Nees help picking a tablet

[nickbettschen]

Hey I'm new to android (about 3 months) and IM looking to get a new tablet,

I was wondering if anyone had some suggestions for me here is what IM looking for,

-Something that's a newer model no older the a year
-I have a 7" playbook now so IM looking for some thing bigger like the 10"
-I have a Samsung phone so I don't know if it would be to any advantage to get a Samsung Tablet too, if not IM cool with whatever brand
-I don't need it to be 3G or LTE just WiFi is good for me
-gotta be at least 32GB or have an SD slot
-would like a HDMI output but its not a deal breaker
- and as for price range looking for something around $200-$500 CDN


Also where is a good place to get it from where IM not gonna get ripped off
Any info or help would be appreciated

 

[xlDeMoNiClx]

Sounds like the new Nexus 10 would be perfect for you.

-It just came out a few months ago
-It's 10" of literally the best screen available on any tablet ever
-It was made by Samsung
-it's Wifi only but since that's fine with you it shouldn't be a problem
-there is a 16GB and a 32GB model plus with a cheap OTG cable you can attach a flash drive for more memory plus there are a lot of cloud services you can use
-it has a microHDMI output
-the 32GB is a bit over 500 but trust me it's worth it

If you have any other questions about it check out the forum for the Nexus 10.

 

[zkSharks]

I second what Demonic said; you've just about described the Nexus 10. It's a great device, and the screen is phenomenal. Plus, you can't beat the speed and fluidity of pure Android. If you were to go with, say, a Samsung tablet (they do have new Galaxy Tab models coming out soon, reportedly even one with high-end specs and the N10's display) you'll almost certainly be running some variation of Samsung's TouchWiz overlay on top of Android.

 

[nickbettschen]

Whats touch wiz is it something samsung adds on after

 

[zkSharks]

Whats touch wiz is it something samsung adds on after

Exactly right. Most manufacturers want to differentiate their devices from the others' devices in terms of software as well as hardware. To do this, they add unique (well, sometimes unique) features/functionality as well as a unique look and feel. These changes come together to form the 'overlay' (occasionally also referred to as 'skin') that the manufacturer puts on the device.

Samsung has 'TouchWiz'.
HTC has 'Sense'.
Motorola has 'MotoBlur', often referred to simply as 'Blur'.​

In terms of performance, all of the overlays have improved over the last year. It used to be the case that they would bog the phone down to the point that the overlays were criticized by many tech and Android websites. The current state of overlays is more balanced. All except Sense have slowly moved closer to stock Android, with fewer aesthetic and interactive changes to the UI and UX. All of the overlays perform well, though in my personal experience it seems to be just as much a result of increased hardware performance capability as from increases in efficiency in the overlays themselves.

There are, however, three distinct 'downsides' to overlays. I consider these to be somewhat common opinions, but are by no means irrefutable statements.

1. Overlays drastically increase the amount of time and effort required to incorporate and send out Android updates. This is a primary reason why Nexus devices receive updates so much sooner than non-Nexus devices which are not running custom ROMs.
2. Overlays tend to change the UX in sometimes significant ways. Settings, menu options, or interactive behavior is changed in such a way that two different Android phones may not work the same way.
3. Overlays tend to come with manufacturer-altered versions of the stock Android applications (such as Email, Calendar, Browser, Camera, and Clock). They don't always work the same way as the ones that are built into stock Android.

An example of a potential negative effect of overlays is that Samsung's S Beam (a modified version of Android Beam, see here and here for more info on Beam) does not seem to consistently work correctly with non-TouchWiz devices. HTC's recent devices -- running the 'Sense' overlay -- don't have this problem because, to the best of my knowledge, HTC left Android Beam unaltered.