Surveying the Surfeit of Cheap Tablets

As Black Friday and Cyber Monday approaches, many merchants are highlighting inexpensive tablet computers as doorbusters or loss leaders to gin up overall Christmas holiday sales.  But before making impulse electronics purchases, it is wise to consider how you would use a tablet in mobile computing.  

It used to be that tablets were the ideal media consumption device. Tablets with 7" to 10" screens allow an individual to have an almost immersive view of videos.  Applications (a.k.a. apps) generally provided shortcuts which facilitated internet interactions.  Some tablets like the Nook and the Kindle were more e-ink reading devices which could have proto-tablet functions (checking e-mail, Wikipedia, and text based websites).  But Amazon’s Kindle Fire sought to be a loss leader which was a shopping portal doubling as an entertainment device.   Samsung’s strong showing with its Galaxy Tablets as well as the “phablet” Note series sought to tie tablets to cellular carriers.

Discern what are your mobile computing needs.  If you want a communications device with a larger screen (and you don’t mind carrying a 5.5" device in a pocket or a purse), then a “phablet” like the Samsung Note may be the best choice for you.  Many retailers will be offering enticing prices for such hybrid phone/tablets, but be prepared to be locked into a cellular carrier for a year or two.  If you want to keep having the latest and greatest devices, look into the early upgrade programs from major cellular carriers. 

Tablets sales used to be driven by Apple’s i-Pad, which came out in 2010.  The i-Pad still wins 29.6% of the tablet market while asking for a premium price that is rarely discounted.  While this writer is not purposely not part of the Apple cult, if one feels compelled to buy an Apple for its reputation of ease of use, enticing design or to keep up with the Jones’, then buy an i-Pad and sleep in on Black Friday.



As an electronics consumer, I like to get the most bang for my buck with tables and not be limited by a vertical monopoly manufacturer.   Currently I own a couple of Amazon Kindles and a WebOS HP Touchpad.  I love to read on an e-ink device like the Kindle.  Unfortunately, my Kindle 2 (with the slow but unrestricted 3G coverage) is losing its charge and computer geeks are reluctant to change out the battery.  While the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite provides even better e-ink resolution, the newer model has dropped the headphones option and the text-to-speech feature.  For my purposes. the text-to-speech ability is important for times which I want to enjoy books but can not have my eyes on the screen.  But text-to-speech is included in the Kindle Fires.

Regarding my HP Touchpad, I knew that it was a dead-end from the moment I acquired it in the HP fire-sale in the August 2011.  But WebOs is an elegant operating system and the HP Touchpad had upscale features.  Two years later, it is running fine and should be serviceable for the foreseeable future.  Alas, there are not many new WebOs applications available.  In order to use some hotspots, there are apps that are necessary and I am reluctant to make it a dual booting Android tablet.  So between an ailing e-reader and a red headed stepchild tablet, I have my eye out on the surfeit of cheap tablets.

 Some have tried to take advantage of the slow demise of the Barnes and Noble Nook by using the SD card as an Android boot.  It can work, but realize that the Nooks OS takes up nearly 3/4ths of an 8 GB e-reader.  The 16 GB Nook HD tablets (list $150) offer more storage.  But there are serious questions to the long term viability of the Nook.  So it may only be good for reconfigured use or as a stuck in time tablet. 


Having owned several Kindles over the past four years, I am entrenched in Amazon’s e-reader market.  The Amazon Kindle Fire HD has achieved around 5% market share, but it should suffice for my own  supplemental tablet/ infotainment needs.  Although a 16 GB Kindle Fire HD (list  now $169) has a 7" screen is markedly smaller than the 9.7" HP Touchpad screen, it is a more manageable size for e-reading functions.  Moreover, my mobile computing needs have not been as video oriented.  The Kindle Fire HD has Bluetooth, which should allow a wireless keyboard for productivity.  The Kindle Fire HD  does allow for hotspot connection hence  buying a 4G version is costly and unnecessary.  

