The 7″ tablet computer is gaining great strides in the marketplace and are likely to be popular as Christmas gifts this year. There is great choice available now with several quality 7″ tablets available. With this mini-review we hope to sift through the jargon and help you to make an informed choice about with one would be the ideal for you.
The rise in popularity of the 7″ tablet this year is not surprising. Although smaller in screen area than the standard 10″ iPad-type device, the 7″ tablets offer a far more portable and convenient size for general purpose use. Indeed, the fact that these 7″ tablets can be held comfortably with one hand is a big factor in their success and their book-like dimensions make them popular as ebook readers.
So with value for money in mind, here is our list of the Top 5 7″ Tablet computers available right now;
Google Nexus 7
Galaxy Tab2
Kindle Fire HD
NatPC 7″ Tablet
iPad Mini
#1 Google Nexus 7
The Google Nexus 7″ tablet is a quality product built by ASUS. It features the latest Android 4.1 software and has a quad-core processor so everything is faster, web pages load quickly and game-play is smooth and responsive. A fully charged Nexus 7 is capable of 9 hours of HD video playback, 10 hours of web browsing or e-reading. The only down-side is that the Nexus’s memory is not upgradable as there is no MicroSD slot, but with the rise of cloud-based services such as DropBox this is less likely to be a big problem.
The Nexus 7 is easily the best 7″ tablet available at the moment and with the recent release of the new 32GB model, we are likely to see price drops on the existing 8GB and 16GB models. Prices are likely to drop to around €230 for the 16GB Nexus 7 and hopefully about €200 for the 8GB Nexus 7.
#2 Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7″ Tablet
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7″ tablet is another quality tablet featuring the latest Android 4.1 operating system. It features a dual-core CPU and come in 8GB and 16GB versions. The beauty of the Tab 2 is that it features a MicroSD card-slot for upgrading the internal memory. Also of note is that it has both front (VGA quality) and rear (3 MegaPixel) facing cameras which is great for voice calling with apps like Skype etc. The Tab 2 also boasts GPS, Bluetooth v3.0, USB 2.0 and full Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n.
All in all this is a feature-packed and capable tablet. Prices are likely to be around €230 for the 8GB Galaxy Tab2 to about €250 for the 16GB Galaxy Tab2.
#3 Kindle Fire HD 7″ Tablet
The Kindle Fire HD 7″ tablet is the latest and greatest tablet by Amazon and it is likely to be very popular due to it’s quality HD screen display size of 1280 x 800 pixels. The Kindle Fire HD feature a dual-core CPU and is available in 16 GB or 32 GB models. The Fire HD also boasts long battery life, with over 11 hours of reading, surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching videos or listening to music on a single charge.
The name you may not have heard of but this NatPC 7″ tablet can be bought for only about €100 and you get a lot of bang for your buck with this tablet. It features an A10 1.2GHz CPU with a 400MHz dedicated graphics processor, a web camera and it comes in 8GB and 16GB versions. The latest android 4.0 is installed on this tablet and features a Capacitive 7″ screen offering smooth “pinch to zoom” operations. It also features a Micro SD slot so it is upgradeable.
I’ll be honest, the screen on this is never going to be as good as the Nexus 7 or any of the higher-priced ones mentioned above but the fact the tablet is very functional and affordable, the NatPC 7″ tablet is a worthy introduction to the tablet world.
#5 iPad Mini 7″ Tablet
Of course there is the new release from Apple to consider, the new 7″ iPad Mini. Undoubtedly this will be another success but with the availability of plenty of cheaper devices now, it’s tough to put this anywhere near #1 in the list. Although it has only just been released it looks like the 16GB iPad Mini is going to cost about €450! It’s certainly a lot of money but if you are fan of their iPods and iPhones then this certainly would be one to consider.
Sky watchers could be in for a very special treat tonight, when debris from Halley’s Comet attempts to bombard our atmosphere.
This debris from the comet enters earth’s atmosphere & will lights up the sky as shooting stars and the ‘Orionid Meteor Shower,’ is indeed one of the most beautiful meteor showers of the year.
The best time to see these ‘Orionids,’ will be just after midnight tonight, through until Monday morning (October 21st to 22nd), but they have already been visible in the past few days and possibly will continue visible after the aforementioned peak, once our sky remains clear and dark. Same are expected to appear at the rate of up to 25 per hour or more.
These ‘Orionid Meteors,’ can glow very brightly and can sometimes burn so brightly that they produce fireballs. With no great moonlight, like tonight, casting a glare in the night sky they should be easily visible.
These Orionid meteors will appear mainly to originate from the constellation Orion in our eastern sky’s, but may be visible anywhere in the firmament above & bright enough to be observed with the naked eye, so no telescopes or binoculars will be needed.
David Moore, Chairman of Astronomy Ireland explains: “Sometimes large pieces of debris enter the atmosphere and flare up extremely brightly as fireballs – these can often land on the ground.”
The Source Theatre & Arts Centre here in Thurles Co. Tipperary are pleased to announce their new website, which has now been fully launched.
The previous layout has been completely redesigned with simplicity and ease of use with customers in mind, as well as the option for all clients, for the first time, to choose their own seat On-line. When customers activate the ‘Buy Tickets,’ icon they are directed into an interactive seating plan.
Customers can now browse all upcoming events by clicking ‘What’s On.’ & by clicking through on the scrolling images or checking out the highlights on the home page.
Events and offers can also be found on the notice board twitter stream and there is now an option to Like or Share events on Facebook, thus increasing networking information.
Couple of pieces of understandable good business ‘housekeeping,’ information, worth noting on this ‘The Source Website.’ :-
All sales are final. No refunds or exchanges are allowed.
