Android Tablets the state of the market: General discussion!

[MarkWF1]

O.K. wanting to key in on a few things in regards to media offerings and whats going on in the 4G area with these tablets as well as size..

First media offerings. The media market. Movies, Music, cloud offerings in general are really starting to break open in a big way. I noticed yesterday that the flyer has Sony streaming movies. (Was it Sony I'm not sure?) It wasn't Netflix and it wasn't Google, YouTube etc. What I'm getting at here, is it appears that the media giants all seem to realize that this market is starting to break wide open.. Will/Are they going to be playing games? Locking you out of one service over another etc. Or will the tablet makers, software loaded on them, allow ease of use and or choice in this area?

Will they keep an open market philosophy and stay with an open market in this area is what I'm getting at... Looks like it's getting sticky or will get sticky as the year goes along. The Motorola Xoom was a boat anchor in this area as far as I'm concerned. What are your thoughts??

Second thing for me is 4G. 4G or what there calling 4G first broke open with Sprint and is now starting to come out with other carriers. My problem is I live outside of an area that I can get 4G. Might as well be a boat anchor as far as I'm concerned. Hate all the hype in this area, as for me it's a joke.. In this area I have the consumer mentality that I want 4G and will go with whoever can offer it to me as time goes along.. Thus leaving Sprint if they don't get there **** together.. As you might expect I'm a little jaded and pissed off towards my carrier in this area, as I feel it's over hyped and they have been allowed to false advertise..

Now the other carriers are starting to do the same thing because Sprint has gotten away with using it to bring up there market share in such a big way. They have been allowed to advertise and hype up an area, using it to sell there products. They are not offering over half the populace 4G. Hell I would say that if you looked at the country as a whole, there actually only offering 4G service to maybe 10% of the country, maybe less. Yet this is the biggest catch phrase on the market. and the populace is falling for it, letting them get away with it. I look at it as false advertisement and feel that we are lemmings for allowing them to get away with it. Sure if you live in an area that you can get 4G your happy, for the rest of 90% of the country. Your an idiot for allowing them to get away with this. So the question for open discussion is whats going on with 4G and what are your thoughts in this area as in the end it affects all of us..

Last topic is about size and pricing of what I see hitting the market. I see quite a few 7, 8 inch tablets.. a few 10.1.. Is this driven by the consumer or what the market thinks the consumer wants? For me I like the 10 inch tablets as it affords a much more dynamic feel and separation from what I'm used to with my HTC Evo4G. A 7' inch tab with the price point they seem to be hitting the market with. Makes me really stop and think about what I'm getting for the price.. What are your thoughts?

For those of you with the experience or insight into these topics areas, your comments are appreciated ahead of time.

Yours through the screen

MarkWF1

 

[beastman]

Austin, TX is a 4g city according to Sprint. The truth is the whole city is NOT 4G. If I leave my Evo in 4G and go somewhere I will go in and out of 4G. While not in 4G, the phone will search for it, which eats battery. So to avoid the problem, I put it in 3G. 4G is a radio frequency and Spring KNOWS the whole city isn't 4G.

Kind of like how Working defines "nationwide" as more than one state. They KNOW very well that the WHOLE US is NOT 4G.

They have all kinds of disclaimers in "leagalise font". We need a law that's the whole advertisement must be in the same font.

Sent from my GTablet using Android Tablet Forum

 

[MarkWF1]

Thanks for the reply Beastman.. Yea it madens me to no end.. What really ticks me off is the general populace allows them to get away with it.. Oh well it is what it is and we just have to deal with it I guess.. Wish folks would wake up and smell the coffie at times though.. ;-)

Austin, TX is a 4g city according to Sprint. The truth is the whole city is NOT 4G. If I leave my Evo in 4G and go somewhere I will go in and out of 4G. While not in 4G, the phone will search for it, which eats battery. So to avoid the problem, I put it in 3G. 4G is a radio frequency and Spring KNOWS the whole city isn't 4G.

