OT Tablets are cheap!

A

Auric__

John said:
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 (7-Inch, White) with Wi-Fi

$180

No contract?

I bought a no-name Droid tablet for ~$40 a couple months back. Got a
different model at the same time for ~$30 (clearance; I got the last one).
Wi-fi support included with both.
 
J

John Doe

Dell Venue 8" for ~$170.

Stock Android apparently with no bloatware and only two or three
Dell applications.

I don't think it has MHL TV/monitor driving capability. But
apparently it can be used with Airdroid to manage the tablet from
your PC.

Intel dual core CPU "up to 2 GHz". I suppose that means power
management keeps it lower when unneeded. I see some quad core
no-name CPUs that probably are slower. Has a lot to do with
process management.

On Dell's website, several customer reviews complain about
freezing. But then I start reading verified purchaser reviews and
see only one complaint about freezing.
 
J

John Doe

I suppose the only thing one buys into here is the operating system.
And since Microsoft is gung ho for H1B visa outsourcing, it's not
going to be Windows. Not that the makers of android are any better,
but I suppose android is the next most popular operating system.
 
P

Paul

John said:
I suppose the only thing one buys into here is the operating system.
And since Microsoft is gung ho for H1B visa outsourcing, it's not
going to be Windows. Not that the makers of android are any better,
but I suppose android is the next most popular operating system.

Microsoft is willing to compete head to head.
And this is how they'll do it. That's a slide
from the recent "Build" conference.

http://i59.tinypic.com/33yhp2v.jpg

When Google gives away Android, a $15 or so license
fee has to be paid to Microsoft for the patents. Whereas
now, a manufacturer building a Windows small device,
can get their OS for less than that (fewer licensing
issues, no $50 OEM fee). Microsoft is probably making
more money off other people's OSes, than their own, via
the patents.

And with the recent Nokia purchase (splitting the Nokia company
into two pieces), the second half of Nokia will be
turned into a patent troll. And you can imagine
for what purpose. Microsoft purposely did not
acquire the patent portfolio, so the second half
of Nokia could collect more fees. Otherwise, any
umbrella agreements Microsoft has negotiated in the
past, would mean the new patents would be part of the
package.

That's how Microsoft will compete openly and
honestly with others... Just like the Microsoft
of old, the one we all know and love. /s

You can try your price check in a years time,
and see where things sit then.

Paul
 
J

John Doe

Lenovo Yoga...

That is a cool design. Cylindrical batteries are probably cheaper and
better. Provides a place to grip it. Provides a kickstand for better
viewing. Might be better for the circuit board not having the battery
in the area. And adds a convenient place for the left and right
speakers.
 
J

John Doe

I went with a factory refurbished Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8" plus a
64 GB micro SD card for a total of $200. I'm certain that the
Galaxy is legitimately factory refurbished. I'm wondering whether
it will have the plastic cling on the front and back and whether
it will include the $10 Google Play credit. I suppose the greatest
concern with it being refurbished is the battery.

One reason I went with the Galaxy is because it includes $3000
worth of software... It appears to include some Nuance speech
recognition stuff and maybe some other speech related payware like
text to speech. That will be fun, at least finding out whether
such a small device can facilitate speech. Text to speech should
be usable given half decent sounding voices. Speech to text is
probably usable for command-and-control, but dictation requires
significant hardware. That is, unless they pipe dictation to a
Nuance server for translation, in which case Wi-Fi must be
present. Most fun would be setting up a system of speech activated
scripting like on my PC. It probably wouldn't take much more than
what's already there, but I suppose it's unlikely.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-Gal...31175128978?pt=US_Tablets&hash=item35d31c8792
 
J

John Doe

Shipping was extremely fast (two days). The shipping packaging was
minimal and risky. There was a 1/4 inch crunch on one side of the
sturdy "refurbished" box. Fortunately it wasn't on the side where
the device is right up against the cardboard cover. There is a
tiny almost unnoticeable scratch/dent on one of the device
corners. It obviously was hit or dropped by a user or worker. Zero
scratches anywhere else, pristine. Not all of the clingy plastic
was removed, some of the thin plastic strips along the edge and
the large piece on the back were in place. No Google apps $10
certificate. I sense nothing wrong with how it works. It's a
a very good deal IMO if that turns out to be correct.
 
