Advice on my first tablet?

[Geosurface]

Thanks for all this good info, guys. I really appreciate it. I continue to deliberate... the choice is not as clear as I had hoped.

If I were to cease caring about directly hooking the 1tb drive to the tablet (unlikely, but just as a thought experiment) and only was concerned with wirelessly accessing the media on the drive over my network... is that about equally possible on most tablets, even iPads?

Or are there all sorts of format nightmares? The video files are in just about every video format.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I have got a huge media library of many types of files I play on my tablets so I will chime in again:

You will have problems with 10-bit h264 encoded MKVs if you are an anime fan. It is due to the fact all devices have to decode those files via software and mobile CPUs are limited. Also HD audio can be a pain (like Dolby True HD).

But beyond that you can play the files you want to play on mobile devices. Like I have played 40gb 1080p mkv files on my Prime and iPad2 perfectly over wifi and via USB.

On an iPad the pain is that it won't play stuff straight off a HD stock. You have to jailbreak and then its great with an adaptor and XBMC. On Android the many devices can just plug and play with powered HDs via adaptors.

The issue then is: how will you format the drive? If all your files are under 4gigs you go FAT32 and it's easy. But if you want big file support you have to go HFS+ on the iPad (which means you need a Mac to manage it) and Android is all over the map. Some tablets can support NTFS or exFAT stock, where others you have to root and install this (or flash a kernel with native support):

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paragon.mounter&hl=en

Hope that helps some.

 

[Geosurface]

Thanks for the continued help. I shy away from jailbreaking anything.. haven't done it before.

But then again I do like my iPhone... the interface and such. I've only used one tablet for any length of time, which was my brother's iPad... and I liked that.

Then again, maybe its' time I try something Android... arrgh I just don't know.

Based on what I've been rambling so far, if I wanted you to just directly recommend one, for $500 or less, what would you suggest?

 

[poofyhairguy]

My advice is to go to a store and play with some. If you like the Nexus 7 it is a clear winner at that size. If it is too small maybe something like a ASUS TF300 would work.

 

[Geosurface]

The thing that sucked was at Best Buy a lot of them were absent (new tablet coming soon!) and a lot of them weren't operable. I didn't see a Nexus 7 anywhere there

 

[Geosurface]

after coming very close to doing the Surface Pro, I went with Nexus 7

 

[poofyhairguy]

Awesome. Get MX Player and enjoy your new tablet.