This past weekend, while doing the final review of a PDF of
Sharing a Pond and trying to squint at the screen of my phone (which I was
using so I could lounge), I considered getting a tablet (for the twelfth time).
My dilemma has always been that I really don’t NEED a tablet for most things.
And I hate spending large amounts of money.
So I went to the local bargain outlet and purchased a
Bright-Tab for roughly $60. Yes, it’s only 8GB (but so is my phone, so I
figured it would suffice) and yes it is Android based (I’m rather fond of my
Apple phone), and I figured it wouldn’t be the fastest thing, but I wasn’t
planning on watching movies or anything, so it’d be fine.
The device itself is a good size (7”), thin, light, and has
a nice screen. The Android system isn’t too bad (though I notice that you
always have to click ABOVE where you want it to select instead of the actual
thing, and I’ve noticed this on more than just my device), and the device is a
touch slow, just as I expected. I’ve heard horror stories online of people
complaining that after a week the wireless gives out, but we’ll see how that
goes.
Right now my biggest issue is the battery is shitty. Like,
it’s a tablet, it shouldn’t gobble through the battery power in one day,
especially when most of the time it’s just sitting there not doing anything.
According to the papers, the battery should last 4 hours (in use), and that
might be true, but not if you’re doing anything too intensive, I imagine.
On the other hand, I definitely like it for reviewing my
work, and while I don’t think I’d do major edits on it, when I’m going through
something and noting minor things or making a few larger notes, I think it will
work quite well. And it’s definitely much more enjoyable to read PDFs on!
But if you’re going for a tablet and it’s something you’re
going to want to use often, do not go cheap. If you want something to get and
throw away after a year, then go cheap. I’ll be happy if this tablet lasts me a
year (that’s only $5 a month). If it ends up lasting longer and exceeding
expectations? Well yay!
It may also tell me if I should bite the bigger bullet and
buy an actually, good-working, long-lasting tablet.
For now, I’m mostly happy with what I got for what I paid
for. Hopefully things don’t go downhill.
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