Tablet for traveller

becky4131

Hey,

I am hoping to go backpacking at the end of the year around Australia and i want to buy a tablet to take with me for all my internet needs.

There are so many on the market it is very confusing and i am finding it hard to decide which is best.

The things that i want in a tablet are:
1) internet browsing- checking emails, banking, facebook
2) storing music- store music from cds and downloading music to listen to.
3) storing photos- wanting to put photos from camera onto tablet to store and act as backup without needing to connect to pc.
4) E-reader- able to download and read books.

Not too fussed about apps and don't really need 3g although i am open to suggestion on that. Price wise the cheaper the better but willing to pay for the right tablet.
Have looked at kindle fire hd and like the price but not good for transferring photos onto.

Suggestions please?

lagerbreath

Hey Becky,

I would honestly suggest buying someone branded with over all good feed back for your trip. Have you had a look at the Google Nexus?

play.google.com/nexus7

It comes in a number of storage options and starts from £160. This tablet will do everyone you would expect it to do and maybe even more!

neilwoods

If you went for nexus, would need to buy OTG cable and app to be to use card reader to transfer from sd card in camera. Unless you have a new camera with wifi option.

But personally, would avoid the nexus, better to get something live galaxy tab 2, versus, or one of the other 7 inch tablets on the market.

As for reading books, the tablets will be ok IF YOUR READING INDOORS, most tablets are pretty much useless for reading outdoors.

Define backpacking, you going to remote places or built up towns, as that will probably determine wifi or 3g.

May want to sign upto some form of cloud storage as well, dont want to have all your photos on the tablet or cards and have something go wrong.

sillygoose

I would avoid the Nexus or any other tablet without a memory card slot. Pretty much any tablet will do all the things you mention but an SD slot means if you run short on storage you are only £10-15 a way from another massive 32GB, tiny to carry SD card that you can swop. You could even make one backup of photos to a say a cheap 2GB card and post it home for safety every now and then.

People will probably say you can have extra storage on tablets without card slots by using online cloud storage but getting connections may be troublesome abroad. Wifi zones may be woeful in connection speed for uploading. Either way its best to have options rather than only one that may or may not work.

A good battery life and robust build are also going to be important.

A few tablets, and particularly Apple ones have GPS which may be useful too.

An unlocked MiFi pocket device may be useful, you may be able to get a good priced data SIM over there you could put in it and create your own wifi zone for your tablet.

Lifeforms

The ipad (normal sized) or mini does have an extra connector that you can buy to transfer photos on with. I use mine quite a lot, and it's very useful for viewing. However you would probably want to get biggest storage size. You'd be surprised how quickly things like music, etc would fill it up. Especially when you are copying over photos.
Why do you want to do that? To keep as a back up, or is there some other reason, ie to email a couple over to people as you go?

As has been said backpacking in busy areas or remote will affect what access to wifi, or any 3g connection if you go for a 3g enabled device.

I would personally reccomend the small storage SD card trick. Get several of 2/4gb cards, say 10, or maybe 1 per week you're away, then label them, and either hide somewhere else in your stuff, or post back, if you're trusting just in case either the card, or device dies/is stolen.
With a tablet, if you want constant extra storage needed, you need to buy one with an SD card slot, micro, or otherwise. But remember if it's a normal sized sd slot and your camera is sd, it'll work. If it comes with a micro sized sd slot on the table, you need to look at buying some micro ones for your camera, then use them with an sd full sized adaptor.

You could also keep things like music on one, to remove and insert as necessary. However be aware they wont last long periods of time and I'd almost suggest you go get a sansa clip sized mp3 player with external memory as the battery may last longer.

neilwoods

Only reason i mention cloud was because it would be free, as backpackers tend to be a strict budget. So new card and postage would be about £7 - £10 to buy and post back new card. (yes cheaper than having to revisit the places to get more pics)


Also may be worth buying the tablet over in australia, they are a bit cheaper at the moment, plus should anything go wrong with the tablet, then be easier to fixed or replaced (depending on what store you buy from and what there warranties are like.

sillygoose

neilwoods wrote: »

Only reason i mention cloud was because it would be free, as backpackers tend to be a strict budget. So new card and postage would be about £7 - £10 to buy and post back new card. (yes cheaper than having to revisit the places to get more pics)


Also may be worth buying the tablet over in australia, they are a bit cheaper at the moment, plus should anything go wrong with the tablet, then be easier to fixed or replaced (depending on what store you buy from and what there warranties are like.

True I agree, and nice and safe once the data is uploaded. My concern would be upload speeds on connections are often a fraction of download speeds. Could be a very long coffee shop stop trying to upload a few hundred megs of photos on a busy free wifi. Possibly hours and hours. Would be worth a try but a tab with a card slot leaves the option of 'plan B' available.

becky4131

Thank you for all the suggestions.

I have decided that the samsung glaxy tab 2 seems to offer everything i am after and has the option for a memory card. Can't beleive how cheap it is compared to some of the tablets for what it offers.

Not going to bother with 3g as i will mainly be staying in hostels and city areas where wifi is available.

neilwoods

becky4131 wrote: »

Thank you for all the suggestions.

I have decided that the samsung glaxy tab 2 seems to offer everything i am after and has the option for a memory card. Can't beleive how cheap it is compared to some of the tablets for what it offers.

Not going to bother with 3g as i will mainly be staying in hostels and city areas where wifi is available.

Nice tablet. Which one the 7 or 10

JJ_Egan

becky4131 wrote: »

Thank you for all the suggestions.

I have decided that the samsung glaxy tab 2 seems to offer everything i am after and has the option for a memory card. Can't beleive how cheap it is compared to some of the tablets for what it offers.

Not going to bother with 3g as i will mainly be staying in hostels and city areas where wifi is available.

Tab is very good and the next model up the Note is just the same but a bit faster and more responsive .
SD card or use DropBox / Google Drive to upload stuff so others can log in and fetch or read .

jje

NiftyDigits

Think about the LENOVO IdeaTab A2107 7" 3G Tablet - 16 GB for £150. It also has a micro SD slot for storage expansion.
3G is more useful than you might imagine.