That is a lot of info you are looking for and not trying to be crass or anything, but you should do a google search for "what is a tablet computer" to give you a general idea of what one is. Check out the link below..you might also take a trip to Best Buy or somewhere like that and have a sales person give you a bit of a run thru on one..seeing is believing..an no, you wont be able to use Internet explorer..Microsoft does not offer an operating system for tablets, choices are Android, Blackberry or Apple

Here is a link that might be useful: What is a tablet.

they come with an operating system on them most are Android or there are the Apple products and recently Microsoft joined in too with windows version.

you can not put IE on one (that is a windows only product)but they all do come with a browser and you can add many more all are free apps , there are tons of free app or programs one for pretty much anything you would want to do and a large majority are free.
You can add a small memory card into most tablets but not all which increases the size of the memory all the memory is flash so it takes very little room. There are no "hard drives" as you are thinking of.
You can do pretty much everything you would do on a pc with one. Yes I am on GW here all the time on mine. If I don't feel like sitting at my computer I pick up my tablet and use it from where ever I am comfortable. I do have wireless internet in my home so I can do that from anywhere.
Just check out some of the posts that have been here about tablets and do some googling.
They are a lot of fun, easy to use and very portable.

There's another choice coming soon. The Microsoft Surface tablets are coming. Their OS will be Windows 8 and probably include IE if you like it. The first model will be available in October with the next level due a couple of months later. I have no interest in a tablet but was interested because I have been dual booting Windows 8 preview release and unless you have a touch screen monitor and are used to using a tablet I don't think you'll be interested. I bought a new computer not long ago and can sign up to get Windows 8 Pro for $14.95 when it's released but haven't bothered and doubt that I will.

genes: thanks for the link. I will check it out. Yes, I have already been at Best Buy, Walmart and Office Depot on prior weeks but they just want to sell and not explain.

ravencajun: no hard drives? well, that makes sense because they look so thin that I was wondering how did they fit a hard drive in there. Where do they store stuff then? Those 4MB of memory sound too small to store software. Good to know they come with a browser as I was planning to give it to my mother and she would probably like to surf and somehow email.

How do you handle that activity (email) with tablets? Go to yahoo.mail or google mail and do as usual? Or something different? And a stupid question, how would you type using a tablet???

bob414: yeah, I remember seeing an article with "MS Surface Tablet" in the title. Could not stop to read it though. Do you figure it is going to be a "regular" tablet? Not sure I would have called it that. What's with the "surface" term in the product title???

Well not exactly a full fancy tablet but I have a kindle fire and love it. Posting from it right now as I lay comfy in bed. Only has wifi but I don't need an Internet connection while in the car or the extra expense of that so works for me and suits my needs. The best of bolth worlds an e-reader that lets me surf and check my mail, play games and watch my netflix. My poor lap top is so lonely now sitting next to the bed not being used. Mary

microsoft soon will have their own tablet on the mrkt.and it will have W8 in it. No doubt expensive, I bought my 7' android for $99.00 and it's awesome, except it will not accept Java.

@ susieq07,

Not an android person, but found this information

"No Android does not "have" Java. It runs on an underlying Virtual Machine Google named Dalvik, which is similar to Java, but executes code differently.

What this means is Android does not natively run Java code (and barring a major sea change it never will officially. There have been some efforts in the non-official Android dev community to integate true Java into Android).

So if you're thinking can I drop my Java games on there and will they work, the answer is no. The same is true for websites that use Java code, they will not run on Android browser. There is a lot of marketing from Android-equipped device manufacturers about providing a "full" web experience because of Android's Flash support, but that ignores the Java issue."

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/51690-36-java-android-tablets-honeycomb

Joe

I had been waiting on the new Kindle Fire, but come to find out thru diff articles, that most of the downloading content available will only be for the states and not Canada,,as a matter of fact some of the new Kindle fires will not be avail in Canada,,so looking at the Kobo Arc which is focused on Canadians...too bad..we must be bad second cousins or something

That is unfortunate genes and not right.
the biggest problem with the google nexus is that there is no memory card expansion slot so you are very limited in memory to only the on board memory. I use memory cards in all of mine and can not imagine not having that ability.

