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Post by woofwoof on Jul 6, 2023 11:00:46 GMT
I've been using a hand me down smart phone without a sim card as a radio and more recently as a video viewer. I used to use a digital radio but that's big and heavy on batteries so I started using this old smartphone and it suits me better as I can both watch and listen but last night whilst having a shave and watching the news  the sound went and hasn't returned. It works with earphones but I can't use those when shaving and showering and to be honest I don't like using them anyway. I do have a Samsung tablet which I've had for a very long time. I got it years before I stopped working so it could be well over 13 years old but it's not really suitable as it's very slow and the battery lasts just minutes. I did think about getting a new battery for it but it's just so slow I don't think it's worth bothering with. The things I use the tablet and phone for are for watching the news, car and camera lens reviews and looking stuff up like the football when I can't be bothered to get the lap top out so I'd like something that is reasonably quick to load and play stuff etc, but cheap  I had a quick look on Amazon and tablets seem to start at about £70 but as I've ignored this technology I have no idea what to get and I don't know if my use is taxing on the tech or not Can anyone recommend a cheap smartphone or better still a small tablet that could be suitable for things like this? |
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Post by clunes on Jul 6, 2023 11:11:33 GMT
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Post by woofwoof on Jul 6, 2023 11:23:47 GMT
Thanks for that. I'll take a look. I'm currently looking at Amazon and starting with the cheapest which seem to be £40 odd. Wifi only wont be a problem as I only use it at home. As some here might remember I used to fix computer stuff but I just tired of it and stopped taking any interest and now I have zero interest and when I need to buy something I have no idea what to get. The only tech I take any interest in these days is cameras and lenses and even my best camera is 10 years old. Ah. Thanks for the Prime Day ref! |
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jul 6, 2023 12:54:29 GMT
Well done for shaving and watching the news at the same time. I'd be tempted to cut my own throat if I attempted that.
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Post by LandieMark on Jul 6, 2023 13:34:43 GMT
I've got a decent spec Galaxy Tablet which works great. It is a little overkill as it is almost a laptop when needed - has a removable keyboard and runs Office for Android. A basic Galaxy tablet or Amazon equivalent will be fine for what you need.
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Post by woofwoof on Jul 6, 2023 14:33:21 GMT
Well done for shaving and watching the news at the same time. I'd be tempted to cut my own throat if I attempted that. I'm not quite decrepit yet and the news just is what it is and most of it wont affect me and my life. As above, watching the news or a review has really just taken over from listening to the radio. I used to listen to radio 5 (I think) but the presenters just annoyed me over the years and I gave up. |
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Post by woofwoof on Jul 6, 2023 14:35:15 GMT
I've got a decent spec Galaxy Tablet which works great. It is a little overkill as it is almost a laptop when needed - has a removable keyboard and runs Office for Android. A basic Galaxy tablet or Amazon equivalent will be fine for what you need. One of the kids in the family has something like that, a tablet and a keyboard in a folding case. It might be spec overkill but it all depends on price really. I'll take a look thanks. |
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Post by ChrisM on Jul 6, 2023 17:10:56 GMT
One thing with Android tablets is that they will only update the operating system for 2 or 3 years, then some apps won't work because they can't work with the old os, so you're left with a slim brick. I've no idea if Amazon Fire tablets suffer from this as well.
