With Christmas coming I might have to purchase a few as gifts .....iPad, Surface pro, Google nexus, etc, etc..

Steve is yours the iPad "AIR" or?

I got an Ipad air, ipad mini, nexus 7, samsung 10" and a 12" windows 8 tablet.


For general use i must say its Ipad air... its light enough to take everywhere, and it can do virtually everything, while the screen is big enough to do everything you want, movies, music apps, notation, apps. IOS is the easiest and best working OS.

I had an ipad mini for on the road, not really neccesarilly now with the new ipad air. as its light and small enough to cary around. To small for musical apps. Only use it for reading books now.

my Nexus 7 was the predecessor of my ipad min, right size and weight for on the move, but for sale now as i never use it.

I got a Samsung android tablet from my boss for the office, i never use it, as compared to the ipad there are only negative, the OS is less friendly, the apps are less stable, many of the best apps (espescially music related) are still IoS only. The playstore has so much junk thats its not fun anymore allways need to be carefull what to install. Yes, it has the same functionallity as the Ipad, but because of being much more open, its just a piece of junk (even feels like that). Battery live is so much less then on my ipad(goes for most android tablets, espescially the cheep ones)

And then there is my full blown windows (not RT version) tablet running Windows 8 Pro. it is a bit heavy, about a kilo, and therefor not suited for general use. But, it runs all my VSts, has a great (touch)screen, and when midi and audio are connected, its an awesome part of my setup. Runnign both cubase and live. But to heavy to hold in your hands for to long. to compensate it has an i7 and 16Gb of memmorie and a 128GB SSD.


So for general use its the ipad air, 10" screen and weights less then a pound, and has the best software support.

For music, its a close win for the Windows 8 pro tablet... with Ipad comming a close 2nd because it has musch better musical apps then android.

The iPad has a big advantage by having way more apps than the others. Just about anyone can find apps to do something they like on an iPad. Seems like that would be an advantage if you are giving them as gifts.

In addition to the above, if you are buying a tablet for someone that has never had one before, then buying an expensive all singing all dancing tablet is the equivalent of buying a Tyros 5 for a beginner who is not sure if they are interested in learning to play, therefore it is best to get them a supermarket special and let them decide if they want to go further. (Remember while Apple stuff works together seamlessly, it can be a pain in the backside to get it to work with other equipment due to Apple following its own standards, rather than what the rest of the world is using, thus causing new users to dismiss tablets as a waste of time)

Bill

In addition to the above, if you are buying a tablet for someone that has never had one before, then buying an expensive all singing all dancing tablet is the equivalent of buying a Tyros 5 for a beginner who is not sure if they are interested in learning to play, therefore it is best to get them a supermarket special and let them decide if they want to go further. (Remember while Apple stuff works together seamlessly, it can be a pain in the backside to get it to work with other equipment due to Apple following its own standards, rather than what the rest of the world is using, thus causing new users to dismiss tablets as a waste of time)

Bill

I disagree bill... Tablets all have the same operaing systems, either ios, android or windows. And independent of the price all tablets with the same Os work and operate the same...

Currently ios has the easiest to operate system for people new to these tablets. It actually has less options then android and windows system, so it has less bells to talk with your words. IoS opposite to OSX the apple desktop OS is the standard, sets the standard and lives up to all standards.

The only downside of IoS is itunes, but then less and less people use itunes and do everything trough the cloud, which on apple devices happends totally in the background not requiring any user actions after initial setup ( single click).

IoS is rock stable and has less whistles, so making it the best system to start with. All software apps are allways compatible.


Android has much more bells, and whistles, and espescially on cheeper tablets a lot of compatibilliity issues with apps, on top of that android does not differentiaate between phone and tablet apps.



Comparing ipads to android tablets is like comparing a tyros 5 (apple). To a lionstracs arranger ( android)



One other advantage is software updates, all apple devices get the new software for many years, when you have an android tablet you get one update at best.

Great info Bachus Im on the fence right now and confused as to what to buy..

also can you load an iPad with your own Mp3s easily via USB so that it shows as a drive in my computer and just drag and drop???? or do you have to do the whole iTUnes scenario with syncing etc, etc,

Donny,...Personally I like my Samsung Tab 3 8" model. It has expandable memory slot making it possible to hold gobs of MP3 and Lyric files. I have 32 GB in mine with room to spare. Its also easy to create playlists and move files from and to a PC. However, moving files between it and and iOS is not that easy. I know a lot of iPad users who would have nothing but an iPad. My Tab 3 (or the 10 inch model) will also do all I need at a significantly lower price than the Apple products I researched. But....to each his own.
Eddie

There is many new 8 inches tablets coming with Windows 8.1

Dell venue pro 8
Lenovo Miix2
Toshiba Encore
...

For less than 300$

I really want to try this new babies with the vArranger software !

The only problem, is that there is only one usb port who is used for charging/powering the tablet, and to plug the usb/midi keyboard, and you can't do the 2 things together

Waiting for a solution for then then will buy one and try it !