Random Non-Sequiters
Sad personal tech news.
My Android M001 Tablet has become seriously injured. I noticed a sizeable crack down the center of the screen yesterday. Still turns on, and straight on the crack actually isn't as bad looking as the picture would lead you to believe, but there was appparently injury to the touchscreen as well, leaving the unit largely unuseable, especially if you try to touch the top half.
Jenn's tablet is in good working order, so there is still a working Android tablet in the house.
More interesting, it's not a loss of tech that I'm really feeling. You see, the M001 and I became estranged last October when I got an iPod Touch 4th Gen for my birthday. Sure, I still liked the M001's physically larger screen and that sexy 7" Android form factor, but the Touch's 1Ghz A4 chip, dual cameras and Retina display pretty much limited how much the M001 and I were hanging out.
Oh, sure I'd still pick up the M001 for an occasional Kindle book read or CBZ comic, but compared to the speed of the Touch's A4, it's abillity to play Youtube in high res flawlessly and the superior Safari browser, well, those dalliances with the M001 became the exception and not the norm.
With the M001 out of commission, I have turned toward the tech world with renewed interest in what's available in the tablet form factor.
Sadly the choices are not ideal, while I have purchase intent, I'm not sure there is anything out there that really looks like it would fulfill my needs.
The store available Android tablets are mostly too phone-like to take seriously at their current prices. The Xoom out today/soon, looks nice, but has already pulled it's promises of Flash away. And at $600 on contract (and $800 off contract), the lone serious in store contender-- iPad at $499, looks like the only viable tablet player in retail, one year later, still.
But then there's the looming spectre of iPad 2 to contend with. Rumor has it, such a device will be announced in two weeks (but given Apple history, likely not available for 4 more weeks after that.) Rumors say that the iPad 2 will have 2 cameras, a better screen, be thinner, lighter, cure cancer, and make magical unicorns appear in any forest you use it in.
So it's hard to seriously consider going with the iPad 1 now, with such a magical iPad 2 device right around the corner.
I suppose I should mention WebOs Touchpad. It looks really nice, very sexy, but Palm, as a spurred Pre owner, you've teased me too much, I've seen how you treat a 1.0 user, and really after 2 years you still barely have any apps, and while I love your notifications, email and cards on my phone, I need more from a tablet... and let's be honest at the price you're likely to charge, you're not really serious about our potential relationship anyway.
So, I'll wait and see how the iPad 2 sizes up, or how far the iPad 1 drops in price as they clear out old models to make way for the new. There's still no guarantee I'll go Apple. There are some nice cheap no-brand Android 2.1 tablets on Dealextreme and at $129 or so, I my go no-brand yet again until a serious mainstream Android device, or yes shutter to say, but I'd seriously consider a Keyboardless Win 7 sub $250 touchscreen netbook becomes available.
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