What your thoughts on the Galaxy S2?

I've bought an iPad Air 2, but more thinking has led me to believe i'd better outside of iOS.

I do have a Macbook Pro, but use an android phone, so have no dealings or need for iOS really. I recently got rid of my Macbook Air (back up laptop) so thought a tablet might be a good way to go as a replacement.

I envisage it being somehow docked whilst at home, and used almost like a media centre. Then picked up and taken with me when travelling light. With the latter, I'll want storage for images and entertainment, plus the ability to move raw files from camera to the tab and perhaps do a cheeky edit on the go.

High quality screen, excellent colour, and good battery life are all important for me.

Is the Galaxy S worthwhile for what I want? Or are there better tablets for my needs?

Galazy S2 is almost a 6 year old phone; sure you don't mean something else?

well, since he mentioned the ipad and wanting a different tablet, it's quite probable he means the Tab S2.

Yeah sorry the tablet. haha. I did have an S3 phone as back which I sold. Even that felt really old.

Anyway, onto tablets. I managed to find a few threads, the OCUK search doesn't help when it's short words.

I've got rid of the Air 2. Nice tablet but iOS is far too restrictive for my needs. The inability to access external drives and easily use the content on them is a big one. Plus not being able to use a HDMI lead and a USB on the go device at the same time.

So that left android tablets, and the Galaxy tab S versions seem to be some of the best. I've decided to go with the original S over the S2. Partly as I've downsized to 8.4"

Seems the S has better battery life. An ever-so-slightly better screen, a little more real estate too, and Nougat also confirmed as coming.

Also bought the Samsung Multimedia dock. Will be handy when at home as I can use the tab as a media centre whilst supposedly working on my MBP.

people now move to S7 & others. And you are still on S2 :/ seems your preference is for s2

I have an 8.4 Inch Tab S and it has woeful performance compared to my iPad Air 2. To be honest, it's woeful compared to my Nvidia Shield too.
In its favor it has an utterly fantastic screen but it's completely ruined by the performance. Animations lag and stutter and even simple things like bringing up the application switcher has it drop frames.
Don't hold your breath for Nougat as the S only just got Marshmallow a few weeks back.

I wouldn't touch Samsung tablets with a 50ft pole, horribly under-powered and overpriced.

You're paying for the brand and the AMOLED display with Tab S2, everything else is hand me downs from other Samsung devices, basically whatever they had spare..

If you want a good Android tablet, get a Pixel C, great performance and battery life.

The Pixel C has me so tempted but I can't deal with the poor wifi reception. I know you generally hear the worst of things from people, but this (objective?) article did put me off

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10081/wifi-testing-with-ixia-wavedevice/4

Slam said:

The Pixel C has me so tempted but I can't deal with the poor wifi reception. I know you generally hear the worst of things from people, but this (objective?) article did put me off

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10081/wifi-testing-with-ixia-wavedevice/4

Click to expand...

I've never noticed any issues with wifi on the Pixel C.

We've got 3 Galaxy Tab S in both sizes (8.4 & 10.5) and all suffer from battery calibration problems which apparently is usual. After they've been in use and charged regularly for a couple of months the capacity drops by around 20-30% which I've measured with simple USB power meters.

If you take them apart, disconnect the battery then reconnect it often but not always resets the calibration and then they continue to charge normally for another couple of months then lose calibration again.

I've had the 8.4 Tab S and now the 10.5.

You'll need to get a slim custom ROM on either Tab to get a decent level of performance otherwise too much lag everywhere.

I bought mine used as they are not worth the RRP and only for watching videos on it's lovely AMOLED display.

Use this ROM with Viper4Android to improve the sound.

I'm not sure I need blistering performance.

I want to something that will run Kodi when I'm at home, hooked up to a dock with HDMI out to a monitor, and usb to external HDD. That rules out the iPads as they can't access external storage properly, nor output to HDMI at the same time even if they could.

Outside of the house, I'll mainly want to browse the internet, so wifi a/c and 4g are important. The screen is important for movie viewing, and photos. I'll want to copy photos from camera to the tablet for quick editing and upload to Instagram and the like.

Where something like the ipad is great is when using it as a second screen for the MBP. Duet Display is miles ahead of AirDisplay which is the only decent second display app for Android. I year on and it still doesn't offer wired connections.

Lenovo Tablets are probably my best bet, close to stock android without much bloatware and also they have features you'll actually use! Instead of gimmicky features which you'll never end up using, or will barely use...

Nexus is also something I opt for too, but Nexus devices don't allow expandable storage through Micro-SD cards, so that's a sad thing.