For those interested in getting Black Friday bargains for the Amazon Fire, be aware that the discounts will be for the Fire HD (2nd generation) not the newer Fire HDX.



If one can live without using a tablet as a camera or a phone or having the “Mayday” feature, the HD will have most of the improvements of Kindle Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito “ (a forked version of Android).   Many of the cut rate Kindle Fires are 8 GB (which should leave around 6 GB for internal storage along with the cloud).

While most mobile computing people look to tablets as a media consumption device, some industrious individuals want to have a tablet that is a  quasi laptop without the bulk or balking at the price of a MacBook Air (list $999).  When Microsoft entered the tablet market, it tried to appeal to such customers with the Microsoft Surface RT.  The price point of the Microsoft  Surface 2  (list $449) rivals that of the i-Pad (list $499), but Microsoft throws in fully functioning version of Office and 200 GB of SkyDrive storage and plenty of cloud storage, features which generally cost extra elsewhere.

The 10.6" touch screen of the Microsoft Surface makes full use of Metro interface, but if one wishes to run old programs, it is necessary to buy a Microsoft Surface Pro (list $899), which is much pricier.   The big tiles on the start screen are customizable and offer updated embedded information.  The Surface RT allows multitasking.  

The body of the Microsoft Surface RT includes a built in kick stand.  The Surface RT has micro SDSX ports allowing users to add memory.  The magnetic Touch Cover is ordinarily a $100 add on which both protects the screen and is a keyboard.  While the Windows Apps store is not as robust as the Android or i-store, they claim that plenty of apps are free. 

If you have Surface appeal, it is possible to find a Surface RT for under $200 during Black Friday sales, but it would be wise to look for sales which a buyer tne pays a little more and includes the Touch Cover. 

There will be plenty of Black Friday sales on Android tablets.   If Android tablets have an appeal, determine which version of OS the hardware has, as earlier versions of Android  (prior to 4.0“Jelly Bean”) are not optimized to tablet proportions. Also be aware of how much storage is on the tablet.  A $40 tablet that only boasts 4GB will barely hold one movie.  That might be good enough for kinderspiel but would quickly be condemned to the land of misfit toys for most other tablet users. 

This holiday shopping season it may be easy to acquire a tablet but take the time to choose the right tablet for you. Consumers who are content to pay premium prices for an entertainment consumption device which is touted to work out of the box should opt for an i-Pad. Busy businessmen may want the Microsoft Surface to be able to do Office work while surfing the web on their tablets.  Those who want an all in one mobile communications device should consider a “phablet” like the Samsung Galaxy Note.  Avid readers who want the functionality of a tablet should lean towards the Amazon Kindle Fire.  And there are a variety of inexpensive Android tablets which may motivate impulse shoppers.

h/t: BFAds

Scrutinizing Software Subscriptions

Adobe has announced that it will stop selling its popular Photoshop program.  But Adobe is not abandoning its Creative Suite software, it is evolving into a subscription model on the Creative Cloud.  While Adobe will continue to sell Adobe Creative Suite 6, it plans no future releases on store shelves, but one will have to subscribe on a monthly or annual basis.  Despite Adobe’s  Creative Cloud conceit, subscribers will still have to download the software and run it locally but a subroutine will check to make sure the subscription is current every 30 days. 






Microsoft started marketing in this direction with in 2011 with Office 365, which included host versions of MS Office 2010, Share Point, Exchange, Lync and Office Apps.  The difference is that Microsoft still allowed consumers to purchase the software rather than rent it. Microsoft’s office productivity software does not have as many third party plug-as as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. 


