Related
Hi,
I am an avaid htc desire fan and think I am looking for a android tablet. I really like the apps available to me on the htc, and do a bit of app development/rom. What I really would like is a cheap android tablet, that runs everything that the htc desire has (I could probably lose telephony). It would have to be possible to root the tablet, and flash it.
I would only need a modest size touch screen, but a camera/vid would be good. Oh yes if possible it must have a reasonable battery life also.
Does such a device exist (yet)? If not whats the nearest available. I have looked around the internet but have never really been convinced that the reviews are that good. I know there are real fellow nerd/techyheads here so I would value your ideas.
I have no hands on experience of a tablet at all.
Kindle fire.
Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk
Thanks,
Thats given me at least something to focus on.
I've picked up a couple of 'Scroll Essentials' 7" tablets for the kids for xmas, running vanilla 2.3
omfg they're slow! Think i need to wait until some custom roms are around.
Can't really moan for 70 quid though!
You could search Ebay for a cheap used tablet .
Which tablets are rootable
Hi All,
thanks for the responses to date, but im still confused. Are tablets generally rootable, if so what methods are available?
I can find little info on rooting them. I have heard that the kindle fire is rootable, but
thanks
I would really preffere a rooted tabled with a camera/vid device.
just to let everyone know up front I am not considering any apple tablets, so please do not suggest them
I've been looking at the HTC Flyer, the Samsung Galaxy tab, but am not sure if there are any other decent tablets out there between 7'' - 12''
budgets is about 200-400 quid
I'm just having a hard time making a decision, I'm not bothered about 1080p playback 720p is fine with me, must have a decent processor/gpu as I like to play alot of games as well, must be android only
at least 5mp camera, preferable with the option of being able to root and ICS
do i get a 3g sim or non 3g? what the heck do i do?
hdmi out is a selling point, dual core is a selling point
I won't be making calls on it but I might want to use 3g+ on it if im out and about
rooting and customisation very important
any one got any decent suggestions,
EDIT:
GOT THE XOOM IN THE END, WHAT A TABLET!! its freaking amazing
I hear the Tab is quite good.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA
mox123 said:
just to let everyone know up front I am not considering any apple tablets, so please do not suggest them
I've been looking at the HTC Flyer, the Samsung Galaxy tab, but am not sure if there are any other decent tablets out there between 7'' - 12''
budgets is about 200-400 quid
I'm just having a hard time making a decision, I'm not bothered about 1080p playback 720p is fine with me, must have a decent processor/gpu as I like to play alot of games as well, must be android only
at least 5mp camera, preferable with the option of being able to root and ICS
do i get a 3g sim or non 3g? what the heck do i do?
hdmi out is a selling point, dual core is a selling point
I won't be making calls on it but I might want to use 3g+ on it if im out and about
rooting and customisation very important
any one got any decent suggestions,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This should help you choose lol
droidfather.com/VideoCategory/Android-Tablets
The Asus transformer series are really nice, I'm looking around to get a Samsung Galaxy Tab myself soon, it looks quiet promising.
I would recommend the Motorola Xoom. The development for the device has been stellar, the devs are awesome and has an unlockable bootloader. Cm9 and other wonderful custom roms like Team EOS nightly builds are solid, fast and will make others envious. The Xoom feels solid and is well built. The screen is not as nice as the ones found on the Asus transformer or Samsung Tab but it isn't bad either. Those other screens also have their cons due to the nature of their technology. There have also been a decent amount of complaints about Asus build quality and Samsung lack of timely updates. The Xoom was the first to get ICS, the first to get a cornerstone build, the first to be officially supported tab for Cm9 and continues to have the latest android enhancements via Team EOS roms. Also the proprietary charger charges the xoom pretty fast and the accessories are cheap now due to it being out for a while. Because it was the first to market, it doesn't mean the it is obsolete. I got a bit of a bad rep in the beginning due to screw ups on Motorola part but all is well now.
