Tablets?

[Quinton]

The add-on fees for tethering are even more offensive given that all the US carriers seem to be moving to metered/capped data plans.

Sooo, they expect me to pay per megabyte or pay for N MB / month.... *AND* they want to charge me $20/$30 extra per month depending on where those packets happen to go.

[apocrypha]

OK, this tethering of which you speak sounds like just what I need.

I'm in the UK, does anyone know how it works here? Is it free/cheap or will I have to learn about rooting my phone and stuff?

[Quinton]

On a recent Android device, go to: HOME / MENU / Wireless & Networks / Tethering & Portable Hotspot

If it's not disabled on your device, you'll be on a settings page that allows some combination of:

USB tethering
(share network via USB -- device looks like a USB ethernet device to PC)

Portable Wi-Fi hotspot
(share network via wifi -- device looks like a wireless AP)

Bluetooth tethering
(share network via bluetooth)


Some carriers have the OEMs disable these features entirely, have them only available if you pay for a tethering option, or start nagging you about upgrading to a tethering plan if they detect you using them (probably by monitoring the TTL field in IP packets, but have not dug into the details).

[apocrypha]

Cool, sounds easy enough, thanks.

My current phone contract expires in a few weeks and I haven't decided on exactly which phone and/or tablet combo I'll be going for but I'll have a browse through the monster Android thread before then anyway :)

[Tebonas]

Funnily enough I love that I have different data plans for my phone and my pad. But then my 9GB ipad plan costs 9 Euros per month (3 of which are used by my daughter-in-law with a second sim card for another 3 euros per month). And the 3G connection of my phone provider sucks anyway, I'm much happier with my ipad provider.

One thing you have to take in mind is that you will suck battery out of two devices when you tether them. With the power usage of the average smartphone that really hurts your uptime, and the phone is the device people should be able to reach me on (my original plan was to tether from my ipad, but sadly Apple sucks and doesn't let me tether even from the new ipad2, only from the iphone4 I don't own. Assholes).

[Surlyboi]

Tethering anywhere outside the US is relatively cheap. Here, however, the carriers get away with what amounts to highway robbery.

[Quinton]

One thing you have to take in mind is that you will suck battery out of two devices when you tether them. With the power usage of the average smartphone that really hurts your uptime, and the phone is the device people should be able to reach me on (my original plan was to tether from my ipad, but sadly Apple sucks and doesn't let me tether even from the new ipad2, only from the iphone4 I don't own. Assholes).

That's why I prefer USB tethering for getting my laptop online.  The laptop can afford a bit more power drain to the phone, rather than having both of them burn power for a local wifi link.  This has saved my butt a number of times when visiting partner companies that don't have functional guest wifi networks (though it is brutal expensive if you're roaming overseas via a US carrier).

[Tebonas]

Not sure if it changed in the meantime, but at the beginning when I checked the tethering thing out, you NEEDED itunes on your PC to use the phone for USB tethering. Yes, Apple is that retarded. Thats why Wlan Hotspot tethering is superior. You can do it on every device without a hassle.

[Surlyboi]

Not sure if it changed in the meantime, but at the beginning when I checked the tethering thing out, you NEEDED itunes on your PC to use the phone for USB tethering. Yes, Apple is that retarded.

The only thing you ever needed iTunes for was the driver and maybe to install carrier updates to the phone. I fail to see how that's retarded.

[Tebonas]

Because its forcing people to install a whole music management suite instead of just the driver? I fail to see how that is not retarded.

"Hey, your phone has internet, can I use it as a modem real quick?"

"Sure, just install that 80MB file, but make sure to disable quicktime and the autoupdater afterwards, you don't want that on your machine"

[Surlyboi]

Except it's not actually like that.

The ratio of people that would fuck it up without a nice convenient package that contains all they need versus the neckbeards that would bitch about it is about 10:1.

[Quinton]

With both Linux and Windows, USB tethering from Android "Just Works".

1. Plug in Phone
2. Turn on Tethering in Settings
3. Computer is now on the Internets via phone.

It would "Just Work" on OSX as well, if Apple shipped a standard USB Ethernet driver as part of the platform.  Instead OSX only has support for a specific hardware USB<->Ethernet peripheral, to the point of you would have to fake your USB VID/PID to pretend to be that peripheral, which is incompatible with Windows and Linux.

We could make #2 better with a "share internet with computer" (or whatnot) button in the USB is connected alert.

I find that iTunes is best avoided.  My favorite iTunes experience was plugging my ipod nano into a win32 machine to charge overnight for a trip, then, at 35000 feet and 2 hours into a 12 hour flight discovering that iTunes had deleted ALL the music on the nano, without prompting me...