Kind of like how Working defines "nationwide" as more than one state. They KNOW very well that the WHOLE US is NOT 4G.

They have all kinds of disclaimers in "leagalise font". We need a law that's the whole advertisement must be in the same font.

Sent from my GTablet using Android Tablet Forum

 

[ObsidianBlk]

All markets, to some degree, advertise this way. Most major carriers have 4G... this is a fact and that's all they advertise to you in their adds. They're not allowed to outright lie. But, while they have 4G, what they don't tell you is how wide spread it is. If I recall when 3G was released it took a couple years before it was virtually everywhere. Same will hold for 4G. They have it, but its not going to be near ubiqitous as 3G for a few years. Keep in mind that, technically, 3G still isn't everywhere. 4G will follow behind 3G.

Of course, this is just my thought.

 

[MarkWF1]

Thanks for the reply's guys. Looking at my other topic starters. I think for myself and many others, we are interested in the emerging media market as well. Looking at the galaxy tab 10.1 thats coming out and true to form Samsung has some kind of Media Hub that there locking in there sales of movies and such.. This is what I'm talking about.. Will be looking to see how we can get around this and getting to something like Netflix and or Dish or all around push for an open market were we can pick and choose what service we want to go with.. Not into bootlegging just looking for the best service at the best price. I hate a Locked Market, thats why I wont go with Apple...

Samsungs, Galaxy Tab 10.1 has my attention. I'll be looking at it, as soon as I can get my hands on one in the coming days.. Hits new York tomorrow from what I'm reading..

Thanks again for the reply's.

Yours Through the Screen

MarkWF1

 

[morrighu]

Frankly, out where I live, I'm doing good to get any signal at all - even 2G, much less 4G. And until bandwidth becomes ubiquitous, the data intensive apps just won't take off. And worse yet are the data plans that most carriers offer for the tablets. I routinely use 10GB+ per month on my phone. I don't tether it. I don't stream music or movies. I don't play games over the net, all of which would likely double or triple my data usage. I manage my servers and my routers from my phone when I need to. I surf. I email. I post to my blog.

Yet that's extremely cost prohibitive on ANY carrier with a tablet right now. At current rates, it would cost me $150 to $500 a month depending on the carrier to obtain that kind of data for my tablet. Couple that with the overage charges, which are insanely high for most of the carriers, and you're going to have a population that's afraid to use data from a tablet unless they're on WiFi.

Most of the "affordable" data plans are capped at either 1GB or 2GB per month - not nearly enough for most users to have much left over for data intensive apps. And you are very strictly limited to your local network in most cases. Using data while roaming shoves the financial penalties into the stratosphere for most carriers. If you go on vacation, my advice is to leave the tablet at home!

Until the carriers stop these practice, I don't expect that you'll see too much growth for any app that uses too much data. More and more of you will start to mirror my data usage. I and the others like me used to account for 20% of all the mobile bandwidth. Now, with more of you moving into our usage zone, it's 30%. And still growing. But it will stop soon because the carriers have some serious financial incentives to make sure it stops. One, they do not have provide the additional bandwidth. It isn't free, even for them. It's overhead. Two, (and this is the insidious part) they can sell you a plan that they know is crappy and that they know you are going to exceed. Then they can hit you with the overage charges - as high as $1 for every 4MB you go over - and no the MB isn't a typo. So if you were to exceed your allotment by a GB for a given month, that's a $256 overage penalty on top of your plan.

Current Mobile Data Usage and File Size Info

Average MP3 - 3-5 MB
Average movie - 700MB
Average ebook size - 4MB
Average Emails per day - 30MB X 30 = 900 MB/month
Average Browsing per month = 300MB to 500MB

Let's be generous and say you have a 2GB plan. 900MB will go to email. That leaves you 848 MB left for the month. That's one - count it - ONE movie. You might have room for a few songs or a few ebooks but not both :/ That sort of pulls the fuse on a lot of stuff.....