If you're going to get a tablet, get an iPad otherwise your choices are limited to bad products. Android tablets are very primitive feeling.

For $200 it's by far the best product on the market in my opinion. I haven't seen the new ipad yet though.

If somebody was looking to promote Windows 8 over iOS, a better argument would be that Windows 8 is more flexible than iOS. Flexibility is what Win8 is trying to bring to tablets with splitscreen apps and an optional file system. It's also something Android users already boast about when extolling the virtue of desktop widgets and a customizable UI.

But adding flexibility pretty much necessitates adding complexity, so intuition takes a holiday and the learning curve gets steeper. If people wanted more flexibility in their tablets, they'd be buying Android tablets now.

I can't believe somebody is evangelizing the Playbook here. It got native email just a few weeks ago and most of its app support is based on device giveaways. As far as I can tell, the only reason they haven't been discontinued yet is because RIM has a huge stockpile of them and is too embarrassed to hold a giant fire sale like HP did.

Wait for Windows 8. I have a friend running Windows 8 CP on his Samsung series 7 slate, and let me tell you from first hand experience, you simply will not want any other tablet once you experience it. It's just fucking amazing. Once you learn all the hand gestures and come to gripes with it's navigation, you will find yourself thinking you are in the drivers seat of the Starship Enterprise. It truly is a joy use.

I've been wanting to get a tablet for awhile also to occupy my long boring hours on the train, but not sure of which to take the plunge on.. I've been pretty dead set on the Ipad for awhile, but hearing/reading some info lately, this topic included, I'm starting to get the impression that there are plenty of suitable tablets that are comparable or even superior to the Ipad in many ways while being a fraction of the price.

I think after skimming through this topic I'm torn between either the Kindle Fire at $200 or a refurbished Ipad 2 at $350. Until my summer job starts up I'm on a pretty limited budget so obviously the Kindle Fire seems like the better choice from that perspective. I also appreciate its slightly more compact nature. But on the other hand, it seems like the Fire is better suited for reading books/magazines, and my main purpose for a tablet is going to be for web browsing, movie watching, and maybe the occasional gaming, which is seems like the Ipad is more designed for, so I'm pretty split. In anyone who has used both/either device can give their take with these factors in mind I'd appreciate it. Like is the Kindle Fire pretty simlar to the Ipad in quality, at least considering the price?

I would be wary of anyone who says that there are superior tablets to the iPads. From my experience, even the most high end tablets outside of the iPad have a lot of delay/lag - and generally have a feeling of being antiquated in terms of interface. The biggest people who have bought into the whole Android thing are those who keep going on about open source, but nearly all of those people don't eeven know what open-source means; when you ask them, they will cite some very gimmicky feature that has nothing to do with the operating system being open source. In addition, when citing similarities to iOS services, they usually bring up some feature that is of a lower quality than the earliest version of the iOS equivalent (ie. Goodle Voice Actions vs Siri). You really don't need to go further than a store where kiosks are available (not sure if you have those in the US), you have the iPad and the Androids so you can see first hand how primitive that non-iPads are when compared to iPads. Other companies just either do not take the tablet market seriously, or do not have the resources to make as high quality of a product as Apple does.

One reason why I think the balance of the market is shifted so much in iOS favour when it comes to the tablet market is because tablets don't have the same advantage of being given away free with a contract, like many Android phones are.

For the price, the Kindle Fire can't be beat. Amazon is probably taking a loss on each one with the idea to make back those losses through the sale of media through Amazon. The Kindle is first and foremost a device for your Amazon based media, whether that be e-books/magazines, videos, etc.

While it does have games, the application ecosystem is definitely not of the magnitude that exists for iOS. With the Kindle, users probably prioritize media over apps/games.

Without doing a head to head comparison of Kindle's Silk web browser, I won't comment on which is better, but most user reports are positive.

About the only potential buster for the Kindle Fire is the onboard storage: 6.5GB of 8GB available for media/apps. For books, that's more than most will ever need, but throw locally stored video, some games and that space will get pinched in no time. Depending on the individual user's content, there could be a lot of data juggling going on to manage what space is available. Like the iPad, there's no SD card slot or memory expansion slot. 

If it's a big purchase, you should probably just read the user reviews on Amazon for user feedback.

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Fire-Amazon-Tablet/dp/B0051VVOB2

Spend the extra $150 and buy the iPad. I cannot stress this enough, especially since you'll want that extra screen for browsing.

The Fire is great but its hardware in inadequate and it's not even running a tablet version of Android. If you can afford more than $200 and want to do more than read books on the thing, there are vastly superior options available.

Hell, if all you want is something for browsing, you can find Moto Xooms out there for $250-300. At least that is a Honeycomb tablet, though don't let anyone tell you it's a better tablet than the iPad. It's not. There isn't a better tablet out there than iPad.

If you are perplexed then you've obviously never tried windows 8 yet, it's a shit ass desktop OS, and an ugly ass tablet OS, in trying to nail both worlds, MS has created a Frankenstein OS that is currently just terrible. They have "A LOT" to fix before release. It brings to the table no other does, a horrible shit piece called Metro UI that you will NEVER see on my tablet, NEVER!

It's also horribly designed and not intuitive in any shape or form ATM, notice I said ATM, it can change, they still have time, for fuck sake MS, fix it! I also don't like the Live service, it's just another way to try to monopolize the software front and their attempt to control the market space like XBL, which is terrible for computer end users and that includes YOU and me.

Hmm, think I'm gonna opt for the ipad, thanks for the input guys. I was reading a little more into the Kindle Fire and it seems like a decent enough device for its price, but comes with its share of flaws, and is definitly more limited than the Ipad. Might as well fork out the extra $150 (refurbished), considering all the extra features and bigger screen, which is a big thing for me since I will mostly be using it for watching movies and web browsing.