Crazy is as crazy does

Recently it has come to my attention that someone I know is batshit crazy. I've known him for most of my life (he's a friend of my brothers) and always considered him more family than anything else. We tend to have rose colored vision when it comes to family. We never recognize negative traits when they're attached to people we love, and our particular brand of quirk is special, exempted from the rules that apply to most peoples lunacy. This is to be expected, and we'd probably never get through life otherwise. So this friend is very close to me. We have had our disagreements from time to time, but thats also to be expected, and as much as I sometimes questioned his decisions, I have never questioned his mental stability. I got a call from another mutual friend this week, and they wanted to discuss his latest escapades. I made minor small talk for a minute and she said "So are we going to talk about whats going on with --?" I was in the dark, oblivious if you will. Then she filled me in on some details in a year long drama that I was previously blind to. I'm kinda caught up in my work these days, as you may or may not have noticed (not offended if you didn't, after all, I wouldn't) so the hints and signs that had everyone else in our world up in arms completely escaped me. I can't tell you what is going on because it would get the rest of my family in trouble, but believe me when I tell you he is off his rocker. Lost the plot. Gonzo. Why in the world am I telling you all this? Other than the tiniest tidbit of gossip, what the hell do you care? 

Because it relates to me.

When I encounter people like this, who are decidedly short of sense, I am usually last one to suspect something may be amiss. I usually take people at their word (except men, but thats a different story) and don't question when they tell me crazy stories. It usually takes a third party to shed light on the issues. But when I finally do grasp the gravity of the situation, it makes me reevaluate my entire belief system. My thought process goes like this: 1. Who the hell are you to judge, look at the nutso crap you believe. 2. Are we sure they're not just misunderstood? 3. They are definitely crazy, so you probably are too, after all, you like them.

Low end android tablets- Proceed at Your Own Risk!!!

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Last week while I was sick I got all fired up to buy an android tablet.  At first I was just bored but then I liked the idea of having an ebook reader and I think I may migrate to that after I test it to see if I like it. So I started shopping. I have an ebay credit line I use for parts for the various repairs I do, most parts are cheap and I don't carry a balance on it, its just nice when people drop stuff off to not have to tell them "can't fix it for a week til I can buy the part".  Plus its easy for me to justify electronics purchases to myself. Heck even my Dad understood, and he's the cheapest man alive. What I told him was that my overhead on electronics is virtually nothing. I take in far more devices than I use and what I don't need I sell or harvest parts from to fix other devices. I have 5 laptops in my living room right now. In addition to my many duties as the family computer repair technician, people also consult me for purchases. I don't think twice about it anymore, but it is kind of amazing how much people trust me to spend a few hundred of their dollars on electronics. So I think it was time I jumped in to the android tablet market. Now, I know what you're thinking: 'what about the Ipad?' The ipad is high quality, reliable, and works the same as a mac or iphone. If you want one, buy one. You don't need my approval to know it will work or help to figure out how to use it.  And I don't wan't one. $500 bucks? NO way.

So last week I bought an android tablet, an Archos 7 V1 Home tablet for $150. I have already sold it. It was running android 1.6 (froyo, the current release, is 2.2) and it had Archos' propriety app market, not the regular one we all know and use.  No problem, I rooted it and got the market, but then no Kindle, no Nook, and no Flash Player. So I installed a custom rom. No custom ROM past 1.6 either.  Now I admit this was my own fault because the retail markets are all selling V2 of  this tablet which can be updated to 2.1 (and may run flash) but I bought mine on ebay in pursuit of a good deal without knowing this was the older version.  I played with it for a week and then sold it on Craigslist for what I paid for it (I told you my overhead on electronics is 0).

I am presently waiting for the velocity cruz t103, which is running 2.1, but I think I'll be returning (0r selling) that one as well before I even receive it after reading and learning all there is to know of these devices. So let me tell you what I have learned and what to look for.

First of all, if you think you can wait 6 months before buying one DO! The market is so chaotic now for many, many reasons and it will take time to settle into something managable for the average user.

Now that I have situated all the information in my mind I must say I'm amazed at what a mess this field is. Maybe its just the first time I've been an early adopter of a new technology but I'm amazed at all the BS you have to wade through.

Price: $100-$300

All the models on the market except for a VERY few are priced squarely in this range, with most around $200. What is so shocking about the price is that there seems to be no correlation with quality. Take the Velocity I just purchased, an amazing little unit that is well made but built on a fairly rare processor architecture for which there appears to be little support (more on that later).

Touch Screen:

I know this seems like a fairly esoteric feature, but most people are currently used to the capacitive touch screen of their smart phone, which seems to be what the Ipad has. Android tablets seem to have almost exclusively touchscreens of the resistive variety. The best way to explain the difference is finger touch vs. anytouch. Iphones, pda's, and ipads with the capacitive touchscreen only respond to  finger touch, where as resistive ones register any touch. A few capacitive touch screen android tablets exist, but, again, that doesn't seem to affect the price much.

Android Version:

Don't buy one running less than 2.1, with one exception (covered in community support). Why do you care what version its running? Because many apps won't support older ones (think angry birds) and especially Adobe Flash Player, which means NO YOUTUBE.

Processor:

There are 3 major processors right now: cortex A8, Telechips-xx-, and Rockchip-xx-. Unless you can affor a tablet with a high end Tegra processor (Xoom, Galaxy Tab) DO NOT BUY A TABLET WITH ANY OTHER PROCESSOR. The reason for this is surprising....

Community Support:

The reason I recommend those processors is there are many tablets made based on them and so the MOD community is large and you will likely have OS updates before they come out and even after the manufacturer stops making them. Also, if they come with weird proprietary apps or even no ANDROID Market (which is VERY common) there are usually hacks to get it. Two glaring examples come to mind. When I was first making my purchase I instantly ruled out the myriad of seemingly generic 'chi-pad' or Ipad knock offs because I assumed they would be of inferior quality simply because of the price and because very few of them listed actual brand names. Well it turns out there are actual brand names, you just have to know what you're looking for and be able to recognize them by sight. Instead of my Archos I probably would have been much better off with one of these since so many people have purchased them and the homebrew community is massive. The website slatedroid.com seems to be the hub of all things andro-tab, and it was there I was able to narrow the field simply by looking at the size of the forum for each device and whether there were dedicated forums to custom ROM's (a ROM Is a homebrew OS version with special features and built in ROOT access). Another example of why community support is important is the one I just purchased, the Cruz. For $218 at I bought what appeared to me to be one of the better made tablets on the market. I paid more this time to test a capacitive touch screen and because it was running 2.1. Turns out that instead of an ARM processor (don't worry about what that means) this device has a MIPS based core, which if you remember the hullabaloo when apple changed to Intel processors you get an idea what a big difference processor architecture makes. Turns out this cpu is superior but rare, and the community support is so low that rooting is almost impossible (which is unheard of ) combine this with that fact that manufacturer support is atrocious and I have a brick coming in the mail.

Manufacturer support:

This one is tough to gauge. Basically you just have to troll the forums and see what posters are saying about them.

So which tablets do I recommend? NONE.

Unless you can afford the overpriced Galaxy Tab (which I'm not sure is any better than these, btw) I would wait 6 months to a year.

If you have to buy one try:

Nationite Midnite  - which only seems to be available from 1 site, Mp4Nation . com $199

Apad Imx515 $250 which is a dead ringer for the Ipad

Smartq V7 $250 I may by this one just for the novelty- it has 3 OS's on it out of the box: Linux, Android, and Windows CE

Phecda P7 don't know the price because I can't find a retailer, just the manufacturer

Any questions, go to Slatedroid .com