Anyone see the new tablet yet? Just was officially announced yesterday and Google confirmed the 2560x1600 screen resolution, along with the new Exynos5 processor (based on the Cortex A15-mp core). Looks like a really nice tablet. And since Google has to undercut Apple in order for this to sell at all, prices are cheap compared to the specs http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/29/nexus-10-hands-on-video/ https://play.google.com/store/devic...51bGwsMSwxLDEsImRldmljZS1uZXh1c18xMF8xNmdiIl0.
As an owner of a Nexus 7, I would make the assumption to say it will be a solid piece of hardware. -KM
lol. Android and iOS are pretty much the same exact thing with different user interfaces. There are no major feature differences between them. I prefer Android for its more elegant approach (at least IMO) to the UI. I dont like icons all over my computer desktop and I definitely dont want them spread across a bunch of screens. As for the tablet, the specs are *too* good and not fully tested enough. While the tablet runs very smooth and can actually do well even rendering games at its massive resolution, the problem comes from not enough cooling on the processor and GPU. You will soon hit thermal throttling when playing an intensive video game and that causes lag because the processor is forced to slow down in order to stay cool enough. When slowed down to 1GHz on the CPU and 400MHz on the GPU it just doesnt have enough power to render all those pixels. The solution is running a custom ROM and kernel, which is normal for all Nexus devices anyway. It just sucks that you NEED to do that in order to get more proper performance from the tablet. When running the custom kernel, you need to undervolt just about every CPU step by -200mv and the GPU by -100mv. This provides you with about twice as much time before you hit thermal throttling than at stock settings. If you run those voltage settings AND increase the throttle point from 78 degrees to 85 degrees, you can go for many hours before the device finally is forced to slow down. The device should be an extra mm or two thicker, with the extra thickness being utilized not only for making the heatsink 3x bigger, but also adding a couple thousand more mAh to the battery. If you dont need the tablet for intensive video games then it is a great device. I love reading on it when at home (although a 7" kindle or other tablet of the same size works better for on the go reading), web pages work very nice on it, and watching movies is a little bit nicer than on a 7" device. I do play games on it still and have no performance issues from what I play, but games like GTA Vice City, Need For Speed, and a couple other games have that performance issue after running for a half hour or so.
While this looks good I'm looking forward to the surface pro. I get the feeling if anyone is looking for a productivity device this is going to be the tablet to go with. I love my playbook but it can kiss my ass as far as productivity is concerned.
I was wrong about Android. Just today, I went from a Galaxy Note 1, to a Galaxy S3, and the differences in the Android OS are phenomenal. It turns out Android can be very good, on some devices. I'm just surprised it was so terrible on the Note... the thing is only 8 months old. I will maintain that iOS has better apps, although that's not a fault of Android, but the developer community.
And the Galaxy S3 is still behind the times and using a very customized version of the Android OS that many users still dont even like. If you install either Nova Launcher or Apex Launcher you will see an interface much more like the official Android OS user interface. I prefer to use that as a starting place to design my own UI, which I tend to do every couple weeks or so. If I dont feel like designing my own, I set it up using the stock UI. Trying to use Touchwiz or Motoblur interfaces just feels clumsy and bloated Here is the UI I am using on my Nexus 10 for the month of December: Main/middle screen: Left screen: Right screen:
My only gripe with Android is that the devices that only have a small amount of internal memory pretty much cripple your ability to use the phone. The OS itself takes up over 200mb which doesn't leave you much for apps, even with install to sdcard options. Having all that space on your sd card doesn't make up for the low internal memory as some portion is always required for any app. Also having developed both an Android and iOS app I can say for sure that development on an iOS device is infinitely simpler. It's Apple's bureaucracy that gets in the way of an otherwise capable platform.
My Galaxy Nexus has 32gb internal sd card, and i never use more than like 5gb of it. I have no external SD card I have been running XenonHD on my nexus with francokernel and love the results.