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Android Thread

Started by derspiess, March 06, 2011, 11:44:43 PM

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derspiess

Hard to believe we didn't have an Android thread in May 2010.  I guess in those days I was content to threadcrap on the Apple thread.

Anywho, I bought the wife a Nook Color for her birthday.  Was on the fence about it but B&N's $50 off coupon on ebay made it an easier decision.  Came out to $212.xx shipped after tax.  It runs on a locked down version of Android 2.1, but after rooting it I got the Android Marketplace and all the other Google apps.  With an 800mhz processor and a 7" 16:9 screen it ends up being a nice cheap Android tablet.

If it were for me I'd wipe the ROM & install Cyanogen on it (or that beta Android 3.0 ROM some dude came up with), but the wife likes the proprietary Nook e-reader interface.  I also installed the Kindle app on it, so she gets the best of both worlds.

The only mistake I made was installing Angry Birds on it, which makes it a lot more difficult to keep out of my 3-year old's hands.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

Ed Anger

I played with a friend's Kindle Fire today. That motherfucker is FAST. The tablet too.

No review to follow. Bite me.
Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

derspiess

Quote from: Ed Anger on November 17, 2011, 03:06:17 PM
I played with a friend's Kindle Fire today. That motherfucker is FAST. The tablet too.

No review to follow. Bite me.

I have yet to get my hands on one.  Was it the web browsing that's fast, or other stuff?  The Engadget review said it was sluggish switching between apps & whatnot, which is kind of surprising given that it has dual-core processors (supposedly it's either the relatively meager 512mb RAM or Amazon's proprietary UI that slows things down).

I would imagine web-browsing is fast as hell, given how the web-browser offloads a lot of the heavy lifting to some supercomputer back at Amazon.

Everyone in my office either has one, has one on order, or wants to order one.  I'd like to have one, but for now I can get by using the wife's rooted Nook Color running Cyanogenmod.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

Ed Anger

Web browser, netfux and the music was fine. Didn't play with it that much.
Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

derspiess

When they first announced the Fire, I told myself I would definitely buy one.  A $200 Android tablet with those specs is almost a no-brainer.

But I would be forced to either play completely within Amazon's walled garden (the device is pretty heavily locked down  for any apps or content that did not originate from Amazon) or root the device & have a decent cheap tablet with limited onboard storage & lacking some key features such as expandable storage, front-facing camera (there's no camera whatsoever but I would probably only ever use a front-facing camera on a tablet), HDMI output, and bluetooth.

It seems that Amazon (smartly) designed the device so that it's sorta crippled if you root it & use it outside their ecosystem.  They want you to stream your audio & video content from Amazon, not get it elsewhere & store it on the device-- so they limited the onboard storage and omitted any option for expandable storage. 

That being said, I do have a large portion of my music collection uploaded to Amazon's cloud service, and their app store selection ain't too bad (the one free paid app each day is pretty awesome).  If I could get myself to pony up the $80 or whatever for Amazon Prime (which would get me access to their streaming video library), paying the additional $200 probably would be a no-brainer.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

Caliga

I was playing with my droid at the car dealership earlier and thought "it'd be cool to have like a ScummVM for this so I could play classic adventure games on it."
0 Ed Anger Disapproval Points

Darth Wagtaros

PDH!

Scipio

Nook Tablet looks promising.
What I speak out of my mouth is the truth.  It burns like fire.
-Jose Canseco

There you go, giving a fuck when it ain't your turn to give a fuck.
-Every cop, The Wire

"It is always good to be known for one's Krapp."
-John Hurt


derspiess

My brother got me one of these monstrosities for Christmas:



The e-ink display is small & has the slowest refresh I've ever seen, and the LCD is a resistive touchscreen, which makes it painful to use if you're accustomed to capacitive.  The company went under this year, so there's no support and it comes with only Android 1.6. 

But it's been a fun device to play around with.  The official beta (which is very stable for a beta) Android 2.2/Froyo is out there to be downloaded, so I installed that.  Also rooted the device & installed Google apps as well as the Amazon app store for the hell of it. 

It surprisingly has a 1.2GHz processor, though I suspect it is underclocked.  Overall build quality is good.  The 7" lcd display is decent-- good for movies, pictures, etc.  But the resistive touchscreen is what holds the device back.  If you don't use the stylus,  you pretty much have to use your fingernail.  Typing anything is painful, stylus or not.  One feature that helps with navigation when I remember it's there is the small trackpad/button.

Have not played around with the e-reader function much-- it choked on a pdf of the device's user manual so that's not a good sign.

Overall it's a fun device to mess around with-- miles away from an iPad or Galaxy tab, though.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

Ed Anger

Didn't the company that make those go under? I remember when those were on the shopping channels. OMG! TABLET! 300 DOLLARS!
Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

garbon

I like when Ed establishes that he reads as much as Tim does. :P
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Ed Anger

Quote from: garbon on December 30, 2011, 02:30:36 AM
I like when Ed establishes that he reads as much as Tim does. :P

:lol:

I'm only semi conscious.
Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

Tonitrus

Blah, my old iPhone 3G is definitely due for replacement, and I was all prepared to get a 4S...but now I flip-flopping on getting a Galaxy II S Skyrocket instead, and trying out Android. :hmm:

Liep

I'm much happier with my SG2 than I was with the iPhone4.
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