B

BillW50

In John Doe typed:
I went with a factory refurbished Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8" plus a
64 GB micro SD card for a total of $200. I'm certain that the
Galaxy is legitimately factory refurbished. I'm wondering whether
it will have the plastic cling on the front and back and whether
it will include the $10 Google Play credit. I suppose the greatest
concern with it being refurbished is the battery.

One reason I went with the Galaxy is because it includes $3000
worth of software... It appears to include some Nuance speech
recognition stuff and maybe some other speech related payware like
text to speech. That will be fun, at least finding out whether
such a small device can facilitate speech. Text to speech should
be usable given half decent sounding voices. Speech to text is
probably usable for command-and-control, but dictation requires
significant hardware. That is, unless they pipe dictation to a
Nuance server for translation, in which case Wi-Fi must be
present. Most fun would be setting up a system of speech activated
scripting like on my PC. It probably wouldn't take much more than
what's already there, but I suppose it's unlikely.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-Gal...31175128978?pt=US_Tablets&hash=item35d31c8792

My iRulu $50 7-inch Android 4.2 has speech to text and it uses the
Google servers to do the process. My Windows XP, 7, and 8 tablets do
too, but it does so in the machine itself. My Motion Computing Windows
tablets (LS800, LE1600, LE1700) have three mics. Thus the software knows
if you are talking to the tablet or to somebody else.
 
M

Michael Black

Shipping was extremely fast (two days). The shipping packaging was
minimal and risky. There was a 1/4 inch crunch on one side of the
sturdy "refurbished" box. Fortunately it wasn't on the side where
the device is right up against the cardboard cover. There is a
tiny almost unnoticeable scratch/dent on one of the device
corners. It obviously was hit or dropped by a user or worker. Zero
scratches anywhere else, pristine. Not all of the clingy plastic
was removed, some of the thin plastic strips along the edge and
the large piece on the back were in place. No Google apps $10
certificate. I sense nothing wrong with how it works. It's a
a very good deal IMO if that turns out to be correct.
They say a lot of refurbished stuff is simply stuff that got sent back
when the buyer changed their mind. I'm not sure if that reflects reality,
but it does make sense. The refurbishing just being a minor act of making
sure it's all there, and clean.

When I got a netbook, it was refurbished, though sadly it didn't mean a
lower price, just the regular price with an extended warranty tossed in.

Michael
 
B

BillW50

In Michael Black typed:
They say a lot of refurbished stuff is simply stuff that got sent back
when the buyer changed their mind. I'm not sure if that reflects
reality, but it does make sense. The refurbishing just being a minor
act of making sure it's all there, and clean.

When I got a netbook, it was refurbished, though sadly it didn't mean
a lower price, just the regular price with an extended warranty
tossed in.

Wow! Extended warranty on refurbished is truly rare. Usually it is just
the opposite and you end up with just a very limit warranty, i.e. 30,
60, and 90 days are very common. And the reason refurbished sells for
less is because the warranty is so much shorter. So where did you get a
refurbished with an extended warranty?
 
J

John Doe

BillW50 said:
Michael Black typed:

Wow! Extended warranty on refurbished is truly rare. Usually it
is just the opposite and you end up with just a very limit
warranty, i.e. 30, 60, and 90 days are very common. And the
reason refurbished sells for less is because the warranty is so
much shorter.

Most electronics either a fail shortly or work for a very long
time, especially something that is 99% solid-state.
 
P

Paul

John said:
Most electronics either a fail shortly or work for a very long
time, especially something that is 99% solid-state.

The failure statistics are actually all over the place.

Solid state does last for a long time, if the manufacturing
process is good. It's the innocent things, that endanger
the life of the chips. IBM in their journal, chronicled
the hunt for something that was killing their chips, and
it turned out to be marker pens used to mark bad
silicon die on a wafer. Manufacturing is a combination
of high tech stuff (done in a vacuum or at high temperature).
As well as extremely low tech (stupid) stuff, done in
other parts of the plant.

Some Asus motherboards have had high failure rates on
NICs, in the one month of usage range.

Memory chips, the floor sweeping kind, fail a year or
two after you buy them.

These are not normal events. And hint that the chip
may not have been handled properly at some point.