I have a 4g Xoom and use it every day. I run the Team EOS nightlys, with the device overlooked to 1.4 (i can get 1.6, but not needed) and undervolted to save juice. Feel free to check out the development thread to verify my claims. Cheers!
what about the xoom 2?
i actually like the look of the xoom 1 but the xoom 2 doesnt look great, whats your thoughts
mox123 said:
what about the xoom 2?
i actually like the look of the xoom 1 but the xoom 2 doesnt look great, whats your thoughts
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't get the xoom 2. The bootloader is locked, there isn't nearly as much dev support, no custom roms, no micro sd card slot (deal breaker), more expensive and not all the much of an improvement. It also isn't a Google experience device.
Yea, this I will admit the the screen is better and the writing tech is nice. But you will kick yourself for not going with a better supported device. Before I purchase anything, I checked to see how the community support of the device is and recommend that others do the same. I don't want to solely rely on manufacturers for support.
To be honest I would wait for the Windows 8 tablets if you truly cannot buy an Apple device, as all of the Android tablets still suck(to put it mildly). The iPad is just in a whole another league right now, and ICS didn't make the situation any better. They all lag like crazy, even the 7.7 inch Exynos-equipped Tablet from Samsung. The tablet experience just isn't there yet for android.
What ever you do never get an LG V900 or V909, cant be rooted, or just shortly until you reboot.
Unless you like stock and no root.
Have a look to the Acer Iconia 501.
Toss3 said:
To be honest I would wait for the Windows 8 tablets if you truly cannot buy an Apple device, as all of the Android tablets still suck(to put it mildly). The iPad is just in a whole another league right now, and ICS didn't make the situation any better. They all lag like crazy, even the 7.7 inch Exynos-equipped Tablet from Samsung. The tablet experience just isn't there yet for android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow really? What tablets running ICS have you owned? My Xoom running Team EOS ICS 4.0.3 is smooth an rarely lags.
The ipad hardware is in another league but the software is still Crap. What good is having all of that power and design but only being able to do 1/4 of what an android tablet can do? Also you are limited to whatever apps Apple deems fit in their one appstore. The other other alternative is to jailbreak and uses cydia. Don't even get me started on having to rely on a pc or mac to back up apps and settings usin itunes. On android I just use titanium backup and clockwork recovery to make a full back up to my micro sd card. I have been through that Crap an will never go back. Have you?
I also like how people are assuming windows 8 is going to be the answer for everyone. It can't run your normal desktop apps, I will be more expensive, it will be locked down, possibly more vulnerable due to it being based of windows and missing so awesome features due to limited api access or something similar. Keep in mind the Android was never intended to take on desktop OSs and the ios doesn't come any closer to accomplishing that. ios is worst. I don't care if here are 200,000+ apps, how many fart emulators and angry birds clones do you need? I how many apps do people on average even bother downloading from the appstore? I can tell you it is not 200,000 or even 50.
I will admit that the stock rom may have its issues, the custom roms usually fixes and enhances the user experience. I have only used the Motorola Xoom and Asus Transformer. Both have Cm9 and Team EOS ICS 4.0.3 nightlys available for them that run like butter. I never use stock rom.
ICS is there in tablet experience and will be getting better with release of 4.0.5 and 4.0.4. I wish people wih limited hands on experience would stop making blanket general statements. Not having the opportunity to tinker wih various hardware and software is one thing, but being unsatisfied wih the out of he box experience is another. This is XDA, experiment, create and discover.
ASUS Transformer Series are good and popular
@runhopskipjump: Way to go turning this into an Apple vs Android thread. Read any reputable review site that actually have an objective viewpoint on the matter and you'll come to realize exactly what everyone else has(except for some die-hard android fans): the android experience does not translate well onto tablets yet.
I love android, and have been waiting on an android tablet that would match the iPad, like the SGS did with the iPhone, but alas no tablet has done so yet and with the new iPad, apple leapfrogged the android manufacturers by a year, again.
The only tablet I would even remotely consider is the updated Transformer Prime TF700, but that won't be out until June.
