Tablet for viewing photos and magazines

[wavemachine]

I have piles of magazines here and can't help thinking that they take up a lot of space and the poor tress that have been destroyed to produce these, in practical terms I have to have a clear out every 12 months and ditch a load of them.

My perfect solution would be digital versions of the magazine and the IPad 2 looks perfect for that but at £399 pretty much as an electronic book and a photo viewer which is practically all I would us it for it does seem a bit steep. I have my IPhone 4 for e-mail and web browsing on the go although the bigger screen of the IPad 2 would be a welcome edition.

Are there any cheaper alternatives that would work with the digital magazine subscriptions.

Also if I went for the 16GB IPad 2 how many magazines would I be able to store on it, also I am presuming I would store all issues on my main PC and sync what issues I want using ITunes.

I suppose I just need a colour version of the Amazon kindle there are rumours but it doesn't exist yet.

What are other peoples ideas and views on this, the main competitor for the IPad seems to be the Galaxy but that is even more expensive.

[MattUK]

Actually, the main competitor for the iPad2 is the Motorola Xoom. In terms of alternatives, the only other real option at the moment is the Samsung Galaxy, but that runs an older operating system than the Xoom (Whig runs Android Honeycomb).

There's a whole bunch of decent looking tablets coming out soon - one from LG, Sony, Google, Acer. It might be worn waiting until later this year.

I have the Xoom, and it's great. A little rougher around the edges than the iPad2, but it plays flash which was one of my key criteria - so I can watch catch up tv etc.

As for space, 16gb will hold hundreds of mags if not thousands.

[wavemachine]

Thanks Matt,

I guess I have been ignoring a lot of the news about tablets as I didn't really want one until recently I know colleagues of mine are really into Android which does look good but a lot of it seem to be born of frustration as older devices cannot run the latest versions of Android but then to be fair it is an issue with any OS update and after all it is the only way to make significant progress.

I do remember Apple falling out with Adobe regarding flash and I think that is a big weakness along with no USB support although once HTML5 gets up to speed will be interesting to see how relevant that will become.

I probably won't be in a position to buy for a couple of months so will see how the land lies then, I do like my IPhone 4 but have not sold my soul to Apple so I am after a device that will serve my needs and with the minimum of fuss not a fashion accessory

I am guessing the mags will compress fairly well so your are right 16GB should be plenty even with a few photos stored on the device, with your Xoom is it possible to plug a USB HD into it and move files around or is everything done via synchronization?

Cheers for your input it is much appreciated.

[MattUK]

Yep. Unlike the iPad, the Xoom appears as a normal SD card would on your pc, so you can transfer files easily.

[wavemachine]

Hmmm that Asus eee pad transformer looks rather tasty

[chris-p]

I'd add the HTC Flyer into the equation. Older version of Android but the HTC Sense interface makes up for that.

There was a rumour a while ago that Apple were going to make their own version of Flash, hence the lack of support on the iPhone and iPad but I don't know if anything came of that...

[donoreo]

The Queen chose an iPad..... just saying

[wavemachine]

Thanks for the replies, Ideally I want the same responsive touch screen as the IPad which I understand the ASUS has, I remember when I had my IPhone 3G and a colleague had an HTC phone although the HTC phone had a more powerful CPU it didn't feel anywhere near as good as the IPhone to use.

If I go down the Android route then I would want the latest version on there, I understand honeycombe is built with tablets in mind so that would be the logical choice for me.

As for the queen using an IPad I hope she wasn't tweeting during the Royal wedding

[MattUK]

The xoom isn't quite as responsive as the iPad, but I think that's mainly due to the rough edges of Honeycomb. They've just released an update, and that should hopefully help smooth things out a bit.

There's a couple of nice dual screen tablets coming out too, though there isn't an OS to really support it until Chrome comes out.

If you're keen to get one soon, I'd recommend the Xoom personally, but if you can wait for a bit there's plenty of other tablets due soon

[wavemachine]

Thanks Matt, in the end I did go and buy an Asus EEE Pad transformer after looking at an IPad an Xoom and a Galaxy Tab. The transformer just felt right for me, I will probably get the keyboard and doc when it becomes available.

The only slight fly in the ointment at the moment is Zenio that do the digital mags haven't released the Android version of the viewer app yet but they are doing it. I find it quite entertaining that they do an Android magazine that is now viewable on your Mac, PC or IPad

Now to work out what Android apps to install so any recommendations will be appreciated.