Also some tablets work very slowly. I bought a cheap (c. £35) Acer 7 inch tablet about 2 years ago and it's always been effectively unusable as it responds like a lame 3 legged tortoise. A newer Lenovo bought a few months ago (8 inch but it cost around £100) is much more satisfactory
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Post by bryan on Jul 6, 2023 21:03:25 GMT
I've got a Lenovo tablet, still going strong after a number of years, something like this but wait till prime day Lenovo Tab M10 (2nd Gen) 10 Inch HD Android Tablet (Octacore 2.3GHz, 4GB RAM, 64GB Storage, Android 10) - Iron Grey amzn.eu/d/1Zn83iG |
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Post by woofwoof on Jul 7, 2023 19:09:12 GMT
One thing with Android tablets is that they will only update the operating system for 2 or 3 years, then some apps won't work because they can't work with the old os, so you're left with a slim brick. I've no idea if Amazon Fire tablets suffer from this as well. Also some tablets work very slowly. I bought a cheap (c. £35) Acer 7 inch tablet about 2 years ago and it's always been effectively unusable as it responds like a lame 3 legged tortoise. A newer Lenovo bought a few months ago (8 inch but it cost around £100) is much more satisfactory I don't really need much as all it'll be used for is watching the news or car or camera and lens vids and checking emails and football scores and that's about it. It wont be used as a phone or for gaming and I can't see myself downloading any taxing applications. I tried my phone last night and it was really fast despite being a cheap (about £200) Samsung and anything even approaching that speed will be fine. Mrs WW has a couple of phones and a couple of tablets and she has hit problems as even the best of them wont run the latest applications she wants to use. I have told her she can have a new one but she sees buying new tec as wasting the earths resources  but she might relent and have one for her birthday in November. Thanks for the pointers guys. I'll take a look during the prime deal days and make my mind up then |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2023 22:57:33 GMT
I know that the first actual pressed tablet for headaches was created by force feeding dogs with chalk and then taking the result, drying and compressing it.
The real reason tablets taste like shit.
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Post by Alex on Jul 8, 2023 6:20:05 GMT
If you don't need a new all singing all dancing tablet you could go to somewhere like CEX and look at refurbished previous gen Galaxy or iPads and save a bit of money. A lot of them are pretty much as new but have been traded in by someone buying a new model.
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Post by ChrisM on Jul 8, 2023 8:14:46 GMT
Yes but you face the problem of the operating system being old and not updating, so that some Apps won't work. This may not apply to iPads but as the only apple product I'll buy is the Granny Smith, I don't have first-hand experience
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Post by Big Blue on Jul 8, 2023 8:25:12 GMT
It does apply to iPads. A couple of ours won’t let us download movies because the app doesn’t like older OS.
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Post by Alex on Jul 8, 2023 8:59:41 GMT
Yeah I was really talking about recent models not getting an old one. My phone still updates and works on all apps despite being 4 years old so most android tablets that are younger than that will work for most of what you want to do.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jul 8, 2023 11:46:06 GMT
Yeah, I had a 10 year old Samsung Android tablet and, although software updates stopped after 3 or 4 years, it still carried on fine with all the apps I used working.
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Post by woofwoof on Jul 10, 2023 10:59:15 GMT
Thanks guys.
I went for a 12" Teclast for about £80, £20 off on Amazon. I looked at other cheap ones but this one had the newest version of Android of the lot and a decent spec. It seems perfectly ok. It's a little slow to boot up (my new phone is too but I gather most people don't turn these things off?) but once it's up and running it does everything I want and it does it much quicker than my old tablet but the colours are a little too saturated when looking at my pictures on it, maybe there's a setting I can tweak. One thing I'd forgotten about was the CCTV cameras so I downloaded the ap and that works fine too with no lag.
The first thing I used the tablet for was watching this whilst shaving and showering...
I bought a case for it too, that was £13 so the tablet and case came in at under £100.
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Post by ChrisM on Jul 10, 2023 16:19:21 GMT
I have seen recommendations that you don't turn a smartphone off overnight. One reason is that if your landline phone goes down due to fire or a burglar cutting the cable, and you need to dial 999 in a hurry, you don't want to wait for your mobile phone to boot up, you need to be able to dial out immediately
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Post by woofwoof on Jul 10, 2023 18:49:06 GMT
I have seen recommendations that you don't turn a smartphone off overnight. One reason is that if your landline phone goes down due to fire or a burglar cutting the cable, and you need to dial 999 in a hurry, you don't want to wait for your mobile phone to boot up, you need to be able to dial out immediately That's a good point, I hadn't thought of that. I was surprised when my new phone took so long to start up compared to my old one but I assume these new phones and tablets are just loading more stuff and possibly doing more checks than the old kit did. Anyway. I'm happy with my buy at under £100 and the only worry is that with it being so cheap... will it last  |
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the sound went and hasn't returned. It works with earphones but I can't use those when shaving and showering 
I had a quick look on Amazon and tablets seem to start at about £70 but as I've ignored this technology I have no idea what to get and I don't know if my use is taxing on the tech or not 
but she might relent and have one for her birthday in November.
