisp. The Prime has a built-in brightness adjust, so it is brighter when you're in bright light and dimmer than dim light. However, I'm a fan of bright screens, so I've overridden it a time or two.
• If you're the gaming type, the graphics are damn good for a tablet. I played around with a couple demo games with "HD" graphics, and it performed flawlessly. It actually ships with a special "app store" specifically with games designed for the Tegra chip.
• The ICS update was very quick and easy. It took maybe 10 minutes to download and 10 to install, and that was on our slow work network. I never really used Honeycomb, but I've read that it wasn't great at web browsing and that type of thing. I don't have any complaints about the speed of the browser or anything, so I think that's a positive.
• Other things that I THINK are ICS-specific are a dedicated area for widgets in the "app listing" window, a dramatically improved settings window (compared to Gingerbread at least), and a better system (swiping) for removing apps from your "last used" list.
• It ships with Polaris Office, which makes it pretty easy to open up documents from email and that type of thing. Coupled with Dropbox, it makes for a pretty quick and easy way of viewing documents on the thing. I might actually be productive on it from time to time!

Anyway, I certainly don't have any complaints. If any of you are thinking about it and have any questions, let me (or Swanman) know. I'm sure we can answer anything you want to know. To me, though, it just works.

Good, now I have a fellow dork to compare notes with. The main two impressions I have of the Prime are: it is insanely responsive because of the Tegra 3 chip and the screen is terrific. The gorilla glass really helps. I have been using the Prime a lot lately to read comics, so I have been using ACV, which works really well in portrait. I got Angry Birds and Burn the City (very similar games) and the graphics look perfect. During lunch I watch Netflix and the picture is HD quality using my mediocre work wifi. I also got the tablet slingbox app and it works like a charm.