Both are good. iPad is more $, but highest quality. 

The Samsung Galazy from Verizon is supposed to be great also. I've seen these in action. Droid based operating system. Pretty slick. 

Wife and kids want one for Christmas.... 

My wife and step daughter are pretty much in love with the IPad 2 I got the wife for her birthday.  I have never used a droid based tablet, though so no basis for comparison.

I have used both and own and use the Ipad. I would look into the Asus Transformer if I was buying an android based tablet. The biggest difference in the android tablet vs the Apple tablet is the Android tablets are in my opinion a lower quality. 25 different manufacturers make android based tablets, while there is only on apple tablet. The operating system and reliability in apple products in my opinion are superior to android. Good luck!

 Maybe the Galaxy s2 or whatever it is, is better but I have the Galaxy S and it is a POS. I hate it, slow, always locks up and did I mention that I hate it? I am getting the Iphone 4s.
As far as tablets go, I am looking for one for my wife and I asked our bro in law, my wives brother, and he said stay away from the Made in Japan crap. The Android ones are crap. His words not mine. I was told to check out Barns and Nobles line. Price is around $200 if I remember right. If that is not an option, spend the money on an I Pad.

iPad is the industry leader at this point. They are very user friendly and easy to use but are a little more expensive. The rest of the tablet market is getting better and depending on what you want to use it for there are a couple of decent ones out there.

…think of it as iPad=VHS  all others=Beta….

I got my wife the Motorola XOOM last Friday.  Kind of early to tell but my daughter is setting it up for her and so far so good.  My neighbor told me it has a couple features the ipad2 does not have and his company is going with Motorola's for all the employees.

Also read good things about ASUS and the Blackberry Playbook, but the Blackberry is only a 7 inch screen.

Thanks everyone.  I probably  tend towards the I Pad2 mainly because of the name and apps available, though I'd mainly use it for checking e-mail, surfing stuff while travelling and all that.   Has to be easy to use, idiotproof, for an old coot like me!

bobkat Said:
Thanks everyone.  I probably  tend towards the I Pad2 mainly because of the name and apps available, though I'd mainly use it for checking e-mail, surfing stuff while travelling and all that.   Has to be easy to use, idiotproof, for an old coot like me!

As of now, I would recommend the IPad on the limited research I have done. However, I plan on looking further into the options available locally before taking the plunge. I will let you know what I find out.

kindle fire is pretty awesome at the $200 price point. 

Is the Kindle Fire more of an e-book reader or is it a do everything Pad like the I Pad?
Thanks - maybe I should go down and kick some Pad tires.

Toshiba Thrive has been good.  Replaceable battery, USB connection (extended memory), SD card reader, and HDMI output.  Somethings the Ipad still won't give you access to.

bobkat, go to Best Buy and talk to the nerd herd.  They have a lot of them on display that you can kick some tires and ask questions.

while the kindle fire still gives you access to all their online books and "cloud". it serves every need of surfing the net, email....all the apps the droid phones have. just doesnt have a LAN port. WLAN only, and only a micro usb to run things off of, no standard usb. for the price its impressive.

Unlike a computer, Tablets operate using the same kind of Operating Systems (OS) installed on smart phones.

I believe there are three operating systems (OS) for tablets:
Apples IOS, Andriod 3.0 and Blackberry.

A couple of things to consider when deciding whch tablet is best for you:

Apple usually engineers its stuff for the end user. They make things that work.

Will you be using your phone as a WiFi hot spot? If so you may want to match your phone OS with that of your tablet so they work well together.

Home Screen: Android 3.0

Captain Ahab Said:
My wife and step daughter are pretty much in love with the IPad 2 I got the wife for her birthday.  I have never used a droid based tablet, though so no basis for comparison.

Maybe I should try that, I always just get her a vacuum or sewing machine...

johnr Said:

Captain Ahab Said:
My wife and step daughter are pretty much in love with the IPad 2 I got the wife for her birthday.  I have never used a droid based tablet, though so no basis for comparison.

Maybe I should try that, I always just get her a vacuum or sewing machine...

pots...pans and baking sheets usually go over well too...I know she's been hinting for some new scrub pads and dish towels...apparently she can't dry them as quickly when there's holes in them...huh...who knew ???

QUESTION:

Do you have to pay a monthly fee to operate an Ipad if not near a WiFi hotspot??

 

rezleb Said:
QUESTION:

Do you have to pay a monthly fee to operate an Ipad if not near a WiFi hotspot??

Answer is no. You do not need to pay a fee to "operate" the device. There are many, many things you can do with an iPad while offline. However, if you want to be able to email, surf the web, etc while not connected to wifi then you will need to purchase a wireless data plan from Verizon or AT&T.

It's probably important to note that there are 2 versions of the iPad available (aside from memory options) one is wifi only, which I believe is self-explanatory, and the other is wifi + 3G, which is capable of utilizing both wifi and a wireless data network. 

bobkat Said:
OK you computer literate people.  If you were looking for a new tablet, what would you decide to get and why?   Being an old Geezer,  I'm a complete computer/electronic dunce!
Between the I Pad2 and one of those Droid based competitors!?!

Oh yes, I already have a droid based smart phone.  Smart phone - dumb operator though....

bobkat, 

I own and run an iPad, however I also own multiple mac computers, an iphone, and other various apple devices such as ipods and airports, and time machines. So feel free to take this with a grain of salt because I'm admittedly biased.

If you want to get the device that will run the smoothest, has the best interface, and is the most intuitive to the operator then I would go the iPad route. If it's important to you to have something open source, and you would like to stay consistent with the OS you run on your cell phone then I think you should go the droid route.

If you do get the iPad, I have a feeling you'll be like the majority who have come over to the dark side and you will probably end up with an iPhone replacing your droid phone the next time you get a new phone. 

If you have any family who has apple devices you guys can utilize the facetime feature. If you have wifi you can talk to them face to face (similar to skype, or using a webcam in general) but the nice thing is that you can do it on your iPad2, iPhone, or from your apple desktop or laptop. It was a really nice feature when I was in Alaska this summer, we would pull into the campground and I could get on wifi and sit and talk face to face with the wife back home and my brother in law got to see his kids. It's a really cool feature, I've also used it to show people something I'm working on at home so they would know what I was talking about. 

I think you should head over to Bestbuy or the like and play around with each of them, but I'm pretty confident you won't find one you like better then the iPad.

I didn't even touch the tip of the iceberg in the capabilities, but I wanted to throw out my .02

Good luck!

Wow!  Great info!   Thanks again everybody.  One question - is the I pad and its wannabees 3G or the newer 4G?   Not that it matters if you utilize the internet hotspot on the phone assuming it has 4G capability  or a Wi Fi modem.