Big tablet

[swill453]

I'm looking for a 10 inch tablet, to use for mainly browsing but with the need for a big, quality screen for watching TV and movies.

This is to replace a 6 year old iPad which I've been massively satisfied with, and still use literally every day, but it's stuck on IOS 9 and is very slow at browsing complex sites and switching between apps.

To replace it with a 128GB current-generation 9.7inch iPad would cost £429 (if I stay away from grey imports) and I have to say I'm pretty tempted just to go for that.

I wouldn't be averse to an Android tablet, since I use an Android phone, but the Samsung equivalent (9.7inch Galaxy Tab S2?) seems almost as expensive (£400 for 32GB model).

Is there any other "premium" 10inch tablet at a lower price that anyone would recommend?

I'm not interested in non-vanilla-OS tablets like the Kindle Fire.

Scott.

[Infrasonic]

https://www.johnlewis.com/asus-z500m-ze ... our=Silver

£299

Pretty good reviews in general from Amazon and other 3rd party sites.

[Slarti]

I recently bought a Lenovo tablet from Sainsbury's for GBP 99 for my father. It is a vanilla Android tablet. He asked me what the IPad he bought previously did for the extra 3 or 4 hundred quid. I thought quite hard but couldn't think of anything. Might not be what you want but for 99 quid it deserves a look?

It didn't have Chinese spyware pre-installed?




Slarti

[AllYourBase]

Amazon Fire HD 10 gets a decent review ...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/12/amazon-fire-hd-10-review-tablet-affordable-netflix-ipad-pro-hands-free-alexa-good-screen-solid-battery

[swill453]

Amazon Fire HD 10 gets a decent review ...

Thanks but like I said I don't really want a tablet that's running an OS so far removed from vanilla Android (or IOS).

Scott.

[nmdhqbc]

I hear amazon do some pretty nifty tablets - just kidding

[gryffron]

If you're used to an iPad, I'd go for an iPad. You'll find android pretty clunky by comparison.

Cue howls from android users. The differences are tiny but subtle. Just fractional delays that make you wonder whether it worked. I find android horrible compared to my ipad.

Gryff

[GrandOiseau]

This is to replace a 6 year old iPad which I've been massively satisfied with, and still use literally every day, but it's stuck on IOS 9 and is very slow at browsing complex sites and switching between apps.

I have a similarly aged ipad. I haven't noticed any significant performance issues but my threshold is lower than yours. Although I don't have any other Apple products I'd probably get another ipad if I were to upgrade.

[swill453]

Well I've decided to make a change, and go for the ASUS ZenPad 3S 10 Z500M as referenced by Infrasonic above. What swung it for me in the end were the relatively poor reviews for that latest iPad, officially known as "iPad 2017" or fifth-generation iPad, but which is actually the seventh-generation iPad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad_(2017)

It is thicker than the previous iPad Air 2, and apparently has a "cheaper" feel to it, albeit with a bigger battery and faster processor.

If I could have found a new iPad Air 2 for a discounted price I would have probably gone for it.

To be honest it'll be a relief not to have to fight with iTunes any more, or to have to manage my photos the Apple way (or not at all, as I chose). I'm quite comfortable with Android having used Android phones for years, and will appreciate the easier USB access, storage expansion, and file management etc.

It remains to be seen whether the day-to-day living with it as my main tablet will be as good as the iPad experience, but hey it cost exactly half what I paid for the iPad in February 2012 so it's got a good start.

Scott.

[stevensfo]

I recently bought a Lenovo tablet from Sainsbury's for GBP 99 for my father. It is a vanilla Android tablet. He asked me what the IPad he bought previously did for the extra 3 or 4 hundred quid. I thought quite hard but couldn't think of anything. Might not be what you want but for 99 quid it deserves a look?

I got an 8" Lenovo a few years ago for approx 90 pounds (I like travelling light) and absolutely love it. Having tried a friend's ipad, I can't believe people are prepared to pay so much for something that won't even take an extra memory card and requires a funny cable!
My only regret is that I realise now that a 10" would be preferable. But I'll probably stick with Lenovo.

Steve

[Infrasonic]

Scott, if you could do an update on how you get on with the Asus that would be much appreciated.
I'm in the market for a tablet and my previous budget choice the Nvidia Shield K1 has almost doubled in price in the past few months.

