Cheap tablet for a student (buying advice)

[pwhauke]

I just got rid of my macbook pro and got a mac pro, so I want to pick up a tablet to use next semester now that I don't have a laptop. I use the computer labs for most of my school programs (Mechanical Engineering), and I really only need the power of my mac pro for doing photo and video work, which currently no tablet offers (was considering a surface pro 2, but it isn't powerful enough). I want something that will be used for checking social media apps, like Facebook/instagram, watching movies/tv on netflix, internet browsing, checking my homework (mostly pdf files, some ms word docs, that we download from noodle if anyone is familiar). I will not use it to take notes, people don't really do that at my school. I also won't do any serious gaming on it, though controller support would be kind of neat (I would only play a gamecube emulator or online games that use the unity engine I believe). Anyways, enough of that, below I have filled out the info from the sticky.

1. This is my first time buying a tablet

2. I was thinking android. I have a mac, I use windows 7 for school, and I have an iPhone 5s, but I think the iPad mini is out of my price range.

3. 7"-8" screen size, "retina" is cool, but so is saving money, and I don't think that 1200x800 looks that bad

4. I was looking at the 2013 Nexus 7 (Asus), and the Tegra Note 7

5. Samsung, didn't like the feel when I tried a few out in store, and they have a lot of skins or modifications to the OS

6. $200 or less

7. I have AT&T, but I have a decent data plan so I would like a wifi tablet and tether if I need to

8. AT&T, 2GB/month

9. No, anything above what I put in the first paragraph would be a bonus though.

10. Facebook, Instagram, Audible, Netflix. I would potentially use a VNC client and photoshop touch.

Forgot to mention up top because this is less of a priority (compared to price), but I do a lot of photo and video work, so if I could use a tablet for this, that would be cool. One potential idea i had would be to dump memory cards. I have a 64gb usb drive, and if I could use some cable to plug in that and a card reader and just put it all in my backpack while I continue to shoot on another card, that would be amazing. Also, it would be cool to use the tablet for light video/photo work, which would mostly consist of loading images from a card and either passing it around to my friends for them to view, or uploading to social media (an individual image/clip). Stills would be raw files from a canon 1d mark ii n, video would be from a hacked gh2, so avchd at 100+mbps. I tend to go on a lot of overnight ski trips where I am away for a few days at a time, so it would be nice to have a way to do this stuff before getting back to my desk for more serious work. Going along with this, I have heard the nexus 7 has something limited in its USB port that might make it difficult to do what I want.

Sorry for writing so much, I just wanted to make sure I was being specific, ad I really appreciate any help that anyone can give me.

 

[jaguarskx]

The 2013 Nexus 7 sells for over $200; $229 for the 16GB version to be exact. Unless you know of a store that sells it for less. But I have seen the Tegra Note 7 sell for $200, but so far I have only seen it at Newegg and it is currently out of stock. Amazon does not currently list it.

https/play.google.com/store/devices/details/Nexus_7_16GB_Black_WiFi_only?id=nexus_7_16gb_2013&hl=en

Since note taking is not a priority, perhaps something like the Dell Venue 8 will do. It sells for $180. It's one of those new Android tablets running with Intel's Bay Trail Atom CPU.

http/www.dell.com/us/p/dell-venue-8/pd

Here's a review:
http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfUx52L4LLM&noredirect=1

 

[pwhauke]

The nexus 7 is available at or under $200 for me. I like the idea of the stylus on the tegra, but I'm not sure how much I would actually use it other than for novelty, which would put the nexus 7 in the lead for me. The only thing I am wondering is if I will be able to use it as part of my photography workflow.

I have seen the dell venue 8, I like the sd card slot, but it seems like it doesn't really offer many advantages compared to the nexus 7 or the tegra note.

 

[jaguarskx]

I only offered the Dell Venue because all prices i have seen for the 2013 N7 was $229. And like I stated, I cannot find any Tegra Note 7 in stock.

If both options are available to you for immediate purchase and they are within your budget, then it's a choice of whether the 1080p screen is more important than the ability to write notes on a 1280x800 resolution screen. I don't know the specific specs of both tablets, but I do know that the N7 does not have a micro SD card slot so if you are going to buy the 16GB version, then you will not have the ability to expand the amount of storage short of selling it and then buying the 32GB version.