4 ms·

In think 8” tablets are a good form factor for content consumption (ebooks, movies, some games) but Android tablets always fall short even then. You need a good

by jxdxbx 8y ago

In think 8” tablets are a good form factor for content consumption (ebooks, movies, some games) but Android tablets always fall short even then. You need a good screen, especially for text. The 2015 iPad Mini 4 is still much better than any similarly-sized Android tablet.

megablast 8y ago
And unfortunately looks like it will be Apple's last in that form factor.
- MBCook 8y ago
  In some ways that makes sense. The Plus size iPhones aren’t that much smaller. And one of the biggest selling points of the mini was its price. But now you can get a full-size iPad that’s much faster for less than the mini was brand new. Only Apple knows what’s really going on. But it’s entirely possible sales fell off a cliff once the 6+ came out.
m-p-3 8y ago
To be honest most of the time I used my tablet was for reading stuff online. I sold it and bought a Kobo eReader instead. I push articles I want to read later to Pocket and read them there instead. My only wish would be to see a decent eReader with an email/calendar client to read my work emails on it and see my schedule. I looked at the reMarkable but despite its impressive annotation capabilities, it doesn't have anything else I would find useful at work.
- vanderZwan 8y ago
  > I looked at the reMarkable but despite its impressive annotation capabilities, it doesn't have anything else I would find useful at work. Same. I want to have an ePaper device that I can use for more than just reading stuff. I don't understand why they are all so underpowered by definition.
- jxdxbx 8y ago
  I use a 12.9” iPad Pro for most tablet purposes which is superior for me for everything except ebooks. It’s perfect for comics and PDFs and many games and it’s my laptop replacement when I travel (as an Old I prefer a real desktop computer, not a laptop, for day to day work). I agree that an ereader is ideal when compared with a small tablet; the Kobo Aura One is the perfect size and aspect ratio (7.9”, 4x3) for me but it doesn’t sync sideloaded books, and is a bit slow, and has no hardware buttons. But it does have Pocket as you mentioned which is pretty nice. A few reading-focused apps would indeed be welcome on ereaders. Overall Android had an advantage over iOS at first in its support for multiple phone sizes. But this just doesn’t scale well to tablets. You need separate human-designed tablet apps just like you can’t hope to have automatic layouts that scale between phones and desktops. I think Apple’s support for different sizes of screen is actually better than Android’s now, with different compact and normal portrait and landscape modes. The ironic thing is that a decent iPad layout for an iPhone app doesn’t need to take longer than an afternoon.

by jxdxbx 8y ago

megablast 8y ago

And unfortunately looks like it will be Apple's last in that form factor.

MBCook 8y ago
In some ways that makes sense. The Plus size iPhones aren’t that much smaller. And one of the biggest selling points of the mini was its price. But now you can get a full-size iPad that’s much faster for less than the mini was brand new. Only Apple knows what’s really going on. But it’s entirely possible sales fell off a cliff once the 6+ came out.

m-p-3 8y ago

To be honest most of the time I used my tablet was for reading stuff online. I sold it and bought a Kobo eReader instead. I push articles I want to read later to Pocket and read them there instead. My only wish would be to see a decent eReader with an email/calendar client to read my work emails on it and see my schedule. I looked at the reMarkable but despite its impressive annotation capabilities, it doesn't have anything else I would find useful at work.

vanderZwan 8y ago
> I looked at the reMarkable but despite its impressive annotation capabilities, it doesn't have anything else I would find useful at work. Same. I want to have an ePaper device that I can use for more than just reading stuff. I don't understand why they are all so underpowered by definition.
jxdxbx 8y ago
I use a 12.9” iPad Pro for most tablet purposes which is superior for me for everything except ebooks. It’s perfect for comics and PDFs and many games and it’s my laptop replacement when I travel (as an Old I prefer a real desktop computer, not a laptop, for day to day work). I agree that an ereader is ideal when compared with a small tablet; the Kobo Aura One is the perfect size and aspect ratio (7.9”, 4x3) for me but it doesn’t sync sideloaded books, and is a bit slow, and has no hardware buttons. But it does have Pocket as you mentioned which is pretty nice. A few reading-focused apps would indeed be welcome on ereaders. Overall Android had an advantage over iOS at first in its support for multiple phone sizes. But this just doesn’t scale well to tablets. You need separate human-designed tablet apps just like you can’t hope to have automatic layouts that scale between phones and desktops. I think Apple’s support for different sizes of screen is actually better than Android’s now, with different compact and normal portrait and landscape modes. The ironic thing is that a decent iPad layout for an iPhone app doesn’t need to take longer than an afternoon.