iPod touch or small android tablet?

[Sully]

TL;DR: iPod touch, some other pocket size tablet, 7" tablet, iPad or 10" tablet for e-reading, studying, and playing music?

So right now I have a nook simple touch B&W, and love it. But I'm looking for something a bit more robust and interactive for this 90ish minute commute by bus.

Ostensibly, I will be wanting to do flashcards and listen to music at the same time. That's the excuse I'm giving myself for spending the money, at least-I should be using this time to study, and want some music as well. Will be using e-books as well.

So I'm wondering if their is anything I should be considering other than an iPod touch?

I know there are some cheap/similarly priced tablets out there. Kindle fire, the nook color/tablet, the stuff listed http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0%20-%20%24200. I'm just wondering if there is any compelling advantage to going for anything other than an iPod touch.

Battery life is important, since it's easily conceivable that whatever device I get will get 3 hours of use daily. Right now it's looking to me that the iPod touch is the best device in its class BUT I'm currently about to finish training to become an iOS apple care advisor(boo tech support phone jobs), so I'm not sure if I'm drinking the koolaid.

There is an outside chance I might spring for something 'full' size like an iPad, so thoughts on larger scale devices are welcome too!

Note that I get a 10% discount on apple products too.

I'd like something that can fit in my pocket easily, so I'm looking at the small galaxy tab products as well.

So! Opinions! iPod touch vs small android tablet vs full size 10" tablet?

[Chuck]

iPad 2 at $399.

[viking099]

I personally like the form factor of the iPod Touch, and I spent a good while looking for a similar offering from Android a while back. The best I could find was essentially old phones.

A Touch can fit in your pocket easily, and, in my opinion, is better suited to mobile use.

Plus, Apple products have a ton more accessories that you would actually use.

I wouldn't recommend an iPad, since you already have a nice eReader, and they're so big compared to a Touch.

[Sully]

If I got a full sized tablet I'd just get a messenger bag, and just carry the nook with me as well, using the big tablet for everything else but books.

[Xyzandra]

I went with the Archos 80 g9. 8'' Ice Cream Sandwich Android and relatively cheap compared to the usual.

[Zippo]

Apple's rumored to be releasing an iPad Mini soon, but take that with a grain of salt.

[viking099]

Ooo, now that's an interesting tidbit.

A 6" or so Apple tablet with a Retina display would be very tempting for me.

[Sully]

Originally Posted by Zippo

Apple's rumored to be releasing an iPad Mini soon, but take that with a grain of salt.

Eh, I find the size of my nook awkward. I want something I can fit in my pocket or a full size, 10" or 11" tablet.

That and I'm going shopping on Saturday.

[Gornul]

I love my Nook but it's not the size I'd want in a tablet. I'm finding my iPod Touch to be a really great little piece of gear for killing time with a game or some music. Never woulda bought the thing myself, being a huge Android fan, but it's certainly working out. I dunno how I'd feel about reading for a long time on a screen that size though...

[Potts]

If you're stuck on pocketability, it's hard to go wrong with the iPod touch. I would def. recommend that over any other device of similar size. Going a little bigger, I would say the Kindle Fire or Nook Color are good choices. Don't hold your breath on a half-size iPad, I wouldn't expect that to happen any time soon. If you don't mind carrying it around in your backpack/bag/briefcase, and don't mind springing on it, the iPad would be a good choice. I haven't had much experience with tablets other than the iPad, but if you decide to go with a large android tab, I would suggest doing your homework and comparing battery life, app compatibility & screen quality before jumping in to anything.

[UntoldFate]

The iPod touch should do nicely for flashcards and music. The small size is convenient in cramped spaces and while standing. I use my iPhone for this sort of thing, and it does well.

For e-reading, the small screen might become an annoyance, so an iPad would be better for that. I'd recommend getting the retina display if you do plan to read much on it, as it makes a big difference.

EDIT: I didn't know iPod touches came with retina displays now. It'll be good for reading then if your eyesight is good, since reading is fine on my iPhone.

[Iwacoff]

Originally Posted by viking099

I personally like the form factor of the iPod Touch, and I spent a good while looking for a similar offering from Android a while back. The best I could find was essentially old phones.

Samsung sells their Galaxy Player, which is basically their Galaxy phone minus the phone. So it's the Android equivalent of a iPod Touch. The biggest difference between the three players is the screen size. All come with 8GB internally memory, and are expandable up to 32GB SDHC microsd cards.

