a viable option for what?

if you're going to spend that much money on a tablet... well, you know how this sentence ends.

if you're not sure if the Tablet form factor is going to be a good fit, I'd suggest something like the Transformer, so you have the Netbook

form factor as an option.

If you wait a few weeks, the Transformer 2 is due to ship in December.

I'm very happy with my Transformer. It performed very well during my cross-country road trip.

thanks, I am not in a hurry. anisoptera, I find Apple products so baffling, I can't relate to them! I tried an iPad for 2 weeks and

wanted to chuck it out a window!wakko, Transformer 2 looks like a good option. I'm a bit unclear on how it functions as a standalone tablet

.zannah. I'm looking for a tablet that has iPad type capability but with an Android interface. Netbook form good too as long it functions

well solo as a tablet.

if only it were next year...

I've been struggling with similar questions Infinitekitty. I've seen hints of what I want, but there's no good answers right now.

you can play with Transformers at Best Buy. Really nice hardware. Seems like it needs more power to function smoothly (on the TF 1)

someday, android will function smoothly, they just need to throw enough cores at it.

anyway, I mean, if you hate iOS, I'd honestly suggest just waiting a year or so for Android tablets to actually have something like polish

though perhaps the T2 will be okay

anisoptera, that has been my thought and I could do that. Morskittar, BB will probably let me play with TF 2 soon then.

I'd imagine so

it's not that I "hate" iOS, I'm willing to like it, I try, it just doesn't work for me. Thanks all for the super useful advice!

At this point, it should be: Think Different (than Steve Jobs did and this will be confusing and frustrating for you).

I've found a few Android tablets really tempting. But I think I need to go no more than $200 for an interim tablet.

to be fair, it took me a while to get used to the "paradigm" of OSX/iOS. it's like... if you were used to driving a manual transmission,

started driving an automatic, and it doesn't just auto-shift from 1-5 like you're used to, it picks seemingly-random gearings.

multiplied across tens of different facets of the OS

if you've learned to mistrust how the computer handles something by itself, and are used to having to tweak/verify it every time, it's

hmmm ... I started using apple products in the late 1980s and have tried periodically ever since; it's just never clicked for me.

kind of hard to go from that to "not only do you not need to tweak, but you CAN'T"

right -- I am no coder but I am a control freak. Maybe that's my problem. I loved my DOS command line.

yep, exactly. I was too, it took me months to finally let go of the feeling that I needed to do it myself, because if I let the OS do it

Morskittar, I'm not sure if there is any decent Android tablet option for $200 yet. Maybe next Christmas?

it's just going to screw everything up.

you know, for $200, a Kindle Fire isn't terrible

methinks you're diagnosing me with an anxiety disorder! Perhaps not incorrectly.

my impression is the KF does everything poorly and nothing really well, but I haven't tested it yet.

well, I tend to consider non-Apple OSes as kind of like abusive partners. they do crazy, annoying things, and force you to learn their

quirks, while the whole time you kind of feel responsible for it

like, well, of course it screwed everything up. I didn't flip that switch marked "Don't screw things up"

nevermind that the very existence of the switch is clearly wrong to the core.

for example: when people bring up the malware epidemic on android, the responses are along the lines of

"Well, we should have finer grained permissions and give the user more info on them. Then the user can just read this box and make

the decision for themselves whether or not they want to potentially destroy their device."

i.e. "It's clearly the user's fault for not understanding arcane system messages that pop up whenever they try to install anything"

I've been curious about the Kindle Fire.

I don't want a e-reader - too limited in scope. But at 200 bucks for an e-reader + web browser, I could see getting a year's worth of value

Morskittar - It is, at its core, a $200 Android tablet. With everything that implies.

and that's exactly why I haven't pulled the trigger

if I'm looking at it like a single or dual-use appliance, it really does need to Just Work.

honestly, iOS has the best web browser of any of the mobile OSes. The Android browser still treats overflow:auto as overflow:hidden.

since 2009.

just recompile your own browser!

massive irony in that bug: it's easier to browse the Android dev documentation on an iPad than any Android device.

you'd think that would shift it to priority -1

it's like when people on a team I will not specify in some company somewhere need to use Firefox to get to websites hosted by the same

company because of weird network settings.

hmm, I have no idea what company you could be talking about! Or even what weird network settings!

la la I can't hear you

morskittar - Seriously, though. If it's in your budget, and those are actually the only two things you're looking for (ereader+browser)

well, an iPad 1 is probably $300 now, the 2 is better but apart from faster page rendering it wouldn't really make much of a difference.

and there's not much opportunity to go APPLE if you're just using two apps

otherwise, there's the comedy "install Cyanogen on a Coby Kyros" option

I'll probably leave the short-term solutions to Infinitekitty

whatever the end result may be.

hear that? You get to be the guinea pig!

I've seen the future I want and it's worth waiting for.

unless the Transformer 2 turns out to be crazy awesome and on good discounts

disclosure: I didn't read everything above.

infinitekitty: I need to come clean and say I don't believe in Android tablets, so I'm unlikely to recommend one.

Note: I also wouldn't recommend an iPad in this situation, even of you hadn't said you didn't want one.

@.zannah., you mean you don't believe they exist? Morskittar, I have an almost infinite capacity to wait for just the "right" thing for me

so I may not buy very soon. I may fail at being your guinea pig.

I understand completely. And next year should be very very interesting for tablets

Ok... so, the "Android is chock full of malware" thing is pure FUD.

The way the TF/TF2 go from netbook to tablet is a single slidey button on the keyboard. The "tablet" portion just snaps into a U-shaped

clamp that is attached to the keyboard by way of a hinge.

The TF2 will ship with Ice Cream Sandwich (the latest version of Android) and by all accounts, is going to rival or exceed iPad performance

pretty much hands down. As it is, I don't find my TF to be sluggish in the slightest.

I am curious to try out a TF2 when demos are put there

out*

Infinitekitty: No, I believe they exist.

We pre-ordered a Kindle Fire for unsungivy so she was one of the first people to get one. So far it seems to work quite well. We've watched

Netflix on it, downloaded and used many apps and games, and done some book reading (of course).

I'm sure the techies can point out why it's so crappy, but our experience is that it's well worth the money.

I guess it depends on what you want to use it for. If it's a light work computer for travel plus a web- and app-based entertainment system,

then I think that you should look at the Transformer 2. If it's just a web- and app-based entertainment system, then the Kindle Fire has

"been berry, berry good to me."

(Note: I've checked and answered e-mail on the Kindle Fire and it works fine. I would not use it as a light work computer, though.)