Tablet buying assistance..

[yuppicide]

My Mom's Husband has an old computer.. it's in a spare room in their house. Kind of a hassle to go in if he wants to show my Mom something to boot it up, sit in the little room, etcetc.

I was thinking of getting them a cheap tablet for Christmas and had some questions.

I'd like them to be able to watch YouTube videos, and browse the web.. like maybe they want to pull up a recipe and keep the unit in the kitchen. I don't really think they'll be interested in games or anything, but I can't say, though.

Instead of being cooped up in the little room they can be anywhere in the house.

Will the difference between a unit with 800Mhz processor and 1Ghz processor make that much of a difference?

I already bought one of the cheap Craig CMP738B with Android 2.2 for $99 (I can't find the A model in stores, which can be rooted) would that be fine for what I want it to do or should I be looking at something else around the similar price range?

I notice the Coby Kyros 7" is similar priced.. would that be better? I think those can be rooted and it has Android 2.3 already on it.

Should I even consider rooting a device I'm sending to someone else and based on the limited need (surfing web and watching YouTube)? I'd like them to have Android Marketplace, but more important I'd just like them to have a functioning tablet and alright experience that they'll get use out of.

 

[Pamster]

Hi yuppicide,

Welcome to the board, I don't know for sure if it would work for them, are they on dial up? or do they have wireless capabilities aka WiFi through a wireless router. If the answer is yes then that is a plus and a big hurdle out of the way. It takes a little work to get the most out of the Coby's but it's worth it from what I hear. I am getting the MID1125 in a short while for my husband, just waiting on them to drop a bit more then I'll jump on it. Toys R Us have the MID7022 on sale right now for $159, down from $179 just days ago. It might be better suited to what you're looking for because the touch screen is capacitive, and not resistive, which makes a big difference in the responsiveness of the tablet to touch. Resistive is pressure based, and uses a stylus most of the time for precision or a hard press of the fingertip, and Capacitive uses something else, it has to do with conductivity of the fingertips and therefore it's not about pressure, light touches work best as it reads the motion and reacts accordingly. I think that's how they work from my research, that's how I understand it to be.

I don't know if you really need to root the device to get Youtube on it, there are threads in the Coby Forum here about this being possible on the 7022 without needing to root the device.

http://www.androidtablets.net/forum...-got-market-working-7022-without-rooting.html & http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/coby-tablets/26064-netflix-update-7012-a.html

The MID7012 has resistive touch but if you think that won't be a problem it can do a lot of what you are looking for too. Hopefully someone else will come along with some experience with the craig tablets, I don't know much about them honestly. Whichever one you decide on definitely research it a LOT, check youtube reviews, written reviews and the board search here works great so give it a shot here, if you can't find what you're looking for if it doesn't have it's own forum here on the board, definitely post about it in this same forum and people can offer you feedback or advice on purchasing one.

 

[yuppicide]

Thanks kindly for the reply. I'm glad you explained what resistive and capacitive is. I thought it had something to do with being able to multi-touch, but that would probably say multi-touch.

I ended up returning the Craig in favor of the Coby. They both have the same specs except the Coby is Android 2.3 the Craig 2.2, but the Coby is on sale this week for $89.99, which was $10 less than the other.

The store I bought it was has it in their flyer for $99.99, but on the website for $89.99. It rings up in their computer for $99.99 and I think that's how they rip you off if you're uninformed. First off, they only have the more expensive tablets in stock, but they had these in the back. I informed the person about the price and he went to the website to verify it. They were very nice about it, but I can see how they bait or switch or rip people off.

 

[Pamster]

Yeah that's one way stores get us. Glad you had the web price and that they gave it to you for the correct price, which model is it? the MID7012? or another one? Thanks for posting an update!