What is the best tablet out there for:
1. bang for your buck
2. must use android

Enlighten me! There are so many freaking options who has one that can speak from experience on it?

google nexus 10 or 7, it has best support to get android os updates.

next best option is samsung galaxy tab 3 10.1 or 7, getting latest android for those depends on samsung unless wants to try to install custom rom.

Oh thats interesting Marshal, I never thought of the fact that the samsung tablet might not update the OS as fast... Interesting.

iPad.

even last year phones and tablets might not get latest android, if you want latest os buy new phone/tablet.

some small manufacturers don't even bother making os updates available for their products.

updating os for older phones/tablets doesn't bring any money, selling new devices bring. apple's support is for phones is down to 4s and for tablets its ipad 2 or later. microsoft gives wp 8.1 only to for example to lumia x30s and difference between x30s and x20s is somewhat minimal.

If you really have to use Android.... I don't know about you, but all my friends that have tablets of both say Apple is better than Android.

Generally, it comes down to better Apps, smoother UI that is snappy and responsive (particularly for games), a much larger and optimized App Store, particularly because all the major apps always release on iOS before porting to Android months later, and generally just a better experience. Apple products also have far better resell value 2-3 years later.

I'm generally biased because I'm a software developer, it is _THAT MUCH HARDER_ to write apps for Android than for iOS.

Google is expected to release new Nexus tablets in the next month or so.

Having spent significant amount if time on both ecosystems (iPhone 4 and iPad for 2 years, Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 for a year) I can say that all the arguments in against Android are crap. Apple might have a bigger app store, but when you think of the main apps that have millions of downloads, they're available on both. Both are just as smooth, snappy, and responsive. I've been using stock android on the 7, and switching between stock, then cyanogenmod, and now omnirom on the 5. I've never experienced lag or anything else that made it feel any less responsive than an iPad or iPhone 5s that I've used. Another thing that will keep me from switching back to Apple is the lack of customization. I can very easily change anything I want on my Nexus devices. I can change the size of the icons on the home screen, the number of apps that show in the folder, the size of icons in the dock, the number if pages in the dock, widgets, quick launch, etc. You can simply do more with Android than with Apple. The stuff Apple does, it does as well as or better than anybody else. But it's limited. Works for many people, but for others it doesn't.

I will mention that my only Android experience has been with Nexus devices running stock Android or very smooth custom roms. I know that almost all other manufacturers have their own skin on top of Android that offers unique features, but draw more resources. That's also why other manufacturers can take up to 3 months to update. For example, HTC made an announcement recently that all HTC One M8 (and I think M7 as well) owners can expect them to update to Android L within 90 days of Google releasing it. Samsung, LG, Motorolla all have similar timelines. They basically need their developers to get their hands on the new OS, add all of their own extra stuff, and then release it to their customers.

My last, and probably most important point, is buy them and try them. People will go into a mall, try on a $30 shirt, put it on hold, go back to the store, try it on again, buy it, take it home, try it on again, ask for opinions, and then decide if they want to keep it; yet, when we're buying a $300-$700 piece of technology, we decide on one before trying it. Go to a store that lets you get a full refund, and buy yourself a Galaxy Tab and a Nexus 7 and an Asus and an LG G Pad and even an iPad and try them out. Maybe don't get them all at once, but do your research online and look up YouTube reviews and hands on videos and find a list of 3 or 4 tablets you'd consider - and *try them out*! Get a feel for how snappy it is. How customizable it is. How easy it is to access features.

i'm an iPhone person, theres no way in hell i'd go for an iPad

Nexus 7 32GB is the best on the market, expected new offering from Google (Nexus 8) should be as good / better

This is true of major apps. But not true for games. This really comes down to what Requiem is buying the tablet for. Major games titles like Bioshock, XCOM, Civilization Revolution, Faster Than Light, Hearthstone are only out on the iOS and with good reason (developing (i.e writing code) for Android is a nightmare).



I've had bad experiences on older Android tablets (when testing apps on them), the newer ones are probably good, as you say.



This is one of those things that, as a user, I *personally* don't need. I don't care how big the app icons are, or how many app icons show in the folder. I just want to be able to use the apps, if it takes me an extra 2 seconds to launch an app, it is not a big deal. I value the availability of apps far more than customization options for the home/dock/quick launch which users will barely spend any amount of time on, compared to time in actual apps.

Again, I'm biased as a software developer, but there are a lot of software hiccups when supporting Android with various features. It is incredibly annoying just to write app store code (for in app purchases) once for Google Play, then have to duplicate all that code for Amazon Store, because they are different stores and handle transactions differently, and then turn around and have to do it all over again for the Ouya store should you decide to support that. Store fragmentation is but just one problem.

Ultimately though, none of this programming and backend is of concern to the end-user, but it completely affects why apps always come out for iOS first.

if you have a mac computer then having ios devices is really nice for integration opportunities. I'm expecting my work to get some ios devices soon for testing and I look forward to keeping them all on my desk :D :p

For personal use, I'm also casually in the market for a tablet but I'm waiting another month or two for the new Google Nexus tablet announcements and corresponding price drops on older models before really making a decision. My rule of thumb whenever I buy or recommend an Android device now is that is must be able to take a stock version of Android one way or another (Cyanogen or something if not a stock Android rom)

One comment in general for you: Android L is really, really slick and is a big step forward in standardization and nice looking design for Android. You definitely want to be on a device that does (or will) support Android L. I've already tried a release candidate build on a friend's Nexus 5 and it's nice enough to make me want to get a Nexus 5 as a bridge device until I feel like splurging on a bleeding edge phone :p

THE REAL QUESTION IS WHICH TABLET EXPLODES BETTER!
HA!

