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iPad mini I am speechless iPad Mini 5 successor
- Thread starter TheRealAlex
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Interesting.
I enjoy hearing peoples opinions comparing corresponding Apple and non-Apple devices. I'm happy with what I have now, but who knows what the future will bring? I try to remain open minded, and am interested in other's experience. If you get this I'd be interested in your experience after you've been able to use it a while, though it might be better posted in the "alternatives" forum.
I will say I'm intrigued the device you listed has a 4:3 aspect ratio. That may seem like a small matter, but for me the form factor of the iPad mini is absolutely perfect. The pen is intriguing, although I'm more interested in a pen for a larger device. Also it doesn't seem to have any sort of sylo to hold it. I'd also have to be sure it renders PDFs as well as my mini, which is my major use for it.
I enjoy hearing peoples opinions comparing corresponding Apple and non-Apple devices. I'm happy with what I have now, but who knows what the future will bring? I try to remain open minded, and am interested in other's experience. If you get this I'd be interested in your experience after you've been able to use it a while, though it might be better posted in the "alternatives" forum.
I will say I'm intrigued the device you listed has a 4:3 aspect ratio. That may seem like a small matter, but for me the form factor of the iPad mini is absolutely perfect. The pen is intriguing, although I'm more interested in a pen for a larger device. Also it doesn't seem to have any sort of sylo to hold it. I'd also have to be sure it renders PDFs as well as my mini, which is my major use for it.
That is great and powerfull 8 inch Android tablet especially with 4GB of RAM..
Enjoy using the tablet!
Don't buy into the Apple propaganda that Windows and Android are plagued with malware. The fact is, unless you are doing very sketchy things and/or you don't know even the basics of cyber safety, you're very unlikely to have a malware problem.
I look at this tablet before I bought my last galaxy tab S. Is this the same Asus that doesn't have MIMO wifi and comes with a lot of bloatware you can't uninstall? If it's the same one, it won't compete with the new Mini4. It competed with the mini 3 and the Galaxy Tab S last time I took a hard look at it. It was talked about a lot over on the Galaxy forum because it shared some of the same stuttering issues when scrolling web pages as the Tab S does. It does come in at a good budget price point and the S version comes with a nice stylus.
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Apples and Oranges-
This reminds me of a scenario my old roommate and I had when I was in school:
He had just bought the current highest end nVidia card with 2 or 4 GB of video Ram for $2000 (crazy cost)
About a month later, I bought a low end ATI graphics card with 64MB of video ram for about $75
My video card performed way better than his, smooth 60fps for Halo...his skipped all the time, same settings. He ended up returning his and bought a higher end ATI card to one up me. Power to him...He saved about $1400 on that return. In the end, memory didn't help anything, the controller bit path and GPU on the ATI crunch way faster than the nVidia of that day and didn't really need the memory because the mapping wasn't that huge. Use determine what you want/need, not specs.
My parents don't need a maxed out computer when they only run internet and use email. That means save on RAM, save on Video Card, save on CPU, get a SSD because that makes everything respond faster.
This reminds me of a scenario my old roommate and I had when I was in school:
He had just bought the current highest end nVidia card with 2 or 4 GB of video Ram for $2000 (crazy cost)
About a month later, I bought a low end ATI graphics card with 64MB of video ram for about $75
My video card performed way better than his, smooth 60fps for Halo...his skipped all the time, same settings. He ended up returning his and bought a higher end ATI card to one up me. Power to him...He saved about $1400 on that return. In the end, memory didn't help anything, the controller bit path and GPU on the ATI crunch way faster than the nVidia of that day and didn't really need the memory because the mapping wasn't that huge. Use determine what you want/need, not specs.
My parents don't need a maxed out computer when they only run internet and use email. That means save on RAM, save on Video Card, save on CPU, get a SSD because that makes everything respond faster.
Based on the conclusions of the Anandtech review it's really no contest - there's no way the Asus ZenPad is going to compete with the iPad Mini 4, unless you have a particular preference for Android.
Looking at the posting history, I'm probably responding to a shill or a troll, but anyway:
After the iPad 2, I bought a Nexus 7. I liked Android's openness and file system, but apps felt overall crude. There were gems (nearly all of which had iOS versions also), of course, but the overall quality was much lower. Even Android 5 isn't really suitable for any kind of even semi-serious audio work, even though it was promoted that way: latency kills it, nothing like Audiobus or Audioshare, either. The Android hardware market (and even OS implementations) is very fragmented, which doesn't help the app situation. Too many resolutions, too many specs for apps to be optimized.
I had pre-ordered the Nexus 9, but ended up buying the Air 2 instead because not only is the hardware better, the ecosystem is so immensely superior. As others have said, I don't buy tablets solely for their specs, but because of their usability and suitability for what I want tablets for. Specs are part of that, but the apps and the hardware quality are at least as important. Asus, like many non-Apple hardware manufacturers, produce stuff that is shiny and fast, but doesn't necessarily last very long. Not a hard rule, but a lot of the cheaper stuff really is cheap, not just in respect to the price. Specs also do little if apps don't make use of them.
