[buky]

I really like my playbook but because of lack of apps i went to shop today and looked other Android Tablets, actually Galaxy P6800 7" Tab.

I owned last year Galaxy Tab P1000 with Gingerbread Android (i think).
It was great Tab and mostly i've been using it for reading ebook, online newspaper and other things like videos etc.

I'm a huge fan of US Series like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire and many others. So I've been using it on the holiday for torrents downloading of my series.

Today i was shocked how bad p6800 is running with honeycomb. There is lag overall. Its not running smootly. After few minutes i was tired of using it. And honeycomb, i find it very complicated. Older Android Gingerbread was nice. Also Gingerbread on old Galaxy Tab P1000 was running very smooth, despite Singe core.

I have been using Android since it camed out and i really like Android but the new Tablets are horrible.

Playbook is so much better than all of them. To bad there are not so many apps like Android. Some decent Video Player would be nice that can use software encoding and read
all video and audio formats.

But for now there is workaround for me using Swarm torrent on playbook and downloading only AAC Videos not AC3.

[omniusovermind]

I consider my $200 PlayBook one of my smartest gadget buys in the past couple of years. But I am still pretty fair about what other devices can do. Last night I had the opportunity to take an Asus eee past transformer 16GB model, on sale for $300 for a 1 hour test drive. This tablet is about the same age as the PB, pretty close in specs, is 10" running the latest version of Android. I was very impressed.

The UI of android 4 handles multitasking quite well using an icon that brings up all your recent apps in an easy to navigate thumbnail list. I didn't experience any of the lag that was associated with previous versions of android. Browsing, movies, games etc all ran quite smoothly and I had no stability errors during my 1 hour test drive.

My overall impression was good performance and polish. Build quality was good as Asus usually is, although slightly less so than the PB materials. The PB speaker was also a little better. Of course you also have access to the android market (now named Google Play) as well as integration with Google maps, calender, contacts etc

For that price I'm very likely going to choose this as my 10" tablet because I want one of each size. If you asked me to choose only one, I'm going to be forced to be honest with you here, it would be a difficult choice.

[buky]

Well i didn't try Latest Android 4 on Tablet. ICS is probably much better, but Honeycomb i find it horrible.

[omniusovermind]

Well i didn't try Latest Android 4 on Tablet. ICS is probably much better, but Honeycomb i find it horrible.

I was pretty impressed that they learned from honeycomb. Android 3.x was pretty disappointing

[SlcCorrado]

Anyone read the article on OS fragmenting in Android? They've gone through multiple platform updates that most of their users have not and will not see

[ronelectronic]

I think that if RIM get it right with bb10 and cascades all the apps will eventually come but for now we just have to look for workarounds. Like you I love watching series and actually I use playbook for streaming them not download, thanks to the flasplayer, look for Spartacus Online Subtitulado y en HD - MiraSpartacus.com or How I Met Your Mother Online Subtitulado y en HD - MiraHIMYM.com, in there you can find lots and lots of series in great quality, just look for miracle in Facebook and you you will be able to see all the series available. They have Spanish subtitles but maybe you will be able to turn them off or just ignore them. Greetings

[omniusovermind]

Anyone read the article on OS fragmenting in Android? They've gone through multiple platform updates that most of their users have not and will not see

Which one? Fragmentation is my numero 1 beef with my android phone, having experienced brutally long delays in getting updates because they must be tailored for each device and each carrier. It's really a total roll of the dice because you might be lucky enough to own a phone that gets updates rolled out fast or you might not. But there's just no way to know when you buy it which you'll be!

I will say this much though, for $300, the tablet I described above is on a really good version right now that got it pretty fast, and for $300 I'd be satisfied with that version until my next device. If it were still stuck on 3.x I wouldn't be happy at all.

