Which tablet do I need?

[SimonMac]

Depends what you plan to use it for. Earlier today I was listening to Radio 4 via the BBC iPlayer app whilst lazing in bed catching up with various web sites, and I use my iPad to watch video (including broadcast TV) much more than I do my TV.

A couple of days ago I was using it to fire up a new EC2 server instance and install Apache using the SSH terminal app Prompt, then compiling an old version of PHP (4.4.7, IIRC) from source on the server; I have a nifty code editor app, Textastic, which is great for editing code and config files and uploading via SFTP.

I know when it launched the tech journalists got very confused trying to work out what their opinion should be until finally settling on dismissing it as a device that was only good for consuming content, not for actually doing anything. They were, as usual, wrong.

I already have a 13" MacBook Pro which happily does all this for me and more, this is the reason why I don't think I will ever go down the tablet route.

[Ruprect]

I've got an iPad 2 64GB WiFi+3G. It's awesome

A Galaxy Tab 10.1 16GB WiFi+3G is currently £494.34 at Amazon, as opposed to £499 for the 16GB WiFi+3G iPad 2 direct from Apple. Not sure where you got that £200 figure from.

Yeah fair enough it wasn't like for like - was looking at the 7" galaxy, wasn't sure i'd need anything more... picture myself doing little more than ebooks (tech of course) and browsing (tech websites) on it... apart from all those work related apps to allow me to remote into the office etc

[NickFitz]

I already have a 13" MacBook Pro which happily does all this for me and more, this is the reason why I don't think I will ever go down the tablet route.

And I've got a MacBook which does all this for me. Furthermore, the MacBook has been right by my side when I've been doing this stuff; I don't even have to lean forward in my chair to pick it up. But I didn't use it, because it was more comfortable to do it on the iPad.

The MacBook serves for proper coding sessions now; straightforward stuff like SSHing into servers and compiling bits, or mucking about with the odd config, doesn't require a machine that big. In fact, the other day I set up, configured, and tested a vhost in Apache on the MacBook using the iPad, only picking the MacBook up when I actually wanted to create the associated project in Eclipse

[NickFitz]

Yeah fair enough it wasn't like for like - was looking at the 7" galaxy, wasn't sure i'd need anything more... picture myself doing little more than ebooks (tech of course) and browsing (tech websites) on it... apart from all those work related apps to allow me to remote into the office etc

Ah, right. I haven't got anything useful to contribute about either of them, because I've never used them

[northernladuk]

Ah, right. I haven't got anything useful to contribute

FTFY

[gingerjedi]

Depends what you plan to use it for. Earlier today I was listening to Radio 4 via the BBC iPlayer app whilst lazing in bed catching up with various web sites, and I use my iPad to watch video (including broadcast TV) much more than I do my TV.

A couple of days ago I was using it to fire up a new EC2 server instance and install Apache using the SSH terminal app Prompt, then compiling an old version of PHP (4.4.7, IIRC) from source on the server; I have a nifty code editor app, Textastic, which is great for editing code and config files and uploading via SFTP.

I know when it launched the tech journalists got very confused trying to work out what their opinion should be until finally settling on dismissing it as a device that was only good for consuming content, not for actually doing anything. They were, as usual, wrong.

Hold your horses Nick, I meant for me it would be essentially a sofa surfer.

I did do some work for schools where all the tech staff blew their budgets on iPad's, by the time I'd left none of them had worked out how to map the networked printers.

[Churchill]

I've got a Viewsonic Viewpad 10s with the Dual-core NVidia Tegra.

After loading VegaComb it does exactly what I want it to do.

Very happy with it.

[Cliphead]

I've got a Motorola Xoom which I flashed with the US image to get timely updates. Very happy with it.

[TheFaQQer]

If you are looking at a 7" tablet, there are some good, reasonably priced ones out there - Reg Hardware has a review. I quite like the look of the AndyPad Pro (£179), or the Kindle Fire when that comes out.

If you want something that does both 3G and Wifi then your choices are more limited - same goes for if you want a 10" screen.

I can't justify paying £400 / 500 for a fondleslab, to be honest. If I'm buying one, then I want a 10" screen (or similar), plus don't want Apple (iTunes / Linux don't mix), so at the moment it would be the Galaxy Tab 10.1.