Wait, let me back up. This isn't a blog about writing anymore.
Or reading. Or Anything.
I'm trying to finish my Bachelor's Degree, in the interest of doing so as quickly as possible I'm in a Communications program (lol). Class is easy, you pretty much get a degree if you pay your money, show up to class and can fog a glass. But one thing bothers me: note taking.
I like to hand write my notes during lectures and I like to copy them again by hand to study. The act of writing them (not typing) helps keep them in my head. But I don't like juggling notebooks, a laptop and textbooks.
So I bought a Nexus 7.
Let's back up again. I considered a Galaxy Note to replace my phone, because that S-Pen is sweet and it recognizes handwriting decently well. But since it costs approximately $700 trillion (or $350 trillion with a new contract) I decided I wanted something cheaper, and phablets are not typically cheap. With a $200 tablet, I would save money by buying digital textbooks and be ahead by the end of my next semester.
I looked into the Asus Memo Pad, but it seemed that the Nexus 7 2nd gen was a lot more for only a little more money. So I found one over Thanksgiving weekend for $190, and I must say, I'm impressed.
For note taking, I was using the free SuperNote Pro app from Asus until I discovered that it was only "free" in the sense that you needed to pay $50/year to write more than 20 notes per month. Yeah. Sure Asus. Sounds like a great deal.
For now I'm using Papyrus as an alternative, and it seems fine for my purposes. If I find anything free out there that's better I'll switch again.
I was also excited to use emulators with the Dual Shock 3 via bluetooth, so I needed to root it. I never rooted a device before so this guide from laptopmag.com was very useful. So was this. However, neither of them addressed getting proper drivers so it was a little annoying figuring that out. You can find them from Google here. Once I rooted, I got the Sixaxis app and it worked beautifully.
When I saw the prices of cases and stylii (styluses? I want to write styluses) I laughed. Then I found this case with a stylus on Amazon for $5. No, that price is not missing a zero. FIVE DOLLARS. And the case and Stylus both work great.
I kind of want one to read web comics, but can't justify the price since web comics are free
ReplyDeleteSo you're interested in a device with just a web browser right? That Groupon deal for a first gen Nexus 7 for $120 would have been good, and so is the Asus Memo Pad I mentioned in this post which goes for something like $130 on Amazon. The tablets that are cheaper can competently use a web browser, but are notorious for freezing up and breaking because of low quality parts. Maybe in another year or two the $50 Black Friday Android tablets will be worth having for your kind of purposes, but now they probably aren't a good bet.
DeleteI would also be on the lookout for Nook HDs on firesale at some point in the near future. A rooted one could be a great budget tablet, but even without doing that it should be fine for reading through a web browser.