For Practical Purposes-- seriously considering the SGTab 2 7-- questions...

[ms.bliss]

Time for me to upgrade my blackberry and HP mini which rarely leaves the connected screen at my home office these days because i feel stupid carrying a wall plug with all these ipad users populating town. I'm seriously considering the Tab 2 7 but concerned that it fit my needs. I'm not into game playing, watching movies or taking a bunch of pictures-- what I really want is something that enables fast web browsing, allows me to create documents with word and excel as well as do merchant services using the square or similar devices. i have a kindle so i don't need that. the messaging where you see people live onscreen sounds awesome-- does it have that? it seems all the tablets come with so much "stuff". i have a service business and like having a virtual office. For $250 the Tab 2 7 seems right-- what'd'think? i'm thinking of getting a phone that pairs with it.

thanks so much for sharing your thoughts!

 

[Frederuco]

It looks like a nice piece of kit. So long as you are only looking for simple M$ office tasks, it should fit the bill. Thus far I have not found a fully featured office client to handle headers and footers, and other stuff like that.

However, if you are getting a phone to tether with it, it should be fine as you can use something like the CloudOn virtual computer app to get a full featured office suite (and access to Google Docs, Dropbox, etc from CloudOn).

I also want to suggest the neXus[SUP]7[/SUP]. It is more powerful and has a higher screen resolution and 16 GB of internal storage for $249.

Some drawbacks: The neXus[SUP]7[/SUP] does not have a rear facing camera (only front facing for video chatting), and it does not have any memory expansion (the GTab 2 7.0 has a microSD slot).

Link to the neXus[SUP]7[/SUP] Pre-Order page: neXus[SUP]7[/SUp] (16GB) - Google Play Store


Also, for tethering, make sure you get a 4G LTE device if possible. I get about 26 Mbps download and 12 Mbps upload with my 4G MiFi device.

 

[Tom T]

If video chat is important Samsung made the decision to use a VGA resolution camera in the front and the quality is far below the 2MP front facing camera on the 7 plus. not sure what the resolution is on the Nexus but I would imagine it is higher than VGA. Given your expected usage the external memory expansion may not be that important, the 16gig Nexus, with its cutting edge quad core processor may be the way to go.

 

[Frederuco]

If video chat is important Samsung made the decision to use a VGA resolution camera in the front and the quality is far below the 2MP front facing camera on the 7 plus. not sure what the resolution is on the Nexus but I would imagine it is higher than VGA. Given your expected usage the external memory expansion may not be that important, the 16gig Nexus, with its cutting edge quad core processor may be the way to go.

neXus 7 has a 1.2 MP front facing camera.

To compare - VGA on Galaxy Tab 2 7 = 0.3 MP.

 

[ms.bliss]

ok-- took a look at the nexus and looks good. i also took a look at an old 2010 post that compared netbooks to tablets and realize that what i need is a netbook which i already have and use-- i hook up to the big screen. so maybe i should simplify my needs to web browsing, emails and doing client credit card transactions and if possible using ms office word and excel.

 

[Frederuco]

Check out Tablet Nation - they have a pretty good compare tool: Tablet Comparison Chart - Compare 2012 Tablet PCs