[Otto]

I had a touch and sold it on eBay to put towards an iPad 3. Extremely happy with it and loving it for notes, reading, studying, browsing the web and games.

Reading or studying on a touch seems like it would be really difficult. Of course listening to music on an iPad would also be a bit awkward if you're doing it any other place than on the bus.

[Six]

Get a Notion Ink Ad-- no, I can't even joke like that.

I love my iPod Touch, but i'd also love an iPad.

[Osias]

Whenever I road the bus/train, unless it wasn't crowded the iPad felt like too much and I always used my phone. If your bus is fairly uncrowded go iPad, otherwise get the touch.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Zippo

Apple's rumored to be releasing an iPad Mini soon, but take that with a grain of salt.

That seems unlikely as it goes against their simplicity mantra (as far as product types go that is). Also the space inbetween iTouch and iPad is an awkward zone I dont think anyone should venture into because its too big for a pocket but too small for heavy work.

[Chuck]

Originally Posted by Riot

That seems unlikely as it goes against their simplicity mantra (as far as product types go that is).

I'm not so sure. I think a 7" tablet at the resolution of the original iPad would be right around Apple's "retina" pixel density, and so they could pull it off without adding an "extra screen" to fragment the ecosystem -- to devs, it would look exactly like an iPad 1.

[AKBoarder]

Reading on the iPhone/iTouch screen isn't bad at all. iBooks and the Kindle app both resize things to fit the screen and the text is large and readable. Kindle also uses a system to mark your progress in a book that allows your place to be saved across all devices, despite their being less "pages" on a tablet or laptop than the iTouch.

I have both the Kindle Fire and the iPhone 4S and I find that I use them both. My phone is great for reading, games, music, etc, my tablet is much better for video, web browsing, and things like that. If I'm at home in bed, I use the Kindle to read, but if I'm on a bus I'll read on my phone.

I think you'd be happy with either device, and I'd definitely recommend the Sony Tablet S as well. My brother was one and the "folded magazine" form factor is amazingly comfortable. I really love it.

[Laoke]

When I looked at this last, it broke down thusly for me

iPod Touch - cheapish option, decent wifi capability, large number of applications and It Just Works™. The size is right where you want it for a pocket device and I used one for a few years as my primary ebook reader. Battery life will be a slight concern - reading ebooks tends to burn battery power in my experience for some damn reason. It doesn't have any external memory options or additional battery capacity. It can be a real pain in the arse to transfer non-standard data up to the Touch - typically speaking you can't do it directly via the USB cable you have to do it via the wifi which sounds fine until you start copying up an ebook library and start getting wierd timeouts.

Getting an early gen one might also bring the price way down.

Early gen iPhone - cheap option, much the same advantages and disadvantages as the Touch

Late gen iPhone - expensive option, high res screen, otherwise pretty much the same as the Touch

Android Phone - huge variance in price / performance. I use a first gen HTC Desire as my primary e-reader right now when I'm not using a full-size tablet. Very easy to find a model with mini-SDC capability, or additional / extended battery packs. That variance however does mean that typically support can be quite variable. Almost all of them are extremely accessible with no issues transfering data over USB.

You won't need much memory for e-books, but for music it depends on the size of your library. I wouldn't settle for anything less than 32 GB capacity right now. The big choice is iOS or Android. Android is usually somewhat cheaper, but having access to cheaper Apple technology is a bonus for you.

Given what you want to do & your options, I think the sensible option is an iOS platform.

[Sully]

Update!

I bought an iPod touch 8gb. If I like it and run out of space, I'll return it and spend the extra $100 for a 32gb. If I don't like it, I'll return it and reevaluate.

Now, to find a good flashcard app. Suggestions?

The ability to make flashcards on the computer and sync them would be ideal. Not very comfortable with the touchscreen yet.

[Ben Wyatt: Human Disaster]

The iPad mini rumors also seem less likely given that the Fire has (along with the rest of the non-iPad tablet market) stagnated almost completely post-Christmas.

[AKBoarder]

Originally Posted by Ben Wyatt: Human Disaster

The iPad mini rumors also seem less likely given that the Fire has (along with the rest of the non-iPad tablet market) stagnated almost completely post-Christmas.

This is inaccurate.