Windows 8 is going to bridge the gap between the PC and Tablet space, allowing tablets to run desktop apps and vice versa. I hate having to have two devices, when one should be enough. The battery life of the current crop of Windows 7 tablets just isn't quite there yet and is the only obstacle keeping me from buying one, and I am hoping that the arm version of Windows 8 is going to remedy that.
thats the problem alot of the hardware does suck, however with the tegra 3 having only 1 gpu core compared to a5x's 4 gpus,
i think apple did the right thing here but I can't support a company like apple
the transformer prime sucks and they have made a new model of the same prime tablet due to issues with the back aluminum and some slight enhancements,
so in a way there is a flaw with those tablets right there and to overcome those you need to purchase the even new model of the prime,
I don't want to be running around, I just want something that will work hardware wise, and the software I can work around with custom roms,
tab
i would chose the samsung galaxy tab
I really recommend you TAB from Samsung Galaxy family
.
Thread moved to Q&A due to it being a question. Would advise you to read forum rules and post in correct section.
Failure to comply with forum rules will result in an infraction and/or ban depending on severity of rule break.
I'm very satisfied with my galaxy tab 10.1
Covers all my needs, has great ROMs - I've only tried overcome, but there are others - and is overclockable.
Now that I've found the switchme app - me, my wife and child all have our separate accounts on it.
Whatever you get, make sure you have enough internal space for such an app.
It's very convenient for more than one user to be able to have their own google account on a tablet, since they often are shared my more than one user.
Sent from my GT-P7500 using xda premium
its such a hard choice as they are all good but only one is going to be bought,
I wish I could make up my damn mind
mox123 said:
its such a hard choice as they are all good but only one is going to be bought,
I wish I could make up my damn mind
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If money is no object, you have two choices. Either you want a tablet can double down as a netbook and you go for the upcoming ASUS Transformer tablet (skip the Prime, I've heard from several people that it has connectivity issues), or you're more into consuming media, in which case Samsung Galaxy Tab is really good.
At this point it slowly starts to become a matter of taste. The top competitors are pretty close to each other. I'm curious about the upcoming Google-branded tablet too - I kicked the HTC Sense to the curb after a mere 2 weeks and replaced it with AOSP, so I don't put great trust in third party shells.
now, i understand that development takes time, but given the potential of this tablet, i am somewhat dissapointed. i haven't really seen much progress past getting root, unlock, a recovery, a few roms based on stock, and one guy trying to port cm10. i guess what we are waiting for is the official jellybean upgrade before development picks up.
tweeklulz said:
now, i understand that development takes time, but given the potential of this tablet, i am somewhat dissapointed. i haven't really seen much progress past getting root, unlock, a recovery, a few roms based on stock, and one guy trying to port cm10. i guess what we are waiting for is the official jellybean upgrade before development picks up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I feel you buddy, I'm coming from the Epic Touch forum that is very active in the development area. I too am disappointed with the lack of devs and ROMs for this tablet, but you have to realize its still fairly new and pretty expensive. I imagine most tablet devs would gravitate toward the Nexus 7 instead. Give it some time though, more will come.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch.
SuperSwagSauce said:
I feel you buddy, I'm coming from the Epic Touch forum that is very active in the development area. I too am disappointed with the lack of devs and ROMs for this tablet, but you have to realize its still fairly new and pretty expensive. I imagine most tablet devs would gravitate toward the Nexus 7 instead. Give it some time though, more will come.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah, and they released this iteration way too soon (<6 months i think) for devs to leave their primes
I think a lot of the devs have sent theirs back. I'm kind of wishing I had with mine. Pretty disappointed with the device so far.
One of the AOKP devs is working on a port to the tf700, and judging by his twitter the only major things holding him back from a release are issues with Bluetooth and some visual glitches. Once we have that, roms should follow since we'll have a working AOSP base.
