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Soleron on 10 August 2012
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zero129 said:
Soleron said:
zero129 said:
Soleron said:
If you buy cheap, the spec may not be bad but it will be frustrating to use and unsupported after a few months.

Go for the Nexus.

Why is that?, would it be cos of the OS? i thought the OS on Andriod devices could be updated?, sorry i really dont know much about tablets :-/

Assume it can't be.

It can only be upgraded if:

- The manufacturer supports it, which they won't for an obscure, cheap, probably EOL tablet. Even Samsung took months to upgrade the most popular Android device, the Galaxy S2, to 4.0 and still isn't supporting 4.1. And there are many more Samsung devices that will never get an upgrade to 4.0 OR 4.1. Most manufacturers are worse, especially on low end devices.

OR - You root (jailbreak) it, voiding the warranty, and install an unsupported custom ROM from the internet. These tend not to even be available for the cheaper devices, because the people who make the ROMs tend to own Galaxy Tabs and very little else. 

And you won't even know before you buy whether the device will ever be upgradeable by either method there. Sony's even set release dates and had beta versions of 4.0 out for Xperia Play and then eventually decided it would never be updated.

Wow thanks for all that i just thought it was like with a PC and you could put any Android OS on there as long as the device was powerful enough to run it :-/ .

Is 4.0 the newest OS? or newish??. And if i was to get it if a new OS came out say 4.5 and i couldnt upgrade how is backword compatiblity?, i mean on IOS your mostly good for about 3 OS upgrades before your device wont work with the newest stuff is it the same for android?. if i got a year or 2 out of it at that price id be happy for what i want it for.

4.1 is the newest, 4.0 is acceptable. Anything previous has a much worse experience especially on tablets.

If you get something really cheap like you said in the OP, I wouldn't expect anything extra you install on it to work. The problem isn't that it would not, it's that you  can't tell before you buy or how long before it's obsolete. The marketplace is so fragmented that no one will eb developing with your device in mind. Whatever came with it would run for those 2 years of course, I just think it might have bugs or be annoying to use.

Apple has always had the only good support for old devices. The new iOS 6 will work on as far back as the iPhone 3GS I believe. But you pay for it.

Android is surprisingly closed and inflexible despite the code being available.