A Cheap Tablet for Viewing Charts?

[daan_vb 37]

Hi guys,

 

Its getting a bit pricey having to buy ink, paper plus the faff of having to print and then sort out all the printed charts into a booklet, so i'm looking at getting a tablet for viewing pdf charts on... does anyone have any recommendations on sub £100 tablets that would be good for this?

 

Many Thanks

 

Dan

[TheBFG 1]

There was a thread about this a while ago but as is the way with these things, everything has no doubt changed since then! I'd also like to know. My computer room is starting to look like a lawyer's office with all the piles of paper, but I'm not keen on getting a whole iPad. Anything that displays PDFs and HTML is great.

[pmanhart 176]

I've seen a few older tablets running Android for as low as $50 USD over the last few weeks. They are the generic brands, but almost all have a MicroSD slot for increased space, and most have a 7" or therabouts sized screen which is perfect for approach plates but a little more bothersome for sectionals as you have to zoom in/out and zip around them to be able to read them.

 

Search Google/Bing/Yahoo for "android tablet" and you will get a group of them to choose from.

 

I definitely recommend making sure that they run Android 2.3 or later, as Adobe Reader runs perfectly fine on my Nook Color with the Nook2Android card, which is what I use for charts and plane manuals (and can read a book after I'm at altitude ).

 

Come to think of it, the Nook Color is down to ~$150-160 which is a good deal if you want an ereader, although you are stuck buying books from B&N. It will also read PDFs without having to get the Nook2Android card, I only got it to use FSWidget's excellent EFB and GMap with FSX.

 

You could also go the Kindle Fire route for ~$199, which opens up the plethora of books available at Amazon, and gives you the capability to view charts and manuals, along with the EFB and GMap which is available from the Amazon Kindle Appstore.

 

So many options!

[Jcannon 13]

Might be best to just get another monitor.

[Chock 17,769]

You can get a Kobo Vox for not much money these days. I have one of those, it was (I think) about 170 quid when I bought it, but you can get em for about 130 quid these days. It's not bad actually, can take an SD card, has a very good colour touch screen, has wifi and all that crap on it.

 

Al

[altstiff 71]

I use a sony ereader as well as a Asus Netbook. Both were around $100 each during the boxing day sales....

[bonchie 2,305]

Buy used off ebay.

[FIVE-BY-FIVE 453]

I use a BlackBerry Playbook 64gb which was around $199 back in January. They must be cheaper now.

 

 

http://youtu.be/pBwxJAqypAI

[gandy 18]

there is loads of cheap tablets on amazon.co.uk but finding a uk seller is hard as most are based in china and you have no rights if the goods go faulty, its the same with the new ones on ebay.

 

I brought this one

http://www.amazon.co...=A35VVNIQ1RMVB2

 

As the company is a uk based one you have legal protection if the tablet dies on you and i cant fault the tablet i got from them :)

 

here is the other things they sell

http://www.amazon.co...=A35VVNIQ1RMVB2

 

The cheapest one they sell is for just under £80

[daan_vb 37]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, lots of ideas there. :-)

 

Dan

[Glynn 405]

Hello

My advise would be to buy a used laptop from Ebay, far more useful as it will allow you to run stuff like weather apps, moving maps, Aivlasofts' EFB ect over your network, as well as serving as a display for your charts and product PDF manuals.

And you get to read Avsim during those long sectors

[Chock 17,769]

Yup, good idea, I'd go with the cheap laptop suggestion. Laptops with Core Duo processors that are about five years old can be had for very little money these days, and if need be, they can run FSX as a standby, if your main computer conked out. It would give you more flexibility.

 

Al

[BartEnder 2]

I used to have an 10.1" Android powered tablet, which can be bought in Poland for ~100 quid. It was named GoClever TAB. Pretty enough to view the approach charts. 7 inches are to small for me unfortunately, especially in complex charts