Best 10" tablet

I’m looking to purchase a tablet and I need some help on deciding which would be the best to get. I was originally saving for an Ipad, but with my current financial situation I’m having a hard time justifying spending $600 on an Ipad so I’m hoping to find something good in the $400 range. I’d be using it for gaming, reading books, and the occasional surfing of the net, and audio/video streaming. My daughter has a Kindle Fire and it’s ok but I don’t like being tied to the amazon store so that would be out. It seems like the Nexus 10, Asus Transformer and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 might be my best bets? Anybody have thoughts on any of these or suggest any others?

I would go with a Nexus 10 for future proofing followed by a Transformer.

If you care about gaming, get the iPad. The entry level model is $329.

Forget the Galaxy Tab and Transformer. The Nexus 10 is the only sensible choice of those – it has a vastly better screen, faster processor, and of course Nexus-style Android updates.

That is for the mini. I really would like a 10" display, as guess the other option would be to give up on this and be ok with a smaller display.

The problem with the Nexus 10 is it isn’t much cheaper than an Ipad, so would it make more sense just to spend a few more bucks and get the Ipad?

Here is the other question. If I don’t plan on storing any video or audio directly on my tablet, is 16GB going to be enough for gaming or will I burn through that quickly and be mad I didn’t get the 32GB version of whatever device I go with? Obviously more is better, but like I said cost is an issue for me so saving $100 would help if I don’t end up regretting it.

If you want an iPad, get an iPad. I think the Nexus 10 is much better than the iPad, in addition to being $100 less.

Some android tablets (but not the nexus 10?) have a microSD slot, so you can add storage for your movies later. You can’t do this with the ipad. Also, Android has free software to access your PC shares easily, and also it has video players that can play anything (even 10-bit H.264 with subtitles, i.e. anime).

iPads have all kinds of games, though. Maybe you can find refurbished iPad 2 or 3, which should be a bit cheaper?

If you want to play games, the android tablets aren’t really valid options. So you’re looking at $329 or $499.

Note that this only really applies to tablets. Android phones are valid gaming options these days, since they took off in a huge way. Tablets didn’t.

And in the strictest sense, the Android phone games will run on tablets. How well and how attractively primarily depends on the skill and willingness to commit time of their developers, but the same code operates on both, and checks can be put into place to load higher-rez textures or shuffle the layout around based on detected resolution.

In terms of tablet-specific stuff? It’s paltry in the saddest possible way. It’s like the WebOS app store in there!

Man, you guys, quit repeating the tablet canards. Everything works fine on tablets these days, really. The reason there aren’t tons of games for Android tablets is because a lot of game devs (particular boardgames, which is the area I pay attention to) just make iPad versions and nothing else.

If you’re satisfied with the gaming selections on Android phones, you’ll be satisfied with the gaming selections on Android tablets. If not, not.

Wrong. Some android phone games run OK on tablets, some don’t. If you care about gaming get an ipad.

If you are buying a tablet PRIMARILY FOR GAMING, get an iPad. If you are buying a tablet for tabletty purposes, and want to be able to play games on it, then whatevs. There’s no question that the iPad has way more games than Android, but it’s also the case that Android has lots of games – anyone who’s interested will find scores of games to entertain them.

As for phone games not working on tablets, in my experience the only ones that don’t work on tablets are ones that don’t work on modern phones, too – the ones that freak out at high DPI and high-res screens. For the most part, they’re fine.

I’ve never run into a game that doesn’t run perfectly fine on my N7, but that’s just my personal experience.

Yep, I can agree with this.

iPad for gaming. A Nexus for about anything else. Don’t get caught in the evil that is iTunes.

It seems like most of the games people play on this forum are on iOS – are there only iOS versions of Ascension, Battle of the Bulge, etc.? And are the boardgame conversions mostly iOS?

Neither game is on android. The Ascension guys are supposed to be opening a kickstarter for an android port, if it funds it will come xmas 2013.

That’s pretty much what I’m talking about.

Some are showing up on Android…Neuroshima Hex is the only example I can give personally.

Also, there have been humble bundles for Android. There’s no possible way to have humble bundles for iOS games.