TR Forums

Hello All,

My brother is a college student who is looking for a tablet, his max budget is $400. He has a very nice laptop now for his school work and light gaming.. I believe he is looking to be able to do some web surfing, light reading, movie watching, simple tablet type games, and maybe some video chatting. I do not know much about tablets, your recommendations would be appreciated.

I have a Nexus 7 16GB and love it. It's very portable and performs reasonably well for email, gaming, and reading. Wi-Fi performance is pretty good, too. Oh, and it's $200

He can pick up an Ipad 2 for $400 or an iPad mini for $329, judging by the amount of ipads I see on the campuses around here he'll fit right in. The Nexus tablets are by no means a bad option, just academia seems a bit biased towards apple.

Older/used iPad if he wants iOS compatibility (or is already using a Mac, in which case why break from a compatible ecosystem?), Nexus 7 or Nexus 10 if he wants the best value or just likes to tinker with his toys.

There are other Android options that could be in his pricerange but it's hard to recommend them over the Nexus.

When does he need this tablet?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/ ... 5L20130403

If he's buying it today, the Nexus 10 is an easy pick. For $400 you get full, unadulterated stock Android. It has a great processor, 2 gigs of ram. And best yet--a 300ppi screen (2560x1600 resolution, the iPad 2 for the same price is 1024). It also has front-facing stereo speakers which is a rarity. The screen+speakers really put it in a higher class of device for movie watching and reading above other choices at that price point.

Obviously if he doesn't need a tablet now, and can wait for the mid/end of summer, there will be superior choices on the market.

If I were buying it would be the Nexus 10 hands down. But, as someone mentioned there's some heavy support for academics on the Apple platform. As usual, it depends on which need is the heaviest...

College?

Beer. Or pay loans.

Thanks all. I believe he is going for the Nexus 7 32gb wifi, Staples has them for $250 right now. His max budget was $400, and he really wanted to stay a bit under that so the best he could have done from Apple was an Ipad 2. He is leaving for a 6 week trip to China for school soon, so he needs to get it in the next week or so.

liquid_mage wrote:

He is leaving for a 6 week trip to China for school soon, so he needs to get it in the next week or so.

Shame, the Nexus 7 refresh is scheduled for July. From what I've heard, the new version should fall in the same price as current Nexus 7, and current-gen will drop to around $150.