[buky]

I think that if RIM get it right with bb10 and cascades all the apps will eventually come but for now we just have to look for workarounds. Like you I love watching series and actually I use playbook for streaming them not download, thanks to the flasplayer, look for Spartacus Online Subtitulado y en HD - MiraSpartacus.com or How I Met Your Mother Online Subtitulado y en HD - MiraHIMYM.com, in there you can find lots and lots of series in great quality, just look for miracle in Facebook and you you will be able to see all the series available. They have Spanish subtitles but maybe you will be able to turn them off or just ignore them. Greetings

Thank you. I have actually used to connect my tab direct to flat tv via usb on the holliday and watch downloaded series. Now i have to use hdmi and that works great. I'm coming from Croatia but living in Switzerland for 20 years and my English is not so very well if i watching English movie. So there is great website when i can download Croatian srt subtitles and with movesrt player, that works just fine. They have subtitles for all series.

Just now waiting for new episodes Game of thrones

[omniusovermind]

An update since my last post. I had the opportunity to play some more with the same co-worker's Asus eee pad transformer TF101. between my last run with it and this one I had done some further researching into it and discovered two main bugs persistent with this device that were the most common community complaints and they were the presence of 1. random reboots and 2. something the users dubbed "the sleep of death" (SoD). So I made a point to ask him if he had ran into either and he said yes, with a frequency of about once every few days.

The random reboots I'm not sure about, but the SoD would occur when the device was woken out of standby, and it would just hang, requiring you to restart the device. Neither problems actually happen during use of it.

Another issue actually surprised me for a tablet that has been out as long as the PB, and that was there is a surprising lack of games supported by the Eee Pad. Surprising, because there is actually more games on the PB, with it's smaller App World, than there are for the Eee Pad. For a game lover like me that was a big downside. If you don't play games much on your tablet, it's a non issue.

In an android-only sense, not specific to any manufacturer, I've also done some investigation into the 4 most popular Android tablets - Asus, Samsung, Motorola, and Acer, I have found out the following:

1. None of the above are built as well as the PB in terms of the materials used to construct the device. The PB had the highest quality in that regard.

2. CPU, RAM and Display specs are fairly comparable but QNX runs smoother than the others overall, and the display was better.

3. Game selection was the best on the PB. That was surprising for me. Regular app selection of course easily goes to the Android Play Store

4. PB had the best speakers

5. Some Android tablets have expandable memory

6. Android tablet UI can be heavily customized, where the PB is basically just a grid of apps with some folder functions like the iPad.

7. The PB battery life is on par with the best Android tablet batteries, and better than the rest.

8. Android 4's browser appears to be about as fast as the PB browser to the naked eye, if you want actual benchmarks you can look it up. The last time I checked, it was at the top of HTML5 benchmarks, however the stock Android 4 browser has slightly more features.

Considering the base price of a PB at $200, it clearly puts it ahead in value of any Android Tablets currently offered, until and unless the upcoming 7" android tablets in that price range are launched. The cheapest you can get an Android Tablet right now is This may be offset somewhat though by the PB getting the BB10 OS this fall.

My final impression is that despite a lot of the public criticisms of the PB, you might be surprised to learn that the Android offerings right now aren't faring any better, unless all you are interested in is a wider app selection. I've owned an android phone for over a year, and I can tell you from my perspective that there are maybe only half a dozen or so apps that Android offers that I could not find an equivalent for on my PB. If I were comparing the apps I use for me phone to a BB phone it might be a different story. Yes I am one of those people who uses the browser to replace certain apps. YMMV

The criticisms of the PB in public media have been pretty widely reported but what doesn't get mentioned very much is that currently the Android tablets have been met with a pretty dismal reception as well, and aren't selling very well. This fact often gets overshadowed by the overall success of Android phones though. On a personal level I'm pretty happy that I took some time to dig into the world of Android Tablets because it ended up making me appreciate what the PB is capable of more. My only regret is that I'm going to be waiting 6 months minimum for BB10 on this tablet. If it was available right now it would have given the PB a very distinct advantage rather than just a slight one. I'm left with the opinion that RIM's R&D need to work faster because they continue to behave like Apple and drag their feet on providing feature rich innovations, while Android R&D leaps ahead at a faster pace.