I still like my Nexus 7 as an ebook reader or for quick web browsing or mail checking. The 7" format is nice for that, and I feel the device ages well (it's the 2013 version). For anything more serious, though, I much prefer iOS devices.
Mileage may vary, of course, but I do find it a little juvenile to hang out on an Apple-centric forum and consistently either bash Apple products or hype up Android hardware. It's rather teenage.
After the iPad 2, I bought a Nexus 7. I liked Android's openness and file system, but apps felt overall crude. There were gems (nearly all of which had iOS versions also), of course, but the overall quality was much lower. Even Android 5 isn't really suitable for any kind of even semi-serious audio work, even though it was promoted that way: latency kills it, nothing like Audiobus or Audioshare, either. The Android hardware market (and even OS implementations) is very fragmented, which doesn't help the app situation. Too many resolutions, too many specs for apps to be optimized.
I had pre-ordered the Nexus 9, but ended up buying the Air 2 instead because not only is the hardware better, the ecosystem is so immensely superior. As others have said, I don't buy tablets solely for their specs, but because of their usability and suitability for what I want tablets for. Specs are part of that, but the apps and the hardware quality are at least as important. Asus, like many non-Apple hardware manufacturers, produce stuff that is shiny and fast, but doesn't necessarily last very long. Not a hard rule, but a lot of the cheaper stuff really is cheap, not just in respect to the price. Specs also do little if apps don't make use of them.
I still like my Nexus 7 as an ebook reader or for quick web browsing or mail checking. The 7" format is nice for that, and I feel the device ages well (it's the 2013 version). For anything more serious, though, I much prefer iOS devices.
Mileage may vary, of course, but I do find it a little juvenile to hang out on an Apple-centric forum and consistently either bash Apple products or hype up Android hardware. It's rather teenage.
I still find the Nexus 7 2013 the best Android tablet I've ever used. At the time, the iPad mini was still a non-retina device, which was pretty frustrating. In contrast, the Nexus 7's 1080p display was a joy to use.
I currently own a Galaxy Tab Pro 8", but really there's no contest - the Nexus 7 is much easier to use and doesn't have all the Samsung bloatware on it.
I did want to buy the Nexus 9, but the prices and low availability turned me off immediately. Ditto for the Nexus 6 - too expensive and not particularly spectacular. The recent price reduction feels too little too late for me. It's a pity - I'm not having much hope for the next generation of Nexus devices.
I saw this in the specs:
10 finger multi-touch support
And immediately thought this:
So is that a new kind of digitizer???
Tried Android, going back to iPad.
Got a new Nexus 9, updated it to 5.1.1 and guess what the update bricked it and cause I had no interesting in rooting, the bootloaders locked and so I can't restore from a factory image. Well thanks google, really quality there. Sending it in for repairs and then it'll either be sold or given away. Useless piece of junk and you know what, it has 2GB of ram ad tabs in Chrome still reload when you revisit them...
Got a new Nexus 9, updated it to 5.1.1 and guess what the update bricked it and cause I had no interesting in rooting, the bootloaders locked and so I can't restore from a factory image. Well thanks google, really quality there. Sending it in for repairs and then it'll either be sold or given away. Useless piece of junk and you know what, it has 2GB of ram ad tabs in Chrome still reload when you revisit them...
"Premium Colors" Hahaha. As long as it's black and white, and as long as it has this crappy "hairline" pattern that makes it look like plastic.
I see ASUS is a fan of ol' Henry Ford.
I'm rocking a 2013 Nexus 7. It's an insanely good tablet considering that it launched at $230 two years ago! It still surpasses small tablets in that price range today. The Nexus 9 is too expensive and not enough of an improvement.
Still have my 2012 and 2013 Nexus 7's, running CM on the 2012 and rooted the 2013. I agree, the N7 is is a very nice tablet but since getting my Air 2 earlier this year (my first Apple product) I've barely touched the N7.
I think the Nexus 7, especially the 2013 version, was an outlier. Price, relative hardware quality, paired with the fantastic specs for two years ago made it quite an exception. Google dropped the ball and didn't use the momentum the Nexus 7 had generated, though. Bit of a shame, competition isn't a bad thing.
Yeah, they went the wrong way with the Nexus 9. They decided to go "premium". But they were killing the budget to mid-range categories with the Nexus 7. I'm really hoping that they will redeem themselves with a new Nexus tablet in the near future, but rumour has it that the only Nexus products this year will be phones.
2013 Nexus 7 is still the best budget tablet out there and its 1200p not 1080p But its showing its Age.
I think the ASUS (who made the 2013 Nexus 7) really hit a home run with the Z580CA it will be as long lived as the Nexus 7
Also a few key notes for everyone. On the ASUS Z580CA
-I have never seen a tablet which lets you Adjust Hue Color Saturation, Tone and color Contrast Controls like the Z580CA colors pop like an OLED
- Correct White, Its not tinted Warm like the Tab S2 or green or Blue its White.
- Snappy, Quick, Responsive. Its a 2.3Ghz Quad Core 64-Bit Intel chip, you just touch an icon and its open.
- Dual Front facing Speakers everything sounds better.