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Official Black Friday TABLET Discussion Thread

Brad

By Brad
in 2014

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Brad

Brad

Posted
Posted

As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

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len_mullen

len_mullen

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A couple weeks ago, I bought a 64g Asus T100 from Staples for $250.  This *may* be the perfect PC and is, at least, worthy of your consideration.

 

For starters, it's very portable.  It weighs just over two pounds and the battery lasts for eleven hours!
 
It's also very powerful.  The quad core atom processor idles at 1.3ghz but soars to 1.9ghz when an application demands more processing power.  Despite this, it is fanless which makes it silent and less vulnerable to heat/lint related failures.
 
Wow!  Huh?
 
It just keeps getting better.  It runs FULL windows 8.1 which means I can run all my old legacy apps -- even the ones that run on DOS.  This is very important to me.
 
It has connectors for usb 2, usb 3, hdmi, an SD card, and bluetooth.  That means when I use it at home, I can run a real mouse, keyboard, and display.  
 
The screen itself is a touch screen and the keyboard detaches so this thing can work as a tablet as well.
 
Finally, it comes with a full license for Office 2013 which retails for $140 all by itself.  
 
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gatorburg

gatorburg

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Posted

 

A couple weeks ago, I bought a 64g Asus T100 from Staples for $250.  This *may* be the perfect PC and is, at least, worthy of your consideration.

 

For starters, it's very portable.  It weighs just over two pounds and the battery lasts for eleven hours!
 
It's also very powerful.  The quad core atom processor idles at 1.3ghz but soars to 1.9ghz when an application demands more processing power.  Despite this, it is fanless which makes it silent and less vulnerable to heat/lint related failures.
 
Wow!  Huh?
 
It just keeps getting better.  It runs FULL windows 8.1 which means I can run all my old legacy apps -- even the ones that run on DOS.  This is very important to me.
 
It has connectors for usb 2, usb 3, hdmi, an SD card, and bluetooth.  That means when I use it at home, I can run a real mouse, keyboard, and display.  
 
The screen itself is a touch screen and the keyboard detaches so this thing can work as a tablet as well.
 
Finally, it comes with a full license for Office 2013 which retails for $140 all by itself.  
 

 

How easy is it to dock and undock from the keyboard? I tried a demo of this one http://www.bestbuy.com/site/toshiba-satellite-2-in-1-13-3-touch-screen-laptop-amd-a4-series-4gb-memory-500gb-hard-drive-ultimate-silver/1530094.p?id=1219054453950&skuId=1530094 and I almost broke the demo one trying to dock and undock it. 

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len_mullen

len_mullen

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I know EXACTLY what you mean.  It's not as easy to remove the keyboard as with the Surface's magnetic cover, but you aren't going to break it.  There is a button at the top of the keyboard.  Press that and pull the display off.  Push the display down on the keyboard to reattach.  It's a two handed operation, but it's an intuitive two handed operation.

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Kanyon71

Kanyon71

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Yeah.  It's routinely $349.99 and I applied a $100 off.  They run these things a lot on SUNDAYS for some reason.  If this sounds like a computer you could love, add it to your cart and try all the $-off coupons every Sunday morning.

I will have to keep trying it out. I could deal with it at that price. Thanks for the info.

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Pnambic

Pnambic

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Words to live by concerning tablets:

 

While there do exist some nice, high-end tablets like the one Len mentions above, that are easily paired with keyboards/mice and have usb ports to attach optical drives and other peripherals, you can pretty much count on the $50 Black Friday Door Buster NOT having ANY of these features. 

 

 - Cheap tablets are generally GREAT at consuming content.  They can browse the Internet, stream videos from YouTube/Netflix/etc, check and send short emails and play fun little game apps.  They're far more portable than laptops, let alone desktops.  A touch screen interface generally works OK for these uses.  That is their strength and what they're good at.

 

 - Cheap tablets are NOT particularly good at creating content.  It you have to write a term paper, your cheap tablet is the last place you want to have do it.  If you want to watch a DVD/BluRay, nope.  If you want to do anything even remotely close to "gaming", count your cheap tablet out.  If you want to do just about anything Office related - working on Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Word, etc, a cheap tablet is terribly difficult to perform these tasks on, if they can do it at all.