TIA
I

[kiloran]

I'm in the market for a tablet and my previous budget choice the Nvidia Shield K1 has almost doubled in price in the past few months.
I

I think that's because it's been discontinued, but it's well-liked so any remaining stock is going up in price. I bought mine just in time

--kiloran

[swill453]

Scott, if you could do an update on how you get on with the Asus that would be much appreciated

Sure thing. I haven't taken delivery yet.

Scott.

[swill453]

if you could do an update on how you get on with the Asus that would be much appreciated.

As promised, here is a brief update.

I've had the ASUS ZenPad 3S 10 Z500M 32GB about a week now. Bought it from Ebuyer for £290.99 including delivery.

The "unboxing" experience was good, it was well packaged and feels like a solid, quality item. Slim metal case, thin side bezels. Comes with USB-C cable and fast charger.

I bought a fast 64GB SDXC card for about £20 so it now has more storage than I will need. I'm using it as "portable" storage, I'm not even sure it gave me the option of adopting as internal, I wouldn't have done that anyway.

The 9.7 inch screen is good, bright and colourful, but I'd be lying if I said I could see much improvement over the retina screen on the 3rd-generation iPad it replaced, it was always lovely.

Sound is good, but comes from 2 speakers at the bottom (in portrait mode), so watching movies in landscape has the sound coming from the right side only. Loud enough and good enough quality though.

One annoyance is the mechanical home button - this gets used a lot and I feel it might not last for years. Time will tell.

I ditched the Asus launcher and most of the Asus apps, and replaced with Google Now, since that now makes it feel similar to my Moto G5 phone.

It came with Android 6 but immediately updated itself to 7.0.

Performance-wise it's everything I'd hoped for, very little lag, complex web pages load quickly, swapping between apps is good.

Being Android I now just love the ability to manage files/photos/videos the way I want. Making my own folders, using a file manager to copy and paste to and from the cloud and network storage, all the things iOS/iTunes made difficult.

A few things don't work quite as well as the iPad, some web pages format in Chrome as if they were on a narrow mobile phone, even selecting "desktop site" doesn't always work. And some apps, notably my First Direct banking app, don't work in landscape mode. This wasn't a problem on the iPad. Not Asus's fault, of course.

Battery life is fine, at least 4 hours intensive browsing with screen at full(ish) brightness isn't a problem.

So I'm pretty satisfied, all in all, time will tell if this gives me more than 5 years use like the iPad.

Scott.

[Infrasonic]

Thanks for the update Scott.

A few things don't work quite as well as the iPad, some web pages format in Chrome as if they were on a narrow mobile phone, even selecting "desktop site" doesn't always work. And some apps, notably my First Direct banking app, don't work in landscape mode. This wasn't a problem on the iPad. Not Asus's fault, of course.

That's also one of the major complaints with Chrome OS when running Android apps in Dev/beta mode, lack of consistent auto-scaling and screen orientation.
Hopefully as it keeps coming up as a negative in tech press reviews, then Google will be putting some substantial resources into solving it.
Although it's an app developer issue as much as anything else.

[Infrasonic]

Just had a mess with the Zenpad in PC World, very nippy.
Noticed they have knocked £30 off (now £269), and John Lewis have done the same on that link upthread (with the 2 year guarantee included).

[swill453]

Noticed they have knocked £30 off (now £269)

Typical!

Scott.

[Infrasonic]

If it's any consolation I missed out on this RAID 0 USB 3.1 SSD deal, had an HDUK alert going for ages...https://www.maplin.co.uk/p/sandisk-extr ... -ssd-a40uw

[swill453]

Resurrecting a four year old thread...

So I've been very happy with the ASUS ZenPad 3S 10 Z500M 32GB I bought then, it's been literally in daily use with no problems whatsoever.

But now I'm finding it a bit slow with complex web pages, for example. It's on Android 7 and isn't getting security updates any more.

So is there a "goto" 10 inch Android tablet these days? Screen resolution/quality and sound performance are important.

Budget hopefully less than previous one, which was less than £300.

Scott.

[pje16]

I have a lenovo laptop I'm very happy with, not had one of their tablets but these don't look bad
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/tablets/an ... =LEN506671
cheers
Paul