Adobe offers an array of pricing, depending upon which version of Abobe Creative Suite Sofware one currently owns, how many Creative Cloud programs a prospective subscriber wants to use, whether one springs for the annual payment and if you are a student or educator.  It is reasonable to expect that a consumer will pay $30 a month for the privilege of using Adobe Creative Cloud Photoshop software or $240 per year.  But by paying full freight of $50 a month or $600 a year, photogs get access to the newest versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, Dreamweaver and Premiere Pro

It is a reasonable surmise that most software consumers upgrade every three years, either prompted by an update with killer new features or in conjunction with an Operating System upgrade.  Keeping this informal update cycle in mind, a dedicated Adobe user would pay slightly more on a three year basis for the sticker price for the current price of Adobe Photoshop and have access to many other creative suite programs and have immediate updates.  This sunny scrutiny ignores that few individuals actually pay the MSRP for software, as there are upgrade discounts, volume discounts etc.  If one opts for a month-to-month payment plan, the frugal consumer inclinations are costly and will cost around 1 ½ times the cost of a current version of Photoshop.

It should be noted that Adobe is not going entirely in the software subscription track.  Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Lightroom will still be sold.  But both of those products are geared for consumers and certainly would not be suitable for professionals and may seem inadequate for the prosumer market.

When a consumer discontinues an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, their handiwork does not disappear, but they lose access to the web storage and they become unable to further edit their photos.  

Other technology companies are trying to change their payment model.   Xanga is a social media/blogging site which has operated on a Freemium model since 2000.  But in June 2013, Xanga announced that it needed an infusion of $60,000 in cash from Xanga-philes and if it survived in six weeks, that it would evolve into a pay $48 a year to blog hosted on Wordpress with an ad free experience .  While many appreciate the community that Xanga has fostered, it is unclear if this tactic will work and how many Xangans will remain, since there are so many free social media sites nowadays.

 T-Mobile is trying to wean cell phone subscribers from expecting a subsidized handset in exchange for a two year iron clad contract, but no contract T-Mobile subscribers get to own a shiny new telephonic toy with their “subscription”.  T-Mobile tried to capitalize on its synergy as a GSM based carrier to try to poach former AT and T i-Phone users with their Unlocked and Unlimited campaign.  Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers get nothing tangible for their subscription aside from 20 GB cloud storage, immediate access to new apps along with the privilege of using Photoshop et ali. The tangible part of technology may make the difference.  If Adobe was offering true cloud computing, it might make a cognitive difference as you are being licensed for a cloud service.  But as it stands, subscribers  still needs to load Adobe programs onto the computers where they want to use the Creative Cloud, but have no expectations of ownership.


Another wrinkle about switching to a software subscription model with Adobe’s Creative Cloud is that there may not be future version numbers or spotlighted updates.  Since Photoshop is complex software for serious photographers, it takes time to educate an Adobe user to fully exploit the imaging software.  It is unclear how Adobe will educate users with software prone to be instantly updated.

As Adobe Photoshop is an expensive piece of software, its market niche is professionally driven with some prosumer outreach.   Professionals swear by Adobe Photoshop and be resistant to switch from the tried and true unless Adobe outprices itself or the software abilities denigrate.  Shutterbugs who are not professionally invested in Adobe Photoshop may find the monthly or yearly fees may start to find other photo-editing alternatives like ACDSee or Corel PaintShopPro, both of which can work with RAW photos. 

Photoshop fans who are upset about the Adobe Creative Cloud software subscription have organized an online petition which has gathered over 35,000 signatures in protest.  New York Times Technology Reporter David Pogue believes that the protest is an effort in futility because Adobe will make money off of the software subscription scheme, even if it loses customers as it banks user fees on a monthly or annual basis and precludes some Photoshop users from skipping a version upgrade.

While photography is an enjoyable avocation for me and its results are useful when blogging, I would balk at paying $30 a month for the privilege to use Adobe Creative Cloud software.  Adobe’s decision to change to a subscription software model makes me appreciate choosing to familiarize myself with other photo editing software.  It will be curious to see how the photo editing software market reacts when Adobe’s subscription only model goes into effect.