 

If all you're using your laptop/desktop for is browsing the Internet, streaming online videos, email and simple, app-type games, and honestly, this may be the majority of people out there, then a cheap tablet may be able to replace your older laptop/desktop.  But if you have kids who need to do homework, or you have to use the computer for work on occasion, a cheap tablet will leave you either frustrated out of your mind or simply stranded high and dry and unable to perform the tasks you might need.

 

Cheap tablets are fun little toys.  They definitely have their place in the market.  (I have a couple.)

But in the vast majority of scenarios, they are NOT replacements for a traditional laptop/desktop computer.

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  • 2 weeks later...
jaymacfla

jaymacfla

Posted
Posted

 

A couple weeks ago, I bought a 64g Asus T100 from Staples for $250.  This *may* be the perfect PC and is, at least, worthy of your consideration.

 

For starters, it's very portable.  It weighs just over two pounds and the battery lasts for eleven hours!
 
It's also very powerful.  The quad core atom processor idles at 1.3ghz but soars to 1.9ghz when an application demands more processing power.  Despite this, it is fanless which makes it silent and less vulnerable to heat/lint related failures.
 
Wow!  Huh?
 
It just keeps getting better.  It runs FULL windows 8.1 which means I can run all my old legacy apps -- even the ones that run on DOS.  This is very important to me.
 
It has connectors for usb 2, usb 3, hdmi, an SD card, and bluetooth.  That means when I use it at home, I can run a real mouse, keyboard, and display.  
 
The screen itself is a touch screen and the keyboard detaches so this thing can work as a tablet as well.
 
Finally, it comes with a full license for Office 2013 which retails for $140 all by itself.  
 

 

FULL is the key word here and cannot be stressed enough. The RT was a crippled mess, so hopefully there will be full OS tablet offerings this BF.

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jaymacfla

jaymacfla

Posted
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Words to live by concerning tablets:

 

While there do exist some nice, high-end tablets like the one Len mentions above, that are easily paired with keyboards/mice and have usb ports to attach optical drives and other peripherals, you can pretty much count on the $50 Black Friday Door Buster NOT having ANY of these features. 

 

 - Cheap tablets are generally GREAT at consuming content.  They can browse the Internet, stream videos from YouTube/Netflix/etc, check and send short emails and play fun little game apps.  They're far more portable than laptops, let alone desktops.  A touch screen interface generally works OK for these uses.  That is their strength and what they're good at.

 

 - Cheap tablets are NOT particularly good at creating content.  It you have to write a term paper, your cheap tablet is the last place you want to have do it.  If you want to watch a DVD/BluRay, nope.  If you want to do anything even remotely close to "gaming", count your cheap tablet out.  If you want to do just about anything Office related - working on Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Word, etc, a cheap tablet is terribly difficult to perform these tasks on, if they can do it at all.

 

If all you're using your laptop/desktop for is browsing the Internet, streaming online videos, email and simple, app-type games, and honestly, this may be the majority of people out there, then a cheap tablet may be able to replace your older laptop/desktop.  But if you have kids who need to do homework, or you have to use the computer for work on occasion, a cheap tablet will leave you either frustrated out of your mind or simply stranded high and dry and unable to perform the tasks you might need.

 

Cheap tablets are fun little toys.  They definitely have their place in the market.  (I have a couple.)

But in the vast majority of scenarios, they are NOT replacements for a traditional laptop/desktop computer.

 

Good advice! Another thing to remember is that non-branded tablets are horrible at system updates which pretty much will make or break a device for long term usage.

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len_mullen

len_mullen

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FULL is the key word here and cannot be stressed enough. The RT was a crippled mess, so hopefully there will be full OS tablet offerings this BF.

 

RT came with Office.  It was kind of like buying Office and getting a free tablet to run it on.  Not my cup of tea, but attractive to a lot of people.  Jumping to a more capable Surface meant a huge leap in price PLUS loss of Office.  The 'laptop' I purchased was nearly the equal of the Surface Pro, cost less, and included Office.  Not sure how you beat that.