[KallDrexx]

According to sources, Best Buy purchased 270k HP TouchPad units and have only sold 25k so far and are trying to get HP to take the remaining units back.

[HaemishM]

Your link is a disaster. 

[KallDrexx]

My bad, my original link had a ton of extra crap in it, and I was trying to get rid of the non-needed parts, and I guess i got rid of too much :P

[squirrel]

HP to Apple - "Fuck it. You won. We hate this shit."

HP is divesting themselves of the WebOS division and apparently the PC division. Looks like their killing WebOS and spinning off the PCs.

[Trippy]

webOS sez: we're not dead yet

[Quinton]

Given that HP lost most of the decent talent from Palm before, during, and after the acquisition, I'm not terribly surprised except by how quickly they gave up on the phone and tablet market with webOS.  I was expecting them to make much more of a go of it.

[MahrinSkel]

Is it possible to hack TouchPads to run Android?  Because I suspect there's going to be a few going cheap....

--Dave

[Quinton]

Given that WebOS runs Linux and they have to release the kernel source (GPLv2 compliance), in theory it shouldn't be horrible to do a port.  The hard part will be the openGL drivers and possible video/camera drivers, which often involve proprietary libraries.  It wouldn't surprise me if somebody got Android running on them.

[Tebonas]

I'm not a happy camper about this. I rather liked WebOS and would have hoped the OS develops as a serious contender in the market.

[Quinton]

It's really rather unfortunate -- WebOS had a number of interesting ideas and was exploring some different directions than the other mobile OSes -- they were plagued with poor timing, sometimes underpowered hardware, and difficulty getting traction with both iOS and Android rapidly evolving around them, I think. 

[Sand]

So whats the best android tablet on the market right now?

Gonna need something to keep me entertained post surgery during recovery.

[Trippy]

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

[Ingmar]

I really like my Xoom. Haven't tried the Samsung, though. I get the impression they're fairly interchangeable.

[Mazakiel]

I'm a big fan of the Xoom as well.  I've had it a few months now, and it's been pretty useful both at home and for work. 

[Quinton]

Of the major 10" Android Tablets:

Xoom runs stock Android 3.x without OEM customizations.

Tab10.1 has a better (more responsive) display than Xoom, and is thinner and lighter that Xoom.

ASUS EEE Pad Transformer is lighter but not thinner than Xoom, similar display to Tab, and closer to stock 3.x than Tab.  The keyboard accessory doubles the battery life and gives it a netbook-like form factor when they're combined.

All three use the same NVIDIA Tegra T20 chipset (dual A9 at 1GHz, no NEON), have 1GB ram, similar performance, etc.

[Bunk]

Well, my typical impulse buying kicked in and I'm posting this from my new Asus Transformer.
Felt I had to have something to play with in lines at PAX, and they had this on sale with the keyboard dock for $499. Now everyone needs to tell me what the must have android tablet apps are.

[SnakeCharmer]

I settled with the Acer Iconia.  Really, really happy with it.

[sigil]

Galaxy tab 10.1. And now that there are some decent apps for Honeycomb I am supremely satisfied with it

[Trippy]

Is it possible to hack TouchPads to run Android?  Because I suspect there's going to be a few going cheap....

$99

[MuffinMan]

Hmm that's tempting enough just for shitter surfing and to use as a cookbook.

[Sand]

So in answer to my own question about "best" Android tablet I saw this today.....

There are tablets out there that have the features consumers want and that the iPad doesn’t have: Take a look at the recently released Toshiba Thrive, for example, which can play Flash and has an SD card slot and USB and HDMI ports. It also runs Android Honeycomb, and the 16GB version costs $70 less than the iPad 2.

It even has a replaceable, rechargeable battery so you can carry a spare battery with you instead of a clunky power pack and recharges in under an hour.
It doesnt have onboard 3g/4g but supposedly can be tethered to your android phone with the usb, so no problems there.


So that got me interested. Enough that I visited the website where I found:

4 answers
Can Netflix be used on the Thrive?
A:
As of now no. You cannot watch netflix on the Thrive. You can just manage your list of movies.

Well that fucking killed that. No Netflix, no tablet.
Which to me doesnt make sense. How can I watch netflix on my damn phone but not on this tablet which also uses android?

[MahrinSkel]

Is it possible to hack TouchPads to run Android?  Because I suspect there's going to be a few going cheap....

$99

So far that just seems to be Canada, the US retailers are offering a trivial $25 or so markdown right now.  At $100-150, it has a lot to recommend it even if it becomes an orphan and nobody gets Android or a more generic Linux working on it.

--Dave

[Quinton]

I don't know the specifics around Netflix and this device, but many DRM "solutions" need to be approved by the "content providers" on a per-device basis.