TR Forums

I'm conducting some field surveys this year of some local reptile populations; I'd like to be able to easily and accurately record GPS coordinates in the field as well as take electronic. So I'm looking for a tablet that has GPS capabilties and has a stylus input as well (for note taking--both of the GPS and things like gender, size etc of the animals). Ideally I'll be able to easily sync it to my desktop and output those files right to excel since I anticipate generating a fair amount of data. Built in camera is *not* needed as I'll be using my cannon--I've never seen a tablet with a built in camera that's adequate for this sort of stuff.

It's OK if I have to buy an app or software to use the tablet for GPS purposes, but it does have to be available somehow.

Any ideas?

What if you could design and upload a form to the tablet with radio buttons for male/female, etc; would that rid you of your need for a stylus as input?
I know Filemaker Go for iPad lets you make forms like that; I read an archaeology blog where they use them instead of paper notebooks.

that's a good idea and may work.
The other issue is just recording species though; I'm focusing on 3 poorly studied snake species just doing a mark/recapture to try to get an idea on population density, but I need to record incidentals to just in case there's anything neat (the TX panhandle has had very little research done it so who knows)...there's over 20 species that occur here...I wonder if there's a way to just have them saved like keyboard shortcuts? F1+C= T. nigriceps, F1+b=D. punctatus, F1+C= R. leconti? Do you know if the iPad lets you program something like that?

I don't know. I know you could set up an option set of radio buttons or a dropdown box with all the species in it, so you'd just have to touch one.

If you are using an iOS device with gps (iPhone, iPad Wifi+3G) you can store your observations in a filemaker database and use the device gps to store the coordinates. The Support Group has an example.
http://www.supportgroup.com/explore/geo ... emaker-go/

Not sure this will help but, HTC has an upcoming tablet called the Flyer (to be possibly launched with Sprint under the EVO View name, or something like that)

They've certainly designed it with pen-input + portability in mind. Though their insistence on using their Sense skin means you'll have to deal with their custom overlay (which I found useful in a phone, but have yet to be convinced will benefit a tablet).

http://www.androidcentral.com/htc-flyer ... first-look

http://www.carrypad.com/2011/03/04/htc- ... tion-test/

Asus also has an upcoming stylus-input 7" tablet.

Past that, I'm not sure if the android environment will suit your needs. There's certainly note-taking apps, and I'm sure both tablets will ship with some custom software to take advantage of the pen.

I'll keep an eye on those; it'll be April or May before I could really use one--and in a pinch if I decide nothing's worth the asking price I'll stick with the old fashioned pen and paper...but this could be so much easier!