Android Tablet recommendations?

[Mr Larrington]

Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.) has a crap no-name Android tablet which appears to have died on its arse, accordingly he seeks to replace it with something similar but not flakier than a month-old croissant.  Please don't say "iPad" unless you know a way of setting one up so the "keyboard" is white on black*.  He doesn't need to do anything particularly exciting with it, just e-mail and shopping.

What might Thee Panel recommend?

* actually, even if you do know of a way to do this you can keep it to yourself so he'll give his iPad to me

[Mrs Pingu]

I've got a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2, which I quite like but I imagine has been replaced by something else by now.  Only complaint i have is that the keyboard seems to work very strangely when on Faceache.

[Kim]

I have one of those.  Eschewing Facebook, my keyboard complaint is the lack of a key to open the notifications window.  (Which in all fairness, seems to be a common problem amongst keyboard-equipped Androids.)

My main complaint is that there's no LineageOS support for the 2016 LTE version, which is exacerbated by the inaccessible colours^[1] in the stock firmware's theme meaning you can't tell which quick settings are on or off.

But it is (or was when new) quite a high-end device.  I think you're after something more Tesco Value...


_{[1] Pale blue for on, pale grey for off, white background.  Fuckwits of the highest order came up with that.}

[Mrs Pingu]

What's the notifications window?

[Kim]

What's the notifications window?

The panel thingy you pull down to see that you've got an email or a calendar event or whatever.  Android torments keyboard users by not having a button for it.  On my Galaxy Tab S2, the settings suggests it can be invoked by <Meta><n>, which is great, as the Samsung keyboard doesn't have a Meta key.  (Kids today probably haven't even heard of a Meta key.)

I've had a play with a friend's Planet Gemini (the much-awaited reincarnation of the Psion 5 in Android form), and even that doesn't have a key to open the notifications.  It's a conspiracy!

Fortunately, there's a work-around:  https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=80478.msg2171245#msg2171245

[fhills]

Sounds like your needs are modest Larrington.

So I'd get a Lenovo Tab3.

Good enough.

And maybe a grade A refurb from the Argos outlet store. Good as new as far as I can see.

I don't believe in paying for a premium tab unless you have very particular requirements. I see them as disposable. They can die anytime, as my Samsung did.

[Kim]

I don't believe in paying for a premium tab unless you have very particular requirements. I see them as disposable. They can die anytime, as my Samsung did.

Agreed.  I bought a premium one because I wanted a cellular radio, an SD card slot and a GPS receiver - a combination that was completely lacking in the otherwise perfectly adequate low-end models.

[fhills]

Thanks for the reply Kim though must admit to not entirely understanding (too little or too much espresso?).

I would have thought an SD card and a GPS would be common in even low end tabs these days - they were in the Hudl a few years ago, in the Lenovo Tab3 now. By cellular radio, I assume you mean "phone"? You're making the point that theere's very little difference between an android phone/tab?

By the by, any idea why tabs with sim cards seem to be somewhat rare in the UK, though not in other markets?

I would fancy one for touring, just switching on the mobile data very intermittently.

[Kim]

Thanks for the reply Kim though must admit to not entirely understanding (too little or too much espresso?).

I would have thought an SD card and a GPS would be common in even low end tabs these days - they were in the Hudl a few years ago, in the Lenovo Tab3 now. By cellular radio, I assume you mean "phone"? You're making the point that theere's very little difference between an android phone/tab?

I wasn't interested in phone calls (indeed, I hardly even use my phone for those), but I didn't want to have to tether to some other device (with its own battery to charge) in order to connect to the internet while touring^[1].

At the time (if not now), most of the low-end tablets were wifi-only, and not all had a GPS chipset.  SD cards are pretty common, but their absence ruled out a couple of otherwise suitable models.  (I wanted the option to be able to use the SD card reader to sort out Garmin problems in the field, and having loads of storage space for offline maps and media is nice when touring.)


_{[1] In practice what I actually do is have a SIM from a different provider in the tablet to the one in my phone, and I will sometimes resort to tethering (usually via bluetooth to save power) if the tablet can't get a decent connection.  It's good to have options.}

[fuaran]

+1 for Lenovo. They are mostly standard Android, without much bloat or rubbish customised interfaces etc. Though I'd suggest the Tab 4, as that would get you a newer Android version. Lenovo have been a bit poor at providing any updates for older models.
Or the Lenovo Yoga Tab is worth a look, it has a built in stand, and a bigger battery. But probably an older Android version.

Or some of the Huawei Mediapad tablets look interesting, seem to be good value anyway. Though not sure if the Huawei EMUI is any use.

I think just about all tablets have GPS nowadays. Except some of the Kindle Fire models it seems.