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me305

me305

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I am not sure if this is the place to post this but I am looking for help. My 3 year old granddaughter is autistic and I am looking to get her a tablet.  I have been looking at Nabi but wondered if there is something better.  My concern with IPad is its durability for someone this age.  We arre looking for her to have access to educational games and encourage her speech. Thanks

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bclvr61889

bclvr61889

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I am not sure if this is the place to post this but I am looking for help. My 3 year old granddaughter is autistic and I am looking to get her a tablet.  I have been looking at Nabi but wondered if there is something better.  My concern with IPad is its durability for someone this age.  We arre looking for her to have access to educational games and encourage her speech. Thanks

We bought Nabi for our grandson 2 years ago and he is still thrilled with his. I am certain they have upgraded it more than original. Happy shopping.

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Pnambic

Pnambic

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Posted (edited)

I own both a 1st gen and 2nd gen Nabi.  I also have a (just turned 4 2 days ago) special needs son (and three older sons from 7 to 14) and it has worked great.  The nice big bumper has been marvelous at absorbing both accidental drops and the general rough treatment my child has put it through.  It is a fully functional Android tablet with a child-proof interface option (that you can bypass when you want to manage the tablet or just use it yourself).  I was able to pick up the Nabi2 last Black Friday for $100 from Walmart.

 

I'm a pretty geeky guy.  In my home, we have or have had 2 Samsung Galaxy Tab2 7's, a Samsung Galaxy Tab3 10, Samsung Galaxy S5 phone, several Droid Incredible 2's (had some trouble with those), a Droid X2, the two Nabi's, an off brand 10in Android tablet, an LG G-tab 8.3 (LTE),two Windows 7 laptops, Ubuntu 14 on both an old Dell laptop and a more current desktop, a stack of older desktops and laptops that have just outlived their hardware's ability to run modern operating systems, a Blackberry Curve, a 2nd gen iPad, an iPhone 3GS, three iPhone 4's an iPhone 4S and two iPhone 6's.  I say this simply to demonstrate that I'm pretty well versed in the many form factors and operating systems on the market.

 

Personally, if I were going to buy a tablet for my 4 yr old son today, I would set my sights on a Nabi and wait for the best deal between now and Black Friday.

If I were going to buy a tablet for my older sons, who can take better care of their devices, I'd set my sights on a Samsung Galaxy Tab4.

Edited by Pnambic
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TTFN10000

TTFN10000

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Posted (edited)

I am not sure if this is the place to post this but I am looking for help. My 3 year old granddaughter is autistic and I am looking to get her a tablet. I have been looking at Nabi but wondered if there is something better. My concern with IPad is its durability for someone this age. We arre looking for her to have access to educational games and encourage her speech. Thanks

You can buy a durable case that is what I did for my son for my iPad, iPhone. Since my daughter received the 5th generation iPod touch she is giving her brother her 4th generation which has a durable cover.

 

The iPads are great for special needs they also have the child tablets with covers as well at toys r us for 200

Edited by TTFN10000
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len_mullen

len_mullen

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I am not sure if this is the place to post this but I am looking for help. My 3 year old granddaughter is autistic and I am looking to get her a tablet.  I have been looking at Nabi but wondered if there is something better.  My concern with IPad is its durability for someone this age.  We arre looking for her to have access to educational games and encourage her speech. Thanks

 

 I would visit your school and see what they recommend.  It would be nice if she worked with a device which will be part of her education going forward.  They may even have software and information to help you help her.

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lkonkel

lkonkel

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New Kurio Xtreme Android Tablet looks really cool for younger kids.  Motion games like a wii with over $300 worth of games already added on it.  I see almost all places that have this item are $129....anyone have one of these tablets?  Hoping they will be on sale on BF...thoughts?

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cwashi3324

cwashi3324

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I really want a tablet computer for myself, either an Apple iPad or Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12. 2, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to swing it. Both my husband and daughter have tablets and love them. I'm thinking about layaway for one at Sears or Walmart. Anyone ever done layaway for a tablet?
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  • 2 weeks later...
misstaken

misstaken

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So….do you think that BF is a good time to buy iPads? With the new versions coming out, will there be a price drop on the older ones and will that matter on BF? Or do I wait until after BF sales and see how this plays out?

 

Help me out here, guys! I need two of them this year!

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Deal Grabber

Deal Grabber

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Posted (edited)

Older ones will deff drop in price.I saw this week the original Ipad is $199.99. Just forgot where i saw it.lol I would bet they drop by $100.Last years ipad mini already dropped  .I would deff wait till BF or keep ur eye on WM. I got my daughters last year after BF at the almost BF price. GL :)

Edited by Deal Grabber
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