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February 16th, 2012:

More on Tablets

I posted recently about a wanting a tablet. A big part of this want is so that I can be connected to the ‘net anywhere. From sitting on the sofa at home to standing in the middle of a paddock. That means being either hooked into a WiFi signal at home or out-and-about by 3G – just what a tablet is designed for. Simple!

In the meantime I have trudged around the major electronic retailers, in no particular ordAndroid Not Available Googleer. And I found that they are all the same; JB Hifi, Harvey Norman, OfficeWorks, The Good Guys … . They all have one thing in common. Their 3G tablets, especially iPads and usually Galaxy Tab 10.1s all connect to the ‘net, either through their WiFi network or a Mobile network (3G). That is if the screen saver isn’t password locked!

But the WiFi models are different. Hitting the browser icon doesn’t bring up a nice white Google page, it gives you a blank screen with a little green android “Web Page Not Available” 🙁 . Is this so that everyone realises that these models don’t have “the internet” on them? Come on guys, people don’t just buy a tablet to play Angry Birds, or do they? Will the staff connect them to the network for ‘serious‘ buyers I wonder – and would they know how?

I hope that this isn’t a cynical attempt to sell more of the 3G models. After all they do cost $200 more than the base WiFi version. After all a wireless 3G Hotspot cost a darn sight less than $200.