Android Newbie

[FredAt]

Hello All,

I have been pleasantly surprised to find that there is now a wide range of Android Tablets starting at under €200. I am a professional developer but am a complete novice when it comes to Android. I am contemplating getting an Android tablet to do three things

a. Be able to surf the net, particularly access my email and my bank account, when on the move. I'd like to have the ability to use a range of browsers - Firefox, Chrome etc. I have noticed that banks often are very picky about which browser you use so I have doubts that the droid based browser will be acceptable.
b. Be able to watch TV shows on sites such as zattoo (I do want a decent sized screen, i.e. not a 3" handset type screen)
c. Eventually, to dip my toe into Android development.

I would be most grateful to anyone who can give me a list of do's and don'ts and a short list of possible devices to consider. I would consider spending up to around £250 on the device.

 

[ZilverZurfarn]

A) is probably impossible - Android has its own browser even if there is a FireFox version in the works (along with other 3rd party browsers like Opera). But a web site will still not see the browser as a Windows FireFox (or Opera or...) and will probably not work as intended. However, most banks are (in my experience) very mobile browser friendly so that shouldn't be a problem. To have 100% IE browser compatibility, you'll have to go for a Windows tablet.
B) As long as the on line video is in a format Android can read and display you should be fine. If they use some proprietary format and/or proprietary player software it's a no go. When I look at zattoo, they seem to target desktop computers only, with their own players for Windows and Linux (they told me to download Zattoo for Linux when I opened their site from my Android phone).
C) Android development is fun!

 

[FredAt]

Thanks. Are there any gotchas when it comes to Android development in terms of versions etc. I imagine that the SDK comes with a decent emulator that allows me to test the app on my development machine but I imagine testing on a real Android tablet is desirable nevertheless. Will screen sizes be much of an issue? i.e if I buy a 7" or 10" tablet and do all my testing with the emulator + my tablet will I find that out in the real world my app is less useable because people are using smaller screens?

 

[Jeanne]

I am very new to my Coby MID7005-4G and would love to find an online tutorial to help me with the simple basics of the Coby. Do you know a good tutorial that can get me started. Just very easy things like going to the previous page when I make a mistake or starting over.

Any sugestions?
J

 

[l_n]

I plan on working on that later tonight.