Tablet Buying Advice

My husband got me the Samsung Galaxy 7 inch for Xmas; I think it was $180 on sale at Best Buy. I love it.

What do you want to use the tablet for?
Just cruising the internet, checking e-mail, reading, playing games, organizing and doing grocery lists?

Get an older model iPad.
We have the 1st generation and you know, it is STILL real good and we use it everyday all the time.
The newer models will cost more.

Also popular is the Galaxy.
There are also, things like the Nook HD. (which I have and LOVE).

Also per tablet, android or iPad... are the apps for it.
Many are free, some cost .99 cents or up.

But again, what do you want to do with the tablet?
For example, we have the iPad and Nook HD. But, the Nook HD is way better for reading books. And it is expandable. And you can view flash websites with it. Versus the iPads, cannot view flash websites.

Here is a link for reviews of different types:
http://reviews.cnet.com/best-tablets/

You can look into buying an older model iPad or a refurbished one from the Apple store for less than you will pay for a new one. I have a 2nd generation iPad and love it. My son can be a little rough and it has been dropped a few times on my concrete floors and it's held up just fine. Battery life is amazing, plus the ease of use is great. You might also look into an iPad mini, especially if you don't have a smartphone. I've been thinking about getting a mini, just to make it easier to carry around in my purse when I am running errands.

My sister loves her kindle fire. She can check email, facebook, look around the internet, download books - she's always downloading free ones. She has some free game apps for her kids.

My kids have kindle fires and they love them. They can do pretty much everything an Ipad can except link to your make and Iphones.

We have a Google Nexus in the house. I would recommend it it. It's around $190.

We LOVE our Nexus 7! I went for the 32 GB that way we should have more than enough room to download/store what we want. It's a wonderful size. I can't say enough for it. I'm not willing to pay Apple prices and I test on them at work, but for the most part I love my Nexus as much if not more. My only gripe is that the iPad tends to find more Wi-Fi signals (important in my testing), but when I am not fighting signals, the Nexus is a champ!

What do you plan to use it for?
My husband gave me an ipad mini for Christmas and I love it. I finally broke down and got an iphone just before Christmas and I thought it would be redundant, but really it is quite useful.

So, what do you want to use the device to do?

I take my mini to the gym and watch netflix while I am on the treadmill. I use it to keep track of my calorie intake and exercise/calorie usage (MyFitnessPal). My husband uses it to watch youtube when I am on the desktop computer (Mac). While at church a few weeks ago I was using it to pull up images of something we were trying to replicate on a banner (and the iphone images were just too small too). It is small enough that it goes right into my purse.
There are a lot of things that I could use my phone to look up or do, but the bigger screen is much more comfortable to use (checking my kids' grades online, coming to this site, checking email, watching netflix, pretty much any online activity is easier than using the phone simply because of the bigger screen). Most of the time, when I am doing those things away from home, I am somewhere with access to free wi-fi. So I don't need to use my phone's data plan to access anything.

I can't speak for any of the other tablets out there, because I don't have them. But we are also an apple household, so the mini fits right in seamlessly. I can pull up my calendar for the month and view every scheduled activity. And input new items on either that or my phone, and they sync to all my devices.
Plus, my kids have ipods and we all share an itunes account. Anything purchased on that account is available on ALL our devices. Apps, music, books, etc.
I also have an old-school kindle (the pre-fire kind, with the keyboard) and I pretty much don't even use the kindle anymore. Any newer books I buy will probably go on the ipad. The prices are the same for the kindle version or the ibooks version.

If you don't have any other apple products, you may be happier with a non-apple tablet. But if you have apple devices in your home already, you might find it to be a perfect addition.

The mini is much cheaper than the full sized ipad. But, it also uses the newer charging cord, so it doesn't fit many of the charging ports that you might have already. It really isn't an issue if you ask me. The other end of the charging cord is a USB that plugs into the wall adapter (it all comes in the box) or into any USB port to charge it. It's just not interchangeable with any other apple charging cords you may have lying around (like for older iphones --any prior to the iphone 5, and latest version of ipod touch, which also use the newer port).

Oh, and there is also iTunes U. You have access to college classes. I recently downloaded a foreign language course. Haven't done it yet, but it was free. You won't earn any credit for taking the courses, but you can learn plenty. Much of it free.

We got the google one from Staples and it is pretty good. We haven't had a bit of trouble with them at all.

We don't pay any charges for the kids to use them, they use the wireless internet in the house and if we go somewhere that there is free internet like McDonalds. I think they are really good for what they do. We paid less than $150 each for them.

I have a Blackberry Playbook. It was only $139. I like it. I use it for internet and I put movies on it. I especially like it for recipes because it doesn't take up a lot of counter space. It takes great pictures and videos. The kids play some games on it. I don't get why everyone loves Apple so much. My son has an ipod Touch and I hate having to buy all those apps for it. It's like the gift that keeps on costing!