choices??

[mutantpoodle]

once again I would ask assistance from those who know....!

I have a 10 year old Ipad which is getting slower and slower
also the battery runs out/down ever more quickly

I only want/need to use in bars/wifi situations abroad or evening in front of TV here in UK

emails/newspapers/fiscal pages/facebook/messenger is about it!

should I buy a chromebook?...or a small laptop??….or.????

although money not vital the useage is minimal so no point in 2nd martgage!

I would appreciate opinions and reasons...…………...and any specific recs if possible


TIA

[midnightcatprowl]

Just out of interest what do you want in personal physical terms? For example and iPad (or other tablet) can be held in the hand or placed in its own cover/stand (but then you need somewhere to stand the stand). A laptop can in theory balance on your lap though in my experience this doesn't work that well especially if you happen to own four cats who resent competition from machinery. Do you watch TV with a table of some sort in front of you and would it be convenient for the tablet or other device to be on there or would you still need to pick it up every time you wanted to use it?

Lynn

[Breelander]

If you are really brave and technically competent, then it's possible to replace an iPad's battery...

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPad+Wi-Fi ... ement/2198

[mutantpoodle]

another cat lover!

yes I have cats but they prefer to sit on the wife...……….she moves less!!!

I prefer to use on my lap as no table generally in the right place
of course in a bar the table would be used

so I need a machine that does not require table support...ie not too heavy!!




fao Breelander…………...I still have a box of spare parts from the last thing I took apart and re assembled
and...ME...technically competent???

[Julian]

Personally if I was in your position I'd...

(a) Stick to a tablet. You've been using that iPad for years so you seem OK with no physical keyboard and with your description of your use (essentially "sofa surfing") that is no surprise. My usage is the same and I would never want the hassle of a laptop in the living room again.

(b) Since you don't want to spend a fortune I'd personally look for a cheap (a subjective term) Android tablet on Amazon. Searching for "android tablet" just now it looks as if in the 10"-ish range even a recognised brand such as Samsung is only £149 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Galaxy ... B07919MP9M) and lesser-known brands (generic Chinese units I assume) down as low as £50 although I'd not sure I'd risk going that cheap, the copy of Android on some of them seems very out of date. An in-the-middle one might be something like this £90 unit (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fusion5-Androi ... B07KSJTGWP). That's not a specific recommendation by the way, I have no experience of the unit and no idea if the rating is boosted by loads of fake 5-star reviews, but Amazon's return policy is excellent, fast, efficient and convenient, so if taking a risk on a cheaper no-name unit I would definitely try/buy it from Amazon.

Just my personal view but since you have had such long use out of your current iPad then, on the basis that your replacement is likely to give you many years of service, for the sake of an extra £60 or so I'd stick with some known-brand 10" Android tablet in the £150-ish range from the likes of Samsung or one of its big-name competitors.

- Julian

[mutantpoodle]

so it looks like Huawei 5 or a Samsung Galaxy A

both around £150

does anyone have any specific experience of either....good or bad?


or how much ''worse'' is the Huawei 3...……..which is £100 ??

[BobbyD]

so it looks like Huawei 5 or a Samsung Galaxy A

both around £150

does anyone have any specific experience of either....good or bad?


or how much ''worse'' is the Huawei 3...……..which is £100 ??

Been using a Galaxy Tab E for browsing emails, watching videos on trains and in hotel rooms etc. for years. Still has surprisingly good battery life, and ticks along nicely. A couple more recent versions have found their way in to other parts of the family, all perform faultlessly.

Worth pointing out that that is the 2016 version with Android 6. An Android 9 version came out this year, but it won't make it any less suitable for your purposes, just more wallet friendly.

Best bit: I now also have a Samsung phone. Developed a problem with the USB port in the first couple of months. Reported it on Monday, they picked it up from my house on Wednesday and had it repaired and back to me by the end of the week. The phone it replaced spent half its last 6 months going back to Sony for repair, so I really appreciate a swift warranty repair turnaround.

[Steveam]

You might take this opportunity to think through your whole IT infrastructure. I use an iPhone, an iPad, a laptop Windows 10, and a desktop Windows 7. I like these to all coordinate together and the tightest co-ordination is the iPhone to iPad. I like that my email and diary are always available and up to date on each piece of kit. I like shared web addresses. I’ll probably go for a smart speaker in the not too distant future ... I’m not for a moment suggesting the the ecosystem (Apple with tweaks) that I’m using is perfect or even particularly good but it might be worth thinking about.

My iPad is 7 years old (a replacement for an earlier version) and is a superb piece of kit which still works very, very well. I’d certainly not exclude the iPad from consideration.

Best wishes,

Steve

[Infrasonic]

W10 and Android are pretty good together these days.

Since MS gave up on their own mobile OS they have developed loads of free Android apps, so you can run a dual/parallel ecosystem pretty much.
I'm still using all the free stuff, MS Office Online/OneDrive, Google Docs/Google Drive et al as my document needs aren't extensive.

If you get into a bit of simple automation like IFTTT /FLOW then keeping (almost) everything mirrored on the two ecosystems is pretty straightforward in case of a major cloud access outage or failure.
Google recently made it possible to write to MS file formatted documents, no need to save to Google formats now, which was a bit of a pain previously as I always create using MS for shared documents, as that's what most people can handle.