@xin:
tbh I've used both android and apple tabbles a fair bit and I much prefer android over iOS. I also prefer the added flexibility to alter things on android that you simply can't do on an iPAD. As for games being better?
I played CoC on an ipad and nexus 10 tablet and tbh I can't honestly agree that there is really much of a difference.
Naturally preference for an OS is subjective though.

As a user and hobby programmer of computers since the apple 2 days I don't think that less flexibility and fewer features is a desirable trait. As far as availability of apps, it really depends which apps you are taking about and what you do with the tablet. I can understand why you like the ipad because it's easier to develop for, but as you said.. as a user no one really cares about that:P

I also have a personal bias against device crippling drm and proprietary hardware formats (like the USB charger for apple) which makes it that much more annoying.

I will say this though: think back to the windows 95 vs mac days. I think it's harder to argue that windows 95 was a better OS than the mac OS at the time (in terms of stability and a whole bunch of other things). You could easily translate your arguments over then but I'll note that because windows boxes became the dominant product, everyone else in the software department followed suit. Given that android has such a dominant market share outside of the US (70%+) now, I think it's only a matter of time before the "we get apps first" advantage will dissappear. Profit before convenience. And yeah it's because of the cheap android phones out there.. but wait we've seen this scenario before with PC's.

Wait a month, there's supposed to be a new nexus coming out in october according to the rumour mill

That may have been true a year or two ago, but I don't think it is now. Also, having used iOS... it's not a better experience heh; and the people I know who've switched to Android have never been happier :)

If you follow the reports, you'll find that even though Android has the larger market share of almost 70-80%, you will find in almost every online report that the Apple App store generates way more revenue than the Android store. The problem is that 90% of that 70-80% is made up of really crappy Android phones that can't run any of the newer apps and games that are more graphically/memory demanding.


"Though Android dwarfs iOS in devices and downloads, Apple rakes in an estimated $5.1 million in revenue from the App Store each day, while Google banks just $1.1 million per day. And Citigroup analyst Mark May believes Google Play pulled in only $1.3 billion in revenue last year—just 13% of Apple's haul—even though Androidaccounts for roughly 75% of all app downloads(the App Store's share was just 18%)."

"Here are the numbers from April, which Macquarie says come from Distimo, the app download research company:
Google Play: $530 million, up 166%, market share = 38%
iOS App Store: $870 million, up 53%, market share = 62%"


Just to quote a few from this earlier year (i.e 2014 articles talking about 2013). It's obvious that if you are a developer, you want to be developing for iOS first; that's where the money is. Android may have a larger market share, but a large portion of that market share can't actually run today's apps, or are users that want a phone for what it is - simply a phone. These users don't care about apps, they buy the phone because it is a cheaper phone, they tend to be the older aging generation.


Edit: Also, note that Clash of Clans was ported to Android 1.2 years after its iOS release. Believe me, even though Android has a huge market share, it generates only a fraction of revenue compared to iOS users.

android phones and tablets vary from under 100 bucks devices meeting min reqs to run android decently to ~600 bucks devices which have quadcore processor etc.

apples phones and tablets are between ~300 bucks and 1k bucks (currently supported devices) and those can run games and apps smoothly.

android: n+1 manufacturers.

apple: only 1.

windows phones are between android and ios.

marshal: Snapdragon 615

You guys are supposed to help me pick a tablet to buy not argue about iOS vs. Android. I personally prefer android. Besides specs wise I find better specs for less money than apple. I generally think apple is too pricy for what you get hardware wise.

But I digress...

I'll check out the google nexus for sure I didn't really think about that one. Right now I'm leani g towards that or the Samsung galaxy 10.1 tablet.

just make sure to listen to everyone who said to wait a month :p

This! Apple is announcing the new iPads in about 2 weeks. :)

cherry mobile

Roger that :)

I'm using the Sony Z2 now. very pleased with it, super light and powerful.
It's waterproof also so you can wall while in the shower ;)

and... SOL is ranked too high.

whattabouthat? its not in wide use yet.

but they aren't quad core and they're the current top end :p

apple ipad

yea but those won't be seen commonly in phones or tablets that soon.

but they vary to octa core now, or are you still going to keep arguing that because it's rare right now it doesn't exist for that?

not saying that and it is in use at least in 1 android phone already and when next models come out it'll be in common use.

qualcomm's page says its dual quadcore processor so its not octacore, its 2 quadcores.

i'm sure qualcomm etc are developing/testing true octacores and beyond that and same thing with apple (iphone 6s have dualcore still).

http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/...355/choi/images/bb033.jpg

problem solved Req

Wow lol indeed

I think my plan is to now wait for the new google nexus and then buy the old version for cheap :D

On phones i was always a nokia fan until the crisis and "the lack of keeping up with the world" dragged them back.

tablets ? i recommend Samsung ..