His twitter account is here:
www.twitter.com/_mrbirdman_
Actually to me, having custom ROMS on tablets is a little overrated. Root I can understand but seeing as I have owned the Xoom, Prime, and new the Infinity, must of the ROMS I have played with didn't add that much to the experience that stock already had. Outside of being able to use Sixaxis app, I have had little interest in rooting this Infinity. I think the wait for Jellybean is going to be with it.
Add in the fact that people are doing this on their free time, taking time away from their families, waiting a little bit won't hurt too bad.
SuperSwagSauce said:
I feel you buddy, I'm coming from the Epic Touch forum that is very active in the development area. I too am disappointed with the lack of devs and ROMs for this tablet, but you have to realize its still fairly new and pretty expensive. I imagine most tablet devs would gravitate toward the Nexus 7 instead. Give it some time though, more will come.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
and if you were in the e4gt forums from the beginning you will remember that it took several months for anything worth while to show up and how long for stable cm9? it took that forum quite a while to really get going.
legendary1022 said:
Actually to me, having custom ROMS on tablets is a little overrated. Root I can understand but seeing as I have owned the Xoom, Prime, and new the Infinity, must of the ROMS I have played with didn't add that much to the experience that stock already had. Outside of being able to use Sixaxis app, I have had little interest in rooting this Infinity. I think the wait for Jellybean is going to be with it.
Add in the fact that people are doing this on their free time, taking time away from their families, waiting a little bit won't hurt too bad.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well to each their own, but to me, it's in custom development that you really begin to use the device to it's full potential. For instance, the OG Xoom has been literally given new life with EOS Jellybean builds. Yes, the Xoom wifi did get the JB OTA update, but stock JB is nowhere near as great as the EOS nightlies. They have tweaked it to capacity. The same will happen with the TF700 in time, I hope.
I also have the Nexus 7 and it's true that development has exploded for it, but honestly, it's a really limited device. For that reason, devs are in a performance competition...pushing things to the max. The TF700 though needs to be able to work really well...we'll need to be able to find the balance between high performance and stability. The fact that it's not really skinned is in its favor. It's not a Nexus device though and so some devs will not be interested in working with it.
Part of the problem in developing custom roms - which I have been doing for the Galaxy S 2/3 - is that currently you cannot decompile/recompile the SystemUI.apk file for the TF700T. XDA user iBotPeaches has taken over development of the apktool (tool to decompile/recompile APKs) project and is aware of the problem I and others are having. He is working to fix it.
As soon as it is fixed, I will be releasing a custom rom for the TF700T, but I need to make changes to the SystemUI.apk file. I can decompile/recompile the framework-res.apk file (have added CRT OFF effect already - and it works better than on my Galaxy S3).
So please have a little patience while the development tools are fixed and improved.
One other point to consider is that the Jelly Bean update is right around the corner, so putting much effort into modifying the current ICS version or actually making Jelly Bean work on the tablet is a waste of time.
We need to buy about 2 phones for testing some custom android apps we've built.
Does anyone have suggestions on what the best phones for testing would be?
I was thinking something with HTC sense on it, and something with stock android on it. Both need to be able to s-off and root easily.
erm... the google dev phones (nexus) ?? Personally I use galaxy nexus most for this kinda thing
For any kind of software testing, you need to know how it will function on both the latest and greatest devices, as well as the oldest hardware you intend to support.
I'd think for the price of two top-tier 2012 phones, you could buy 1 top of the line current phone, one from last year, and one from 2 years ago. Possibly also include Sense, Touchwiz and vanilla android.
Something running GB and something running ICS/JB. Many phones are still on GB so a used device running GB would be useful to test on.
Test it on emulator first?
jianC said:
Test it on emulator first?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes for sure it's the first thing to do,but not always if it works on emulator it will work on specific phone
Nexus one and galaxy nexus. Then you've got gingerbread and jellybean covered
If you need a newer phone for testing , the Galaxy Nexus is an obvious choice .
If you need a older phone ( old hardware ) to test yous apps , have a look at Nexus 1 or HTC Desire , it can run flawlessly 2.2 , 2.3 and 4.0.4 . I have a Desire on ICS ( BCM ) so I can tell .
willpower102 said:
We need to buy about 2 phones for testing some custom android apps we've built.
