Advise me on Tablets

I’m thinking about getting a computer tablet for the house. Looking for suggestions on models, and whether or not to bother attaching it to a cell account.

Primary use would be as an aid playing guitar - pulling up tabs and sheet music for my wife and I. I’m sure it would see other uses, but I doubt heavy use. We’ve got laptops and cell phones.

Don’t know if we want to spend to get it on a cell plan or not. I don’t know how likely it is to get used where we don’t have WiFi. Almost certainly will be used primarily around the house to pull up online tabs. If taking it out, it will probably go to other houses or maybe at coffee shops where there is usually wifi.

We are planning to get new phones and update our cell plan soon, so this might be a good opportunity to get a tablet as part of a package, but I don’t know.

I bought an Amazon fire tablet a few years ago for similar use, browsing the internet and linking to my camera to watch run videos at autocross. I think it was about $60, does the job. 
edit: price was Black Friday or prime day price 

Do you have particular apps in mind?  I know Apple seems to have a lot of music related stuff (garage band?).  Are you partial to one of the two major ecosystems?

If you want functional and cheap, Fire Tablets are the way to go.  The interface is 100% pure garbage, but if you are on a budget you can stomach it.  My son has one and I've never figured it out.

No need to get a cell plan.  You can always use your phone as a hotspot for it.

I have thought about getting an iPad but cant justify the cost since my phone and laptop do basically the same thing. I am interested to see some android tablet suggestions though because having something for the garage would be nice. 

TravisTheHuman said:

Do you have particular apps in mind?  I know Apple seems to have a lot of music related stuff (garage band?).  Are you partial to one of the two major ecosystems?

What will get used the most are: UltimateGuitar, Songsterr, YouTube, and Spotify. Mostly it's going to it's going to be used to display music notation. If I wanted to record or edit music, I'd use something more powerful - at least a laptop.

Loose preference for Windows or Android, but not overly particular for this use case.

Chris Tropea said:

I have thought about getting an iPad but cant justify the cost since my phone and laptop do basically the same thing.

That's how it's been for me. Displaying sheet music is finally a use-case where a tablet makes more sense to me. It can rest on a music stand stand or be propped up on a smaller surface than a laptop. Easy to throw in a gig bag. Large enough for music notation to be readable, unlike a phone screen.

It would be nice if there was a tablet large enough to display sheet music at actual size, but I don't think anyone makes one.

I don't have enough experience to recommend a tablet but I can say that the Amazon Fire tablet we have never gets used. It seems to be primarily a device designed to push advertisements into your face. I know I know, that is all the internet is for, but in this case even the lock screen and background were ads that couldn't be changed. 

It didn't seem worth figuring out how to dial it back, so we bought a cheap Samsung, which just has the normal amount of ads.

Tablets have become a pretty standard device for displaying sheet music from what I've seen. It's a good use case for them. You can also get page turning pedals that will allow you to page forward/back without using your hands.

I would stay away from Amazon branded hardware because it's mostly there to sell you to Amazon. We have two iPads in the house and I have no idea how old they are - they just keep working without any overhead or any interaction with a computer. The operating system on your laptop doesn't matter, at least for them. I have had to set up some Android phone-based scanners for work and I definitely needed a Windows machine to update their OS.

I have also posted this on the bass forum I'm on.

Overwhelming consensus seems to be Samsung and Apple, which doesn't surprise me. Refurbished iPad seems to be a strong suggestion. Samsung A9 got several mentions. Amazon Fire has been universally panned.

Are iPads as friendly for upgrading memory? Are their batteries easily replaceable?

A few thoughts that I'll add:

My wife bought an iPad to help her at work. It seems to be a really convenient way to take a keep a lot of notes without having paper to keep track of.

Years ago (back in late high school/early college, I think), I figured a tablet would be more portable than a laptop. I ended up getting an Asus tablet with a keyboard attachment.

What I enjoyed most was that it was like having a really big phone–videos were more enjoyable to watch, mobile games were more fun to play and it was super light and portable.

For what you are planning to use it for, I don't think you can go wrong with a refurbished or new-ish iPad, especially if you already work within the Apple ecosystem.

Beer Baron 🍺 said:

Are iPads as friendly for upgrading memory? Are their batteries easily replaceable?