I recently watched a 5-part video review series on YouTube comparing how much functionality is being offered on Android phones compared to iPhones and the gap is pretty distinct now. For example, Did you know that you can share an android webpage about 10+ different ways on an Android phone compared to only 3 on an iPhone? Did you know that you can long-press a plain text address (not even a link!) on an android browser website and it can launch Google Maps and nav? plain text phone number to launch the dialer?

Did you know you could do things like that since the Android Froyo version well over a year old?

While I've never liked Apple products, what I'm getting at here is that Apple can afford to suck at innovation right now, because they have a huge following of people who don't know enough to care about more modern features that will continue to buy their products even if they continue to suck at being innovative.

Anyway, enough rambling. tl;dr version: PB is remains an excellent tablet against its Android counterparts for now. But they better light a fire under their butts.

[mikeplus1]

"what doesn't get mentioned very much is that currently the Android tablets have been met with a pretty dismal reception as well, and aren't selling very well."

I didn't know this.

[omniusovermind]

"what doesn't get mentioned very much is that currently the Android tablets have been met with a pretty dismal reception as well, and aren't selling very well."

I didn't know this.

that's because it

doesn't get mentioned very much

Being serious though, yeah, it's been spoken of here and there in some tech sites, just not very often. I think the sammy galaxy one did 'OK' since that company has a fairly decent following but nothing really impressive. You'd have to go hunting for some 2011 sales figures for each manufacturer including non-androids to get the exact numbers

[robsteve]

that's because it
I think the sammy galaxy one did 'OK' since that company has a fairly decent following but nothing really impressive. You'd have to go hunting for some 2011 sales figures for each manufacturer including non-androids to get the exact numbers

I don't know if they are still doing it, but Rogers was giving away Galaxy tabs like toasters if you added two new smartphone accounts. When I saw this I figured they may not be hot sellers.

[Toodeurep]

If I were comparing the apps I use for me phone to a BB phone it might be a different story. Yes I am one of those people who uses the browser to replace certain apps. YMMV

Not sure what you were saying here, but one thing I have noticed is that there are apps in my phones App World that are not on the PB. I know that one member was complaining they couldn't get Bank of America on the PB but i found it on my phone.

[wcars0hq]

I feel that Android's tight integration with Google products is an extreme negative...not a positive. I was all for Google in the beginning but now I find myself trying to ween myself away from Google because information collection issues (not privacy issues) which means I will never own an android device. So IMHO Android devices sit on the bottom of the list regardless of specs or features. I hope Samsung picks up BB10

[hpulley]

My Kobo Vox had SOD but a recent update fixed it for me but not all other users. It is a custom gingerbread build. I still have Wake From Sleep issues where it randomly wakes to the lock screen while on standby, causing battery drain unless you shut it right down.

Android is a multiply fragmented hardware and software mess right now with versions from gingerbread and Froyo still outnumbering honeycomb and ICS by a wide margin and customization all over. Hardware is worse. PlayBook is all alone so has none of that.

Apple can afford to rest on their laurels now but not for long. I daresay RIM did that with BlackBerry ...

[gschep]

Good point - how many reiterations of the same product can they get away with?

Apple can afford to rest on their laurels now but not for long. I daresay RIM did that with BlackBerry ...

[superdookie67]

Thanks for that review of the transformer tab, I've wondered about those for awhile. That keyboard attachment is pretty cool.

As far as the apple vs android functionality. The one to one response apple devices' UI have is a huge selling point. To me it seems the average consumer would care more about the lack of lag and stutters than the extra cool features android offers. Plus apple makes some slick devices. Although that new htc phone is looking good too.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9700 using Tapatalk

[howarmat]

The random reboots I'm not sure about, but the SoD would occur when the device was woken out of standby, and it would just hang, requiring you to restart the device. Neither problems actually happen during use of it.

Another issue actually surprised me for a tablet that has been out as long as the PB, and that was there is a surprising lack of games supported by the Eee Pad. Surprising, because there is actually more games on the PB, with it's smaller App World, than there are for the Eee Pad. For a game lover like me that was a big downside. If you don't play games much on your tablet, it's a non issue.