I have never with all of my Android tablets run into a negative situation due to no java.
It plays flash beautifully and there are tons of games specifically for Android.
With the latest critical flaws in java security I am leaning more and more to eliminating java.

What would be an example of a site that needs java? Mary

My son was just here visiting and he had his new IPad with him. I don't impress easily about anything. This unit did impress me. If I had a more reliable high-speed connection I would buy one rather than the pending "toy" laptop I am going to buy when W8 comes out. Or, perhaps both.

DA

Oh I didn't know the ipad connection was not reliable, who is his service through? I have never had 3g or 4g anything so only wifi and at home I have road runner high speed which runs very fast. Mary

Acraftylady here is a great article by Ed Bott that mentions several sites and also has some great information.

Here is a link that might be useful: Article

Mary,

The IPad is just fine. Living in rural America I am the one who has the unreliable 3G service which creates a WiFi network at the house. The same frustration occurs with my desktop which is hard wired to that network.

DA

Oh I see. Thanks for the article. I use my kindle fire almost every night for a lot of surfing and have not run into any problems about java so probably not an issue about the sites I go too.

I did how ever run into errors about needing the latest version of flash on sites and amazon does not put out updates for that. Stupid if you ask me. I used 1mobile and installed their app to get the latest flash update for my fire and then the problem went away. Mary

Like DA, I rely on 3G service for my internet. Since I am so limited in the amount of bandwidth I can use, I do not use my tablet and hardly ever use my laptop except to do updates. There are more of us than you might think who do not have reliable high speed service.

Acraftylady you are right, but as you mentioned in the latest versions of Android you can side load flash, it is not showing up on the Google play store.

I have seriously been thinking about getting rid of java also. I am getting a new pc and plan on going with out on it.
I will just have to see what comes up that I can't live without. One thing that does use it is open office and I definitely use it.

I got flash for my fire from 1mobile.com. Why would you you go without Java on a new PC? I have had it on my pc's from windows 98 to windows 7. Just wondering why I would not want it. Mary

@ acraftylady

It's an infection risk, it's a magnet for infection.

As OS vendors get better about patching their own flaws, malware authors are increasingly turning to third-party code to get their dirty work done, and Java is high on the list. It's easy to say, "Just don't use Java," but what if a program you use requires it? I've got a list of problem apps and solutions."

See link for more from Ed Bott

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/how-big-a-security-risk-is-java-can-you-really-quit-using-it/4749

But wait now a notepad PC has just come out even smaller, and you can write on it with your stylus, saw it on TV.

Tablet PCs are not new - I bought one 6.5 years ago. Lenovo and HP were the leading suppliers then, maybe Toshiba too. Now there are those and several more.

An ipad/droid tablet-like device is a different product. They share some functions but the similarities end there. A tablet PC is a full PC, hard drive and all. Though some might even have a solid state drive these days. They're often slightly underpowered processor-wise to conserve battery life.

Tablets excel at web browsing, email, social media, and games. The trade off for weight and portability is lower powered processors, less storage, the lack of a physical keyboard, etc.

All include some kind of web browser and an email client, which will allow you to connect to your current email accounts(s). You can typically ad other browsers and email clients but I don't think that Internet Explorer will be an option for anything but a Windows tablet.

You will add apps but there are a lot of good, free apps out there and the ones you pay for usually aren't more than a dollar or two. So you download the free version of Angry Birds and see if you really like it before you pony up the dollar for the paid version

The tablet will be used by my mother, who is in her 80s. I would expect her to use it to read books, email and do a little surfing. Not sure if the people she may want to contact can use skype or similar applications for talking. She lives in a house with no Internet. She may want audio books too so the tablet should have speakers. A few questions for you guys:

1. Based on those specifications, I assume that the Kindles should not be considered?

2. Based on those specifications, I assume the tablet needs 4G (Wi-fi optional)?

3. Are batteries in tablet replaceable? Can I assume that I can recharge them but that at some ploint, I will need to replace them? I replacing a battery something we all can do somehow?