Ipads do not have a slot to add SD card memory , there is an adapter that holds an SD card and plugs in the lightning port ,

Ipads are glued together so you have to "un-glue" them to swap out a battery , 

They come in WiFi only and WiFi - cellular  , you can get a cheap monthly cellular plan on Tmobile for $10 a month ,

https://www.howardforums.com/threads/30gb-basic-mobile-internet-for-10-month.1929014/

I haven't had the overwhelming ads described here with my fire tablet. I can't think of any like that. I don't use the proprietary browser though. 

Stampie said:

No need to get a cell plan.  You can always use your phone as a hotspot for it.

Just be sure to check the terms. We thought we had real unlimited hotspot, but the speed was throttled to a simulated 3G. We now have a better plan for speed, but one of us has burned through the high speed streaming data amount. 

Trent said:

I don't have enough experience to recommend a tablet but I can say that the Amazon Fire tablet we have never gets used. It seems to be primarily a device designed to push advertisements into your face. I know I know, that is all the internet is for, but in this case even the lock screen and background were ads that couldn't be changed. 

It didn't seem worth figuring out how to dial it back, so we bought a cheap Samsung, which just has the normal amount of ads.

You can jail break them and remove the ads. If you don't want to then I might be interested in buying it from you. 

Stampie said:

Trent said:

I don't have enough experience to recommend a tablet but I can say that the Amazon Fire tablet we have never gets used. It seems to be primarily a device designed to push advertisements into your face. I know I know, that is all the internet is for, but in this case even the lock screen and background were ads that couldn't be changed. 

It didn't seem worth figuring out how to dial it back, so we bought a cheap Samsung, which just has the normal amount of ads.

You can jail break them and remove the ads. If you don't want to then I might be interested in buying it from you. 

I've had mine long enough that I don't remember doing this, but I'm sure I must have. Like I said, I don't get any ads.

In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :

When new you could buy an ad free version or the cheaper ad version.  I'm a cheap bastard so you know what I did.  Do you have access to google play store or just the amazon one?  If google play store than you most likely modified it.

The fire tablets last about a year or two.  Then my kids need an upgrade. My 12 year old went through 3.   
 

the iPads seem to just keep working. But will get old/ slow ans are not upgradable.   My mother in law has a 8 year one she uses every day.  So ymmv

Fueled by Caffeine said:

The fire tablets last about a year or two.  Then my kids need an upgrade. My 12 year old went through 3.   
 

the iPads seem to just keep working. But will get old/ slow ans are not upgradable.   My mother in law has a 8 year one she uses every day.  So ymmv

My iPad is a 5th generation, which means it's from 2017. Works fine other than the occasional website that loads in too much crap and overloads it. It's still getting OS updates because Apple still supports it.  No sideloading or jailbreaking.

I'm looking at:

Refurbished iPad 8th gen (2020) for $300
vs.
Open box Samsung Galaxy A9+ for $225

Don't know experience with these two products. Leaning in favor of the Samsung mostly because it's already cheaper, and I know peripherals will be reasonably priced.

I picked up a new but older model IPad (9th gen) on Amazon and knockoff pencil about a year ago for long term studying. I spent 9 months going through a few PDFs and making notes and working through problems. It was almost flawless (it's slow with large PDFs) the entire time. Now my wife uses it for knitting patterns and recipes and I use it as a digital book. 
 

I would spend the money again. Apple products just work in my experience. I'm typing this on a 5 year old iPhone 11. Just works. 
 

Wifi only with hot spotting has been plenty for me.

edit for link. 9th gen new for cheaper than the above 8th gen refurbished. 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B09G9FPHY6?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

I just bought my daughter the ipad 9, (10" screen) the outgoing model for $199.  I think they might be back up to $225 but that's the cheapest, new iPad product out there.  Its low on storage GBs but its fine for simple needs.  

The simplest Samsungs are what I use around the house for surfing and viewing.  They are all the way down to $100 for 8" screen.
It wont be "dazzling" but how good does another BS TicToc video really need to look?  

I'd recommend WiFi only and on that rare occasion needed, just hotspot in off your phone.  

spandak said:

edit for link. 9th gen new for cheaper than the above 8th gen refurbished. 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B09G9FPHY6?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

I think the one I linked was a bit more because it has 128gb of storage where this one has 64gb. Doubt I'd miss that extra storage though.

In reply to Stampie :

I put Google play on it as soon as I bought it, so I could install firefox.