The results are in, thanks to all who responded this year.  There was 155 responses, and not surprisingly the iPad rules at IBM Connect.  I was surprised that there were not more iPad Minis, I thought there would be more of them in the mix.
The presence of only one response of Microsoft Surface tablet did not surprise me, for a while it looked like it was going to finish at zero.
In the “Other” Category there was one  Lenovo Yoga, one “Etch a Sketch” and one “Moses’ 10 Commandments” (OK so not everyone took it seriously).
The laptop question was interesting, unless I chicken out in the next day I will be headed down to Orlando for the first time without a laptop.  I am at a point where I feel anything I need to do during the week can be accomplished on my iPad or Galaxy SIII.  Of the 155 respondents  121 are bringing their laptops, and 34 are leaving them home.  I am hoping at this time next week I will still think it was a good idea to travel without the laptop.
Once again this year I am asking you take a moment and share with me your gadget plans for IBM Connect.
In addition to asking about tablets there is also a second question this year  asking about a laptop.  I am hoping for the first time to travel to Orlando with out a laptop, I wonder how many others might be planning the same.  Feel free to drop a comment why you require or don’t require a laptop.
Poll is open until January 23rd, results will be published on the 24th
The kind folks at HTC who I met at Lotusphere were kind enough to provide me with an HTC Jetstream Android tablet to kick the tires on. Â Those who follow me know that I am a huge fan of Android, prefer it over iOS, and have been in search of the right Android tablet for some time now with no luck. Â I am not going to bore you with the Jetstream’s specs you can read them yourself, but the hardware is nice. My main point of comparison is against my Droid X (running Gingerbread), and my original iPad (running iOS5), the Jetstream shipped with Honeycomb (3.1) with HTC Sense 1.1 on top of it.
Hardware
The 10.1 inch 1280 x 800 display is nice, I am finding though that I notice fingerprints more on the screen than I do on the ipad, not sure why, maybe different types of glass, or how I have the screen brightness set, but that is only a minor annoyance. Â The volume control is on the left side, I think the button is a too large, I find myself hitting the volume control when holding the tablet, regardless of the volume control the speakers are excellent, great sound quality.
The 8 megapixel rear camera appears to be decent quality, though I still can’t get used to holding up a table to take a picture or video, the from facing camera is 1.3 megapixels and not great quality.
The power connector is on the bottom of the tablet when held in landscape mode (bottom as defined by the front facing camera being on top), a very inconvenient place, I prefer the side location on the iPad, much better for charging while using.  In addition the Jetstream does not use a MicroUSB but rather a proprietary cable to charge.  I don’t understand the fascination with manufacturers avoiding standards for charging/syncing devices (yes I mean you to Apple), do they make that much additional revenue on these cables that it is worth it? Can we please just have a standard and stick to it.
With 32 GB of data built in, and an microSD slot that supports up to 32 GB the device has plenty of storage. Battery life has been excellent, comparable or better than the iPad.
HTC also included the HTC Scribe stylus, some interesting functionality, but I haven’t played with it much and doubt I will carry a stylus around.
Software
This is my first experience with Honeycomb, and it definitely takes some getting used to. Â Android is moving away from the 4 physical keys on early phone model, to virtual keys on screen, good idea, just takes some getting used to. Â The nice thing is that which ever way you orient the device the Home, Back, and Application switcher keys are always in the same place on the screen.
Best I can tell the Jetstream is only sold by AT&T, my first complaint is the same I have against every Android device manufacturer and carrier, the tablet is full of bloatware that can not be removed with out rooting the tablet. Â I have no need for NFS Shift, Lets Golf, and a variety of other apps pre-installed on the device. Â The Jetstream is a 4G capable device, but since I did not purchase it from AT&T I have no data plan, right now it is WiFi only same as my iPad. Â I would like to find a pay as you go sim card with a data plan for occasional use, though right now it does not seem that AT&T offers that option (suggestions welcome).
Most apps I have used scale fine on the tablet screen, there are a few that don’t work properly on the tablet, I also notice that some of the apps are not yet updated to place the menu options in the new UI style so there is a bit of inconsistency between apps, this is obviously and Android issue.
The one big problem I have found is syncing Videos, I installed HTC Sync, and it does a good job syncing music (though I don’t really keep music on my tablet), a couple of months ago I finally figured out how to convert videos properly for the iPad, grouping TV shows and properly tagging them. Â While HTC Sync connects to Windows media player, they don’t appear to sync in logically grouped order like they do on the iPad. Â A real shame since the Jetstream has more space than my iPad and the expandable memory slot. Â Suggestions welcome, will play with this a bit more when I have time.
Overall, the Jetstream is nice hardware, decent Android experience (hoping for Ice Cream Sandwich), and for apps it has replaced my iPad, if I can solve the video issue it would completely replace my iPad.
On the flip side, I don’t see a lot of these tablets being sold at $600.00 plus a 2 year AT&T Contract, HTC might be well served to come out with a WiFi model at a more competitive price.
Amazon finally unveiled their much talked about Kindle Fire this morning. Finally someone understands the dynamics of the tablet market, and they have priced it correctly at $199.00. Clearly the Fire will do a good job tying in to Amazons many services, be it books, streaming music, or video, and looks like it will deliver a decent browsing experience.
The real question which has been on my mind for a while is what about Android Apps that are not available in the Amazon App Store? You see the Fire is an Android based device, but it is not the same Android you find on other tablets. Amazon is not a Google partner so they do not have access to Honeycomb (Android 3.x), so they built their own version of Android based on 2.x for the Fire. I expect that Amazon got the UI right, it will look good and be easy to use, but what if I want an App that is not in the Amazon App Store, and there are many of those.
Probably too soon to answer some or all of these questions, we will have to wait and see. I think Amazon is going to sell a lot of these tablets, especially bundled with Amazon Prime and the free video content available with Prime it is an excellent value for the price. As for me, I am not going to be the first one on my block to own one, I want to see how Android actually runs on it, and how flexible it is. I am also curious if Amazon has any plans to update these devices to an Ice Cream Sandwich based version of Android. Finally I am pleased that I have not seen any one refer to this device as “an iPad killer†(at least not yet) because it is simply not, it is clearly targeted for a different audience/purpose.