I will let NPD explain it far better than I could, but yeah, the Fire is selling just fine.

http://www.npdgroupblog.com/2012/05/...are-not-sales/

Shipments are not sales, seems like a pretty simple concept to grasp, but it’s apparent from the hysteria that has erupted over IDC’s release of their Q1 tablet shipment data that most of the blogosphere still doesn’t get the difference. We detailed this phenomenon two years ago and still no one can get it right, so I will say it again shipments are not sales - and therefore they present only a partial account of the success or failure of a product or an item. Shipments are important and course NPD recognizes this by providing supply side shipment data through NPD DisplaySearch but without sales you just have inventory, and that does no one any good.

This current firestorm around the Kindle Fire numbers is a perfect example of how mistaking shipments for sales leads the market to incorrect and faulty conclusions about trends and opportunities. In this case my friends at IDC reported that the Fire shipped 750k units in Q1 2012 following the introduction of the Fire in Q4 2011 when 4.8 million units shipped. (NPD DisplaySearch reported 5 million shipped in Q4.) That’s a total of 5.5 million shipments over the first two quarters of its product life (please remember that number). While it may appear that sales for the Fire fell off a cliff in Q1 that would only be the case if shipments actually equaled sales. And since they don’t, any analysis that might indicate the Fire is losing ground is fundamentally flawed, especially since the Fire is only through two quarters of its life.

In the Kindle Fire’s first quarter of availability IDC’s reported shipments of 4.8m most certainly included the normal inventory build-up a new item requires. The Fire was distributed in something around 10 thousand stores in the U.S. at launch and certainly Amazon’s warehouses needed some inventory too. Let’s not forget it was the fourth quarter when sales tend to rise dramatically. So Amazon, rightly, built a lot of Kindle Fires and shipped them out to its warehouses and its retail partners to take advantage of fourth quarter volume. Logically there will be inventory remaining and shipment volumes will decline in the following quarter as the inventory to support Q1 sales is partially satisfied by the remaining inventory from Q4. And of course that is exactly what IDC’s numbers show; a seasonal change in volume and a sell-down of inventory accumulated in the fourth quarter. These numbers don’t measure sales volume of the Kindle Fire in the first quarter, rather they measure the small amount of inventory buildup Amazon needed to do in Q1 to replenish inventories.

So how did the Kindle Fire do in the first quarter of 2012, pretty darn well thank you very much. According to NPD’s Consumer Tracking Service the Kindle actually sold (there is that word again, this time properly used) 1.8m units in the first quarter. That is an actual consumer bought it and took it home (or had it delivered) and paid their own real money. It was not a sale from Amazon to a retailer for their inventory to support sales, nor was it Amazon replenishing the warehouse stock it controls for its own sales; it was a consumer spending their money to acquire the product. Looking back in Q4 2011 NPD’s Consumer Tracking Service counted 3.8m Kindles sold during the holiday period. And if you add up those two sales figures you get a number almost exactly the same as IDC’s shipment number that we referenced earlier. And looking at the numbers from that actual sales perspective the concept that Kindle Fire sales collapsed in Q1 becomes absurd.

No matter how we frame it, or how others may spin it, the Kindle Fire had a pretty good second quarter of sales results. And as important as shipment tracking is, it is an incomplete number without the power of actual sales behind it. And of course we at NPD know something about that.

[Dean]

Originally Posted by Sully

Update!

I bought an iPod touch 8gb. If I like it and run out of space, I'll return it and spend the extra $100 for a 32gb. If I don't like it, I'll return it and reevaluate.

Now, to find a good flashcard app. Suggestions?

The ability to make flashcards on the computer and sync them would be ideal. Not very comfortable with the touchscreen yet.

I swear by "Study" assuming you have a Mac and get the Mac app as well. You can import cards as a CSV and organize them there. It automatically manages cards you've learned and ones you haven't, intelligently presenting them to you.

[Osias]

I recommend Anki. It's a free program for all desktop platforms that they fund with an admittedly expensive mobile app ($25). But, it's a great system that accepts images, audio files, text, etc for flash cards. It tracks your successes and presents ones you need to see more often. It syncs with all the desktop clients, and you can download pre-made flashcard decks from other users pretty easily.

[Ben Wyatt: Human Disaster]

Originally Posted by AKBoarder

This is inaccurate.

I will let NPD explain it far better than I could, but yeah, the Fire is selling just fine.

http://www.npdgroupblog.com/2012/05/...are-not-sales/

The problem is that the actual 5.5m total over half a year is extremely underwhelming, and the big sales for the fall quarter supposedly cutting into the iPad's success weren't actually there.

It's not a failure, certainly, but it's not the huge success many touted it as.