The maximum amount of tickets that can be purchased per transaction on-line is 10, so for larger group bookings, please do phone (0504) 90204.
Wheelchair users, do please phone The Source Box Office on (0504) 90204 to reserve your tickets, in the interests of public safety.
Concessions will apply to Students, Recipients of Unemployment Benefit, Assistance or Disability Allowance, Lone Parents and Pensioners. (Valid ID understandably will need to be produced in all such cases.)
One very tiny criticism – Why not display a digital drawing of this fine theatre’s numbered seating arrangements, to enabling those less daring & less IT literate, booking by phone, to choose their preferred seat, – just a thought.
Munster MEP Sean Kelly (South Constituency) has been named ‘MEP of the Year‘ for Research and Innovation, at a prestigious awards ceremony in Brussels last night. The Ceremony was organised by the Parliament Magazine & winners are chosen exclusively by fellow MEPs who vote on a shortlist of nominees.
Speaking after the event, Mr Kelly stated he was “honoured” by the recognition, especially since it was for a subject so close to his heart. “I have always been passionate about innovation and have enjoyed using my position as an MEP to prioritise research and development opportunities across the EU.”
Mr Kelly believes Europe must now focus on becoming the absolute world leader in Research Development and Scientific Innovation & it is the responsibility of politicians to encourage and support growth in this sector, through funding grants and positive effective policies.
Mr Kelly is currently the driving force behind a major Brussels conference planned for next year to encourage Irish researchers and their European counterparts to draw down more EU funds for their work. Mr Kelly will also host the March 2013 conference EU Science, Global Collaboration which will highlight funding opportunities under the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme. In addition, Mr Kelly is currently co-authoring the European Parliament’s forthcoming report on Data Protection.
Mr Kelly was born in Knockataggle, Kilcummin, Killarney, County Kerry in 1952 & was educated at Kilcummin National School, Tralee CBS and St. Brendan’s College, Killarney. He qualified as a primary school teacher in St Patrick’s College of Education, Drumcondra and then attended University College Dublin, where he received a B.A. and Higher Diploma in Education.
Mr Kelly, a regular visitor to Thurles, was a former popular President of the GAA .
An interesting SSD (Solid-State Drive) Price War has begun in the last few weeks which will hugely benefit technology addicts like ourselves. SSD’s are super-fast hard drives for your PC and their prices have dropped dramactically in the last few weeks. The price war was sparked because of dropping Flash Memory prices and some of the bigger players in the SSD market such as OCZ & Crucial etc have decided to slug it out in an all-out price war in order to become the dominant supplier of these drives. The fact that SSD’s have now broken the €1 per gigabyte mark is fantastic news for consumers and now means that SSDs are almost half the price they were just a short time ago.
What is a Solid State Drive?
An SSD, or Solid-State Drive, is a small 2.5″ hard drive that uses NAND Flash Memory similar to the popular USB sticks that almost everyone uses today and they do not have any moving mechanical parts in them, unlike the traditional spinning-platter Hard Disk Drive (HDD) found in almost every PC today. The traditonal HDDs have a lot of disadvantages when compared to SSDs;
HDDs have mechanical parts that are prone to wear and tear
HDD performance varies depending on where the data is stored on the platter
Dropping a HDD accidentally usually means instant death of the drive
SSDs are superior because they use NAND flash memory so that data access is almost instant no matter where the data is on the drive, this also means never having to defragment your SSD. And with no moving parts they don’t suffer from the wear and tear a normal drive would.
The only slight downside of the SSDs at the moment is their relative storage size when compared to the usual hard drives found in PC’s at the moment. SSDs normally come in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB sizes upward etc. This might sound like a backward step to some people (who download a lot of stuff) but for everyday normal PC users, having a super-fast SSD installed would give your PC a major boost in speed. Imagine Windows and programs loading in seconds, not minutes!
Top 5 SSDs For Your PC or Playstation
I’ve compiled a list of the Top 5 SSDs on Amazon that have, or are currently, dropping rapidly in price. It’ll be well worth checking out how these prices vary over the next few weeks.
#1 Crucial M4 64GB SSD – The Crucial M4 64GB is a great value SSD. Although it’s only 64GB, it is a fast drive with up to 415Mbps read speed. It would be an ideal intro to the world of SSD. The price has dropped to €80 at the moment but that may drop even further.
#2 Crucial M4 128GB SSD – Similar to the one above, except bigger, the Crucial M4 128GB is probably the best deal out there at the moment. Pricewise it’s less than €1/Gigabyte which is great value for this fast SSD. The price has dropped by half and is now approximately €115 at the moment for this M4 128GB but stock is selling fast and prices are likely to vary as they become more scarce.
#3 OCZ Agility 3 120GB SSD – OCZ drives are reliable and fast SSD. At 120GB it is a decent size with fast performance to match. The price is also approximately €115 at the moment.
#4 Corsair Force 120GB SSD – This Corsair Force SSD offers sequential read speeds of up to 550 MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 510 MB/s. The price is also approximately €115 for this drive and also likely to vary over the coming days and weeks.
#5 OCZ Vertex 4 128GB – This Vertex 4 is one of the latest ones released by OCZ, which is why it is more expensive than the other ones mentioned here, but it does offer up to 535 Mb/sec sequential read speeds. The price is approximately €150 which is a lot more expensive than the others, but it is one to watch over the next few weeks as it’s likely to drop down in price soon, fingers crossed.
Remember, if you do happen to order one of these SSDs from Amazon, remember to select the FREE Super Saver Delivery option at the checkout for the free shipping.
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