January 30, 2012 01:07 AM UTC

Going Mobile

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• by: harrydoby

Ok, this isn’t about politics.  And no, I didn’t buy a new Leaf electric car. Not even a hybrid — that’ll be in a couple of years, perhaps.

What I did was buy a tablet computer running Google’s Android OS.  Perhaps that is of interest to more than 2 people on this site.  If not, click here now and enjoy your time reading the other diaries.

For those of you still with me, what follows are a few observations that might help others considering buying something similar.

Why buy a tablet?  Mainly, I want to get away from home delivery newspapers and magazines, but still keep informed.  My TIME magazine always arrives late, and 3 times this month, my DP newspaper never appeared at my doorstep.  I’ve already started getting a lot of my news (and more importantly, my comics!) via the web and email updates, so this just seemed to be a natural progression, with the benefit of taking it anywhere I happen to be (yes, in the “library” too).

Also, many magazines and newspapers have electronic editions available for no extra charge, or are cheaper than paper subscriptions.

I downloaded a TIME app which provides a very nice user interface (UI).  The archive has the current issue, plus all the back issues at my fingertips.  The really nice thing about the application is that it is very easy to use, particularly navigating among the articles, and going from page to page.  It’s free for current subscribers.  

As a Denver Post subscriber, you can get their E-edition for a small addition to your subscription.  My plan is to just get the E-edition for $6/month and drop the paper subscription completely.  That’s a savings of about 65%.  The downside is that the electronic version was extremely hard to use at first.  All I got was about 6 pages of the advertising suppliments.  Finally, after logging out and logging back in, I accidentally found the front page.  I then discovered that I could sequentially step through each article.  I haven’t found out how to jump around yet.  And unlike the TIME app, I haven’t discovered how to get to back issues (I did see it once, but was unable to bring them up — and that page is lost in the ether to me for now).

Overall, I’m pleased with my purchase, and if you don’t mind the stiff price of entry ($500 and likely to climb as I find accessories and apps to fill in the functional gaps), it makes for an excellent way to explore virtually any form of media — current events, books, movies, music, etc.  There are cheaper products available for specialty uses — my niece is overjoyed with her Nook e-reader.  She is up to 138 books so far since November.  Not too shabby for a $99 investment!

Now, I just wonder if I can get the Star Trek communicator chirp as my “You have mail” notifier 😉

Gory Details for those who really need to know:

First, I searched the web to get product recommendations.  CNET was pretty good.  In fact, it’s top Android recommendation is precisely the one I bought — the ASUS Transformer Prime.

Why not Apple iPad?  I’ve never fallen for Apple products — goes back 30 years when as a Commodore reseller, I competed with them for a Jeffco school district contract.  Even though we underbid them by half (the Commodore 64 vs. the Apple IIe), we lost.  Apples are still typically more expensive for what you finally get feature/function-wise.

Been a UNIX and Windows user ever since.  In fact, that’s issue number one with my new tablet.  Having a 35 year old CS degree and a 20 year old MS degree is probably a massive handicap for me acclimating to the user interface.  I suspect that it is as mysterious to me as for anyone with no computing experience at all.  Subract 40 years, and add a smart phone user experience, and my new tablet would be a breeze to use.