It’s time to dip my foot into the Android world again…
I really enjoy my iPad around the house, it’s a superb device for consuming media of all shapes and sizes. But I find it’s too big to be used on my commute, it just doesn’t feel ‘right’. I’m a manbag fan (check out www.lovemanbags.com for great deals on mens bags! Plug over!) but even so the iPad felt wrong being carried around in a bag. I love my iPhone, it’s a great smart phone but it’s too small, it really does need a new form factor. Maybe the iPhone 5 will break the 3.5″ design… in fact I really think it will need to if it’s not going to stagnate.
7″ iPad?
A 7″ iPad has been rumoured since the iPad 2 and I think that size of form factor would fit in what I’m looking for…. but it’s just a rumour for now…. so I’m only really left with ‘The Darkside…..”
7″ Android devices
I’ll be honest, I used to own the original Samsung Galaxy Tab 7″ when it was 1st released and I was very disappointed with it! Even with a ‘faster’ ROM from xda-developers I still found it laborious to use and no android apps at the time were designed to run natively on Android devices, which equates to a sh*t user experience.
Looking at the current offerings of 7″ Android tablets only the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (Amazon Kindle Fire still not available in the UK) looked near to the experience I was wanting, but I was so frustrated with my original tab (and it’s reported fairly low sales) I decided to try something new and somewhat original!
Samsung Galaxy Note.
WTF was my 1st thought when I saw one of these 5″ phones! It’s ridiculous! I remember when the iPad originally came out some classed it was just a giant iPhone…. well the Galaxy is certainly a giant phone!
At 5″ its a very portable form factor, the kindle app (one of its main uses for me) looked really good on the 5″ screen, in fact it looks more at home on this size than double the size on my iPad. It’s performance was more responsive than any Android device I’ve played around with before, the stylus (and the apps designed to use it) were really cool, I actually thought they would be gimmicky!
I admit, I will feel a bit of a prat the 1st time I hold it to my ear when I receive a call… but as I intend on putting in my work SIM into it (that never rings!) Im happy I can avoid that look for a while!
With the Android app market much more matured now it looked like a great device to try out…. I say try out as I think it’s the only way I can see if works for me is to try it out for real in a day to situation. So armed with the UK’s distance selling act (check it out!) I’ve placed an order for one that should be here in a few days. I will be off loading some ageing tech if I decide to keep it!
Ubuntu and now Android, I must be ill.
I installed Ubuntu on a netbook on Saturday for the kids to play with (less stress than an WIN7 patch/update/antivirus/malware installation) and had a little play with it and I was suitably impressed. So much so I’ve installed a Virtual build of it on my Mac to play around with it more.
Maybe there’s time to ween me off my Apple addiction yet?
