Recommend me a Tablet please

[elsiegee40]

My eldest at uni has been saving her holiday job pennies hard and wants to buy a tablet such as a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 for use in lectures. She wants something she can use with a ‘pen’ to annotate powerpoint slides or Pdfs of powerpoint slides on screen.

 

She has a Win 7 laptop, so the ability to backup/print through that would be useful.

 

She's also mentioned the Microsoft Surface with Win 8 (is it available yet?)

 

Do you guys have any suggestions please regarding both hardware and software?

[bondbill2k2]

She wants something she can use with a ‘pen’ to annotate powerpoint slides or Pdfs of powerpoint slides on screen.

 

Don't think you will find a tablet ideal for this purpose to be honest, the Microsoft surface tablets are around but possibly not the best for annotations. I'd stick with a laptop if you can convince her or maybe a touch screen ultrabook windows 8 spinny screen jobby for best of both.... I'd be interested to hear if you find anything better for the task, I don't have much experience with the galaxy notes tbh

[localzuk]

I'm going to be buying myself a Galaxy Note 2 in the new year (not a tablet, but a phablet), so its got a 5.5" screen, comes with a stylus and is also a phone. In a note taking situation, I'd think it would be ideal, as it isn't too big to have to carry about, you can just stick it in your pocket (or purse).

[SYNACK]

The Surface RT is out but has no stylus, the Surface Pro may do but is not out yet and will have a four hour battery life.

 

Samsung does a W8 tablet with a stylus and I think ASUS does to which could be worth a look, Atom CPUs so not ultra powerful but 9h+ of battery life and support for old windows apps to.

[plexer]

SAMSUNG Galaxy Tab 2 7" Tablet - 8 GB Deals | Pcworld

 

Ben

[Theblacksheep]

SAMSUNG Galaxy Tab 2 7" Tablet - 8 GB Deals | Pcworld

 

Ben

 

You can get the 16gb Nexus 7 for that price.

[CyberNerd]

I'd go for a Nexus 7 with one of a plethora of apps designed to annotate over other applications.

You can also get a bunch of stylus direct from China off ebay for a couple of quid.

 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mattm.whiteboardpro&hl=en

[denon101]

The Samsung Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Tab 2 are brilliant. We have 90 of them here at school. However do not have a stylus. So I would recommend that you go for the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 10.1. The extra 3 inches are worth it, trust me.... Ooooh er

 

Plus there are some cracking deals out there at the moment with the cash back offers.

[plexer]

You can get the 16gb Nexus 7 for that price.

 

Doh sorry was thinking that it also had an s-note stylus but that's only the 10.1

 

Ben

[elsiegee40]

Samsung Galaxy Note 2 10.1. The extra 3 inches are worth it, trust me.... Ooooh er

 

Plus there are some cracking deals out there at the moment with the cash back offers.

@denon101 The Galaxy Note 10.1 is the one she's interested in... I have no idea if the extra 3 inches are the attraction. It's just not something a mother asks her 19 year old daughter

[bondbill2k2]

Or a 32GB nexus 7 or £20 more

[CyberNerd]

The Galaxy Note 10.1 is the one she's interested in... I have no idea if the extra 3 inches are the attraction. It's just not something a mother asks her 19 year old daughter

 

Nexus 10 then

[denon101]

@denon101 The Galaxy Note 10.1 is the one she's interested in... I have no idea if the extra 3 inches are the attraction. It's just not something a mother asks her 19 year old daughter

 

Fair enough, I suppose you are right!!! You will have to take my advice then HAHAHA!!

[edutech4schools]

I have Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and bloody love it.

[edutech4schools]

This link goes over some of the new features just added to the note 10.1. even if your not getting one the video is worth watching.

 

[GALAXY Note 10.1] Introducing Premium Suite for GALAXY Note 10.1 - YouTube

[SpuffMonkey]

I've got an Asus Transformer - comes with a natty clip on keyboard which should make the note taking easier - the kb has an extra battery in it too which nicely extends its up time. No stylus tho, I'm afraid

[mjs_mjs]

I'm currently an undergrad in maths and I use an ASUS tf300 for note taking/surfing and all sorts. It doesn't run my subject specific apps, but i also have a large laptop for that. I use a stylus sometimes cost about 5£. The main reason i use that over anything else is it has a kb if i need it super long battery life and the app on it called supernote is VERY good for my notes. Others use ipads and laptops and one other uses a transformer. All of thoes using other apps to note take prefer our supernote.

 

EDIT; i should say my subject specific apps use GB's worth of ram and are often run on backend servers for a few hours producing results.

Edited December 12, 2012 by mjs_mjs

[CyberNerd]

EDIT; i should say my subject specific apps use GB's worth of ram and are often run on backend servers for a few hours producing results.

 

ssh to matlab then

[SYNACK]

The other thing to take into account with Styluses is that there are different types. There are the capacitive type which are basically just a capacitive blob on the end of a stick, usually a bit thick and are not hugely better than just using a finger as you can't rest your hand on it or anything as there is no differentiation between the inputs.

 

The second kind are the ones with a digitizer grid in behind which are massively more precise, differentiated from touch and can even, depending on the device and stylus it can even take into account pressure and angle which make them much better for precision and any art stuff if you need it. I think one of the android Samsung tablets has this kind and the Surface pro along with several of the other W8 tabs do. These are usually Wacom digitisers which is what the artists use and for general note taking mean you can actually rest your hand on it while writing reliably.

 

It all comes down to what she needs, the ASUS, Samsung and Acer ones also have the keyboard battery thing which doubles the battery life, the Acer one does not have a proper digital stylus though and you'd end up needing to use one of the imprecise capacitive ones to write on it.

[witch]

I have just researched the same question for a friend and after exhaustive searching and review reading it came down to the Nexus or the Galaxy, both for ease of use and price