Does anyone have suggestions on what the best phones for testing would be?
I was thinking something with HTC sense on it, and something with stock android on it. Both need to be able to s-off and root easily.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HD2? ROMs range from Android 2.1-4.1 (AOSP, AOKP, CM), Sense 2.0-3.5 (one discontinued Sense 4 alpha), TouchWiz + GB, Xperia Arc GB, MIUI etc. It's also got similar specs to a low-range phone nowadays so that would be a good choice I think. In addition, a One X probably.
HTC One X?!
Samsung galaxy nexus
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Galaxy nexus its official hands down
Sent from my evo 4g using xda premium
It seems it is indeed no contest there.
Does the Galaxy Nexus come with Sense by default? (It's been a while since I've looked into these. Last Android phone I owned was a droid bionic and before that the htc hero.)
We definitely are going to support gingerbread, so we'll need a little bit of an older phone too. I'm sure breaking it up like that into 3 or so phones is ok, as long as they fall under budget.
And yeah, the dev tests with emulators, but I'm QA on this project so I get to play with them real-world once he's done and find more bugs.
Nexus S and a Galaxy Nexus,
Will do the job well:thumbup:
Sent from my GT-S5660 using xda premium
willpower102 said:
It seems it is indeed no contest there.
Does the Galaxy Nexus come with Sense by default? (It's been a while since I've looked into these. Last Android phone I owned was a droid bionic and before that the htc hero.)
We definitely are going to support gingerbread, so we'll need a little bit of an older phone too. I'm sure breaking it up like that into 3 or so phones is ok, as long as they fall under budget.
And yeah, the dev tests with emulators, but I'm QA on this project so I get to play with them real-world once he's done and find more bugs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GNex is a Nexus phone, so why would it come with Sense?
Anyway, the best choice is still the HD2 IMO. You can test it on all versions of Android from 2.1-4.1 and it's incredibly cheap, with specs which are not too bad (1GHz Snapdragon with 576MB RAM) for the price. If you can get the app to run smoothly on the HD2 the likelihood is that it will run on any newer phone.
IMHO you have yo use a stock device.. nexus as all the docs suggest. Custom ROMs have additions substitutions and tweaks that in a dev sense are not baseline. Although the differences are minimal or should be. Better to play safe. So nexus s and galaxy nexus.. Google provide stock ROMs for these in dev device downloads.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Noted. Thanks.
And yeah, that's cool that some of these phones support plenty of roms, but I don't want to be flashing 3 different roms every time the dev iterates a new point (v.2) update. I'd rather have 2-3 phones ready to go. (seems lazy, but I've got a lot of other work to do to
We got a droid (motorola timestamp issues), a Galaxy Nexus, and an hd2. So the hd2 comes stock with windows mobile? This is strange to me.
willpower102 said:
We got a droid (motorola timestamp issues), a Galaxy Nexus, and an hd2. So the hd2 comes stock with windows mobile? This is strange to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, the hd2 does have a lot of support, but when the top threads in the device specific forum warn of how unstable and beta-ish android development is on this phone, then I'm not really as excited as I was. might end up returning this one.
Hi all,
Just wondering what the custom ROM development scene is like for Nexus devices?
Are they available or does it get less support as people prefer stock Android
I understand that N5 will not have many ROMS at the moment, but what are peoples's predictions?
I have a Galaxy S2 at the moment, considering an upgrade to N5, and just wanna know what the activity of the scene is like for nexus devices?
Loads to browse through on this site.
Sent from my Nexus 4
Welcome to xda Ben... basically, dev support is likely to be huge... probably far more than a person can keep up with
Sweet, that's what i was hoping for!
Thanks for your help
If the Nexus 5 is like the Nexus 7 or Galaxy Nexus development sections there will be a ton of roms. Unless there is some sort of encryption with bootloader or kernel that makes a root exploit hard to achieve. We already have custom recovery so that is a good sign.