The SoD issue hit me a few times on 1 update ago but i think on the latest it hasnt happened but maybe 1 time. Never had reboot problems though with mine.

About the gaming situation. I assume you mean there are not as many games made just for tablets correct? Pretty much all the games that where made for phones run on the tablets. This is the opposite problem for RIM. With RIM they have nothing to start with so when you get games they are mostly all made for the tablet with native code. With android you have all the games already and most all run very well and look good on the tablet BUT most devs are going to redo the game for tablet specific use.

[CairnsRock]

that's because it

Being serious though, yeah, it's been spoken of here and there in some tech sites, just not very often. I think the sammy galaxy one did 'OK' since that company has a fairly decent following but nothing really impressive. You'd have to go hunting for some 2011 sales figures for each manufacturer including non-androids to get the exact numbers

Rogers in Canada were giving the Galaxy pad away for free as a subscription promo. That probably helped their "sales"?

[barskin]

Not sure what you were saying here, but one thing I have noticed is that there are apps in my phones App World that are not on the PB. I know that one member was complaining they couldn't get Bank of America on the PB but i found it on my phone.

Oh, yes, there are many, many apps that are on my Torch 9810, that are not on my PB, Bank of America, for instance. I want the tablet app, seeing as I won the tablet.

[barskin]

I previously posted a thread about how I tried a honeycomb devices and was not thrilled. I made of the need for Task Killer apps to close apps, and I was told by others that I aws wrong about them - that they were holdovers from other versions, and that the Android OS took care of application management automitically. I then made fun of these posts.
Well, I was wrong, and they were right. "Task Killers" are unnecessary, and the OS does handle it. And, I was wrong about Honeycomb. I have two Android tablets now, the Le Pan II (a 9.7" running Honeycomb) and the Acer Iconia A500 (10.1" just upgraded to ICS a few nights ago). I think they're both great devices. They are not "laggy," have great customization options and a world of app possiblities. I am fortunate in that I am able to own PB and Android.

[nineinchnail1024]

I briefly used a galaxy note and got fed up with the browser. The PB is much more user friendly.

On a completely separate and off-topic note... Howarmat, are you the same Howarmat from mustang forums? It's a pretty unique user name. I'm "Diabolical!" over there.

[howarmat]

yep one in the same, good to see you over here

[Magnesus]

I have PB and Asus Transformer with Android 4.0. There is just no comparison - on Transformer I have like 50 or more games and 20 or sth like that application with excellent Google Chrome. I use it at university for reading and writing in PDF books with stylus. On Playbook I don't find any interesting games (apart from Angry Birds and Cut the Rope) and beside browser I have zero app that is useful (well, the calculator is awesome on PB), ezPDF doesn't seem to work like most apps converted from Android. Adobe Reader doesn't seem to have ANY options. Sorry to be posting things like that on Blackberry forum, I hope I didn't hurt anyone's feelings.
Android 3.0 had some lags but with 4.0 it's all gone. Google Chrome is still not perfect, but it's easier to use than Blackberry browser (you use it just like desktop version, no strange image-tabs or swiping to reveal them).

[barskin]

I have PB and Asus Transformer with Android 4.0. There is just no comparison - on Transformer I have like 50 or more games and 20 or sth like that application with excellent Google Chrome. I use it at university for reading and writing in PDF books with stylus. On Playbook I don't find any interesting games (apart from Angry Birds and Cut the Rope) and beside browser I have zero app that is useful (well, the calculator is awesome on PB), ezPDF doesn't seem to work like most apps converted from Android. Adobe Reader doesn't seem to have ANY options. Sorry to be posting things like that on Blackberry forum, I hope I didn't hurt anyone's feelings.
Android 3.0 had some lags but with 4.0 it's all gone. Google Chrome is still not perfect, but it's easier to use than Blackberry browser (you use it just like desktop version, no strange image-tabs or swiping to reveal them).

Yes, you are going to be hurting peoples feelings, which is strange, because we are just talking about a motherboard surrounded by some glass, metal, plastic and rubber, but....

I felt I had to post something, because I had previously opened a whole thread about Android in which I was, in many instances, simply wrong.