wizardofid
Honorary Master
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2007
- Messages
- 12,508
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So have been shopping around for a new tablet, looking to order one next week, I have been getting mostly budget 10' inch tablets over the last few years.Got burned by quite a few of them.
While I have a dixon 10 inch that will be 2 years old this year, which is a really nice tablet, battery life is decent enough, but the OS it self is on the buggy side, for a general purpose device it does quite a decent job.
I still have my amazon 7 inch tablet I won on mybb last year, I haven't used it all, maybe 3 or 4 times when the power was out and my dixon ran out of battery, otherwise it's sits in its pouch powered off.
I think once you get spoiled by a 10 inch screen you rarely want to go to a 7 inch tablet let alone 8 inch.
Budget tablets come with their own short comings, low res screen, poor battery life no OS updates.
While I looked on raru and takealot, there really isn't any thing that tickles my fancy and with it budget, looking to spend 3-3.5K, trying to avoid samsung as it's really just old stock, or really expensive.I had a look at new tablet lenovo had on offer on takealot and raru, and honestly rather dismal, that their new 10 inch entry tablet comes with 1 gig ram and 16gig rom and wifi only.
So I have set a target for min requirements of 10 inch screen, 2 gig ram and 32gig rom with 4G and no older then mali MP720 GPU within that budget nothing really "pops" out as some thing I want.
I am also quite picky as to where the USB ports are located, not a fan of any 10 inch tablet with the USB port on top when used in portrait mode, as that is the position you going to use it in most of the time.
From all that I shopped locally, this is the only one I like, large battery ect, and it's local, not too sure about the brand name.
www.takealot.com
The alternative is going with gearbest, which to be honest has 100's of tablets, and I am not sure about the brands, but for the same amount as the cpro I can get a newer 3 gig/64gig ram or 4gig/64gig tablet, not sure I want all the hassle of customs and such, I just spend last week importing some stuff for my neighbor even with expedited shipping still took around two weeks and a large risk of customs helping them self to you devices.
The nice thing about gearbest, is they under report the value of the items they sent, so often the you score a fair bit, the item the neighbor imported was 6.5K, with DHL fees and customs it worked out to R463.00, till customs decide some thing is up.
As a quick test with expedited shipping via DHL with insurance and custom estimates , works out to about 1.2K, I am sure I can select the express air shipping with gearbest, not sure if it routes via post office or a courier. I can save a bit there, in no rush to get the device that soon.
I just feel shipping with DHL provides some extra security for me.
Another option I have is amazon, which includes customs and shipping and handling fees, no further worries there I did have a look on what they have to offer, and some decent deals, even some good deals on "renewed" items
Not sure I want to go this route, as it means I have to transfer money out of paypal to my bank account incur charges on that and more charges paying ect.
Had a look on ebay, some nice stuff there, some really dodgy pricing, found refurbished surface pro tablets with shipping just over 2.2k, while that is a really, really good deal, to me that is risky, ebay in general for me is a bit of a hit and a miss, and don't trust.
So what would you guys do. Locally, tablets are generally crap for the budget and you need to spend at least 5k upwards for a decent device.Gearbest seems to be the best option, I can save a bit on using express air shipping, not sure how this works or how safe it is, if some one would care to explain it would be appreciated, does it route via courier or post office. ?
Second best is amazon.
Importing a tablet seems to be the best option as the crap locally isn't worth it for the budget, secondhand devices locally have been pretty much used and abused so battery life is an issue for me, so would rather get a new device.The drawback to importing kills the budget a little, and I am not touching ebay.
Some recommendations with regard to which tablet brands is worth importing would also be appreciated as it's really a sea of no name brands and not sure which to trust ect.
While I have a dixon 10 inch that will be 2 years old this year, which is a really nice tablet, battery life is decent enough, but the OS it self is on the buggy side, for a general purpose device it does quite a decent job.
I still have my amazon 7 inch tablet I won on mybb last year, I haven't used it all, maybe 3 or 4 times when the power was out and my dixon ran out of battery, otherwise it's sits in its pouch powered off.
I think once you get spoiled by a 10 inch screen you rarely want to go to a 7 inch tablet let alone 8 inch.
Budget tablets come with their own short comings, low res screen, poor battery life no OS updates.
While I looked on raru and takealot, there really isn't any thing that tickles my fancy and with it budget, looking to spend 3-3.5K, trying to avoid samsung as it's really just old stock, or really expensive.I had a look at new tablet lenovo had on offer on takealot and raru, and honestly rather dismal, that their new 10 inch entry tablet comes with 1 gig ram and 16gig rom and wifi only.
So I have set a target for min requirements of 10 inch screen, 2 gig ram and 32gig rom with 4G and no older then mali MP720 GPU within that budget nothing really "pops" out as some thing I want.
I am also quite picky as to where the USB ports are located, not a fan of any 10 inch tablet with the USB port on top when used in portrait mode, as that is the position you going to use it in most of the time.
From all that I shopped locally, this is the only one I like, large battery ect, and it's local, not too sure about the brand name.
Takealot.com: Online Shopping | SA's leading online store
South Africa's leading online store. Fast, reliable delivery to your door. Many ways to pay. Shop anything you can imagine: TVs, laptops, cellphones, kitchen appliances, toys, books, beauty & more. Shop the mobile app anytime, anywhere.
The alternative is going with gearbest, which to be honest has 100's of tablets, and I am not sure about the brands, but for the same amount as the cpro I can get a newer 3 gig/64gig ram or 4gig/64gig tablet, not sure I want all the hassle of customs and such, I just spend last week importing some stuff for my neighbor even with expedited shipping still took around two weeks and a large risk of customs helping them self to you devices.
The nice thing about gearbest, is they under report the value of the items they sent, so often the you score a fair bit, the item the neighbor imported was 6.5K, with DHL fees and customs it worked out to R463.00, till customs decide some thing is up.
As a quick test with expedited shipping via DHL with insurance and custom estimates , works out to about 1.2K, I am sure I can select the express air shipping with gearbest, not sure if it routes via post office or a courier. I can save a bit there, in no rush to get the device that soon.
I just feel shipping with DHL provides some extra security for me.
Another option I have is amazon, which includes customs and shipping and handling fees, no further worries there I did have a look on what they have to offer, and some decent deals, even some good deals on "renewed" items
Not sure I want to go this route, as it means I have to transfer money out of paypal to my bank account incur charges on that and more charges paying ect.
Had a look on ebay, some nice stuff there, some really dodgy pricing, found refurbished surface pro tablets with shipping just over 2.2k, while that is a really, really good deal, to me that is risky, ebay in general for me is a bit of a hit and a miss, and don't trust.
So what would you guys do. Locally, tablets are generally crap for the budget and you need to spend at least 5k upwards for a decent device.Gearbest seems to be the best option, I can save a bit on using express air shipping, not sure how this works or how safe it is, if some one would care to explain it would be appreciated, does it route via courier or post office. ?
Second best is amazon.
Importing a tablet seems to be the best option as the crap locally isn't worth it for the budget, secondhand devices locally have been pretty much used and abused so battery life is an issue for me, so would rather get a new device.The drawback to importing kills the budget a little, and I am not touching ebay.
Some recommendations with regard to which tablet brands is worth importing would also be appreciated as it's really a sea of no name brands and not sure which to trust ect.