4. I do not seem able to find information on their hard drive capacity. Is the advertised RAM memory capacity the only thing where you can store applications?

As I had mentioned earlier you can add a memory card to most of them usually up to 32gb. That is a considerable amount of memory for a tablet. The apps are all very small and you would not want to have a lot of videos or other large files on it. Books are text so take up tiny amounts.

Batteries in most are not replaceable, some are but in general no. I assume you can send them back to have
it replaced.

If you get a 4g you will need to get a plan from a cellular company, you would need to look into those but be warned some tablets are l

Oppps
Some tablets are locked in with specific cellular companies. So if you got a motorola xoom with 4g by verizon then you have to use a verizon plan. Plans can get expensive.

Afew days ago I was looking for a tablet..my requirements were not demanding..I had settled on a Mediasonic 7" Android ICS for $108 and surprisingly it is very good and quite snappy..then lo and behold Wally World had the Blackberry Playbook 32GBs on sale for $118 reg $160ish..Snapped one of them up and very satisfied..suddenly I have two tablets..lol

That is why I love my fire because all my apps and games are stored on amazon so I can just download what I need when I need it. I think for Xmas I am gonna get the new hd 4g model. Mary

Is that not dangerous? They can scan your files and see your passwords or other documents?

They can scan your files and see your passwords or other documents?

Who can do that?

According to Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, 91% of all tablet web traffic comes from iPads. He wonders what non-iPad users are doing with their tablets...

I have had no problems and have had kindles for 2yrs now. That is how it works with kindles and it works just fine. No one but me has ever known my amazon password even before I got the fire and I change it every month. I change a lot of passwords monthly.

If your kindle is lost or stolen you log in online and deregister it and let amazon know then no one can buy stuff on your account and it's bricked from someone else being able to register it. Much the same as if your cell phone is lost or stolen. Then if you get a new one you just register it to your account and all your books and apps are on Amazon for reloading onto the new device.

I had to have my fire replaced by amazon due to a faulty charging port so this was very convienient for me. Same if you have the kindle reading app your pc or tablet or phone. Any books you buy are stored in your amazon account for reloading if you get a new tablet or pc.

Nice thing is if hubby and son get kindles I can register them to my account and they can have access to all the games and apps I bought where as if they got their own accounts they would each have to buy those apps and books separately. Amazon offers one paid app free every day so I have a ton of apps and games I have collected that way like monopoly is $5 but they had it free one day.

Also if you belong to amazon prime you not only get the free shipping deal but can borrow one free book a month from the kindle lending library. I can't say enough about amazons great customer service. Mary

I can do basically the same thing using online cloud storage and access it from any where with a connection. I can set it up to share and share it with whoever I chose to.
But having it all also on my device or memory card I have full access hto everything at all times not just when I have an Internet connection which to me is absolutely essential.

Then if I have to replace the tablet or get a new one I just move my memory card from the other one to the new one. I can have several memory cards too one with pictures and videos, one with music, etc if I want to. And I don't have to worry about some company deciding to lock me out of my account and purchased items which has happened to some people by Amazon. I think that is not acceptable since all those items in the persons library have been bought and paid for. I would be furious.
I like to have personal control over my stuff, I am not real trusting.

Yeah memory card is not important to me for the fire. Would be if I had another kind of tablet. When I am traveling all hotels we have stayed at have wifi and every McDonalds has free wifi so I can just pull into the parking lot and connect in so it has worked very well for me that way. Any apps amazon doesn't have I can side load them. Mary

I meant hackers getting into Amazon and those types of services. Then stealing stuff or damaging what you have. I read about them causing problems already some of those cloud services or as I call them, banks of hard drives. Once they get into those clouds, they would have access to everyones stuff. Doubt it is encrypted. Bothers me as I just got one of my cc's reissued because the bank detected a problem. Sigh...

I don't know have had the fire about 7 months and no problems like that or any problems in all my years having an amazon account. My friends have had their emails hacked or spoofed or what ever a ton lately compared to nothing happening to amazon. You just never know but this works best for me and my situation. Mary