My first example of stress related failure, was when
I was doing my first job after graduation. Another
engineer said "come over and look at this". He'd built
up a circuit, and after a number of days, a certain
chip (Open collector driver) would fail. Turned out,
after we had a look at what he was doing, he was making
an output transistor sink three times the rated current :)
And just like clockwork, every time a new chip was put in,
it would last roughly the same number of days, before dying.
What I found neat about the whole experience, is there
didn't seem to be much "spread" in the chip life. It
always died after about the same amount of time.

If your solid state device was designed by that guy,
then you could see why it might not last forever. I've
only known one engineer who didn't make mistakes. And
he was promoted to management, so his skills could be
wasted doing unimportant things (scheduling). Leaving
the rest of us to make the mistakes :)

Paul
 
B

BillW50

Most electronics either a fail shortly or work for a very long
time, especially something that is 99% solid-state.

Well kind of. Gaming laptops for example (yes, I have five Alienware
ones), pump out enough heat to bake cookies from the exhaust. Worse, all
of mine supports dual video cards. And if one little thing goes wrong
and they will fry. $800+ plus labour right there.

Lately I got interested in trackballs once again. After doing some
research, I wanted to try a Logitech M570 trackball. Lots of comments
about how they die after 6 to 12 months later. Two theories pop up in
all of those comments.

1) Some say the switches fail.

2) Logitech and some others say that it is static electricity that
causes the intermittent switch (button) problems. The fix is bleeding
off of the static charge.

I have no idea what is the real problem as I ordered one online and
found a second one at a store before the first one arrived (I didn't
want to wait). Now I have both. They both function just as advertised so
far. But I am ready for problems 6 to 12 months later. Although so far I
rather use a mouse or a touchpad.

I remember back in the XT/286 days with RAM. Those things some would
quit a few months later. Beginning around the 486 days, they had got
more solid and pretty much so since then.

Currently there are lots of reports about some models of hard drives and
some SSD that fails drastically well before their time.

While there are exceptions to the rule, but you are generally right.
Most electronics are that way.
 
P

Paul

John said:
Some "floor sweepings" is another subject.

What I'm referring to is commonly known as the "bathtub curve".

http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/apr/section1/apr124.htm

The first result for "bathtub curve" is from wikishit, in case you're
interested.

It's all about modeling.

You collect field failure data, to determine how a thing fails.
Then, you fit the appropriate statistical model to it. And
try to justify what you're seeing.

For example, the Seagate page has an MTBF calculation. It
assumes a bathtub curve. The calculation would only be
valid, if the actual failures follow that curve. In fact,
the reports I've seen, show hard drives follow a "wearout curve"
and not a classical bathtub. Which means the modeling is wrong,
and the MTBF is meaningless. (The MTBF is used to predict
how many spare hard drives to buy and keep in your
stockroom.) If you've been buying spare hard drives
using the Seagate info, you'll have too few in your
stock room.

Now, what curve does memory follow ? It might be
a bathtub, in an ideal world, but when other issues
are taken into account, the curve might be something
entirely different. And thus, your ability to predict
failures, is compromised.

I never had any memory failures, back in the FPM/EDO
days. (Typical machines here, had eight sticks.)
I've seen more failures in the succeeding generations.
And I'm not seeing anything to suggest there is a bathtub
waiting for me. The failures have been with generic RAM,
and always in the 1.5 year range (1.5 years of daily use).
For branded RAM purchased in the same generation, it's
still working.

I can give you other, non-statistical examples. I
bought 8 sticks of 512MB RAM, generic, without any
markings on the chips. I got the memory for "half price".
I insert three of the eight sticks, in a P4 motherboard.
I test the memory thoroughly. No errors.

I put the motherboard in storage for several years, with the
RAM sitting in the socket.

Later, I pull the PC out of storage (cool and dry locale,
not the garage, not the basement). I test. All three sticks
are showing errors. I take the other five sticks out of their
anti-static tray and I test them. All five sticks
pass error free.

Yes, the event is not statistically significant. But,
look at the symptoms. What are the odds, that all
three sticks just randomly decided to fail while
in storage (not under bias) ? It's a very puzzling
set of circumstances. And fitting a bathtub to crap
like that, would be pointless. This isn't classical
failure behavior at all, and is indicative of corrosion
or electrochemical processes.

Paul
 

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