Gaming without a desktop or laptop computer?

 You've thought about it, haven't you?

Since the Steam Deck has taken hold, and the ASUS ROG Ally has arrived, mobile gaming computers are real and good.

I admit that back when Epyx Games designed their handheld gaming machine with color display, I was interested.  Atari bought it and put it out under their name.  When Nintendo brought out Virtual Boy, it piqued my interest.  However, bad, tiny displays weren't enough for me.

I looked at the Nintendo Switch several times.  The newer, OLED-equipped Switch really looks good, but it's not very powerful for 2023.  So many people bought them in 2020 and 2021 because they were stuck at home, the company did well.  For me, I want different games, and mostly, those games don't end up on Switch.

So, here I am with a Steam Deck and it's good.  I have over 182 games available in Steam, 62 are in the Great on Deck category, and I have 42 games installed.

Earlier, I was watching a YouTube video about installing a game launcher that could handle non-Steam-based games.  You have to exit Steam and go to the Linux/KDE desktop, use the virtual keyboard, and more.  Without a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, it sounds difficult.  It sounds like my 8-bit days before the GUI arrived. The good thing is that there is a GUI.  I'm not sure I want to bother with GOG Galaxy or the Epic Games Launcher on a Steam Deck in desktop mode, though.

Play Games or Mess with the computer?

This reminds me so much of my time at work getting Win98SE and WinNT to work.  Then, going home to my MacOS machines.  I really don't want to mess with the computer.  I bought Steam Deck to play games, not to become a Linux laptop replacement.

Windows Local or Windows Remote?

The good thing about Steam is that it allows you to Stream a game from another machine.  I can stream a game from Steam Deck, Mac, or Windows.  I can even play remotely on Android or iOS.

GeForce NOW will also allow you to run Windows games remotely on Android or iOS.  However, unless you're a premium subscriber, you may be waiting in the queue quite a while.  The Razer Kishi V2 works fairly well, but only supports/is supported by a handful of games I have.  It did not work with my OnePlus 8T and, while it works with my Google Pixel 6a, the Pixel 6a isn't as powerful as the 8T.  Gaming is not so happy, even for light, casual games.  Playing from a Mac is fine, but seems a waste.  I don't have a Kishi V2 for iPhone.

Valve has really worked hard to make Steam Deck a success and I'm pleasantly surprised how many games work well.  I'm not too quick to jump on the latest trends, but Ghostwire: Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush from Tango Gameworks and Bethesda are pretty bug-free for new releases.

I'm not about to buy Hogwarts Legacy this year, partly, because it's massive, and partly, because it's expensive.  I would rather buy Baldur's Gate 3 sooner but it's going to be buggy and expensive, also.

Then again, if certain games arrived on Mac, I'd be spending to show my support for native Apple Silicon gaming development.  Some games work fine as Intel-based applications but more speed would make things go more smoothly.

It's interesting how many indie games are available for Mac and Windows at the same time while big studios can't seem to muster the courage.

Is playing handheld good enough?

I've played a number of games on Steam Deck, but some of my favorite pick-up-put-down kind of games, like Unreal Tournament 2004, don't work easily.  For the most part, you can play almost anything.  Games that require a keyboard and mouse will be difficult.  I currently have 44 games installed and they mostly work the way I'd expect but I removed one or two because they didn't work correctly.  Valve continues to make improvements in the Proton compatibility layer.

On iPhone and Android, I've been playing the Galaxy on Fire series for around 11 years, since the original Google Nexus 7 tablet with Nvidia Tegra processor and the second generation iPod touch.  Using gyros for the movement was surprisingly good, although it might have looked silly while playing in a waiting room.

Using a Steel Series Nimbus+ for the iPhone and a Razer Kishi V2 for a Google Pixel 6a makes certain games much easier to play.  It's a bit sad that Android controllers can't be more compatible with a wide variety of phones.  My OnePlus 8T just didn't work with the Razer Kishi V2 but the Pixel 6a isn't as powerful.  Now, Razer has a Kishi V2 Pro.

I still find myself at the computer, whether Windows or Mac, to play games that can't easily be played on Steam Deck, Android, or iOS.

I mentioned UT2004 earlier and it's one that I pick up for 15 minutes and then, put away.  I play Toxikk that way as well.  I haven't spent much time on Honkai: Star Rail or Genshin Impact on my phone.  They're too much for my Google Pixel 6a, but run fine on my 2022 iPhone SE.  The display dimensions aren't very good on the iPhone SE, as it doesn't really have a widescreen display.  It does have a powerful processor, though.  Genshin Impact demands a lot of my Windows 11-based machine.  Those fans run quite a bit while playing, even for a few minutes.  Teyvat is shown in great detail.

Which handheld will succeed to break the need for a laptop computer?

I'm looking forward to seeing Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and Legion Go take hold and change the face of gaming.  It's time.

Update 2023.12.14: Attached a keyboard and mouse to my Steam Deck and played Toxikk and Unreal Tournament 2004 as if I had a laptop computer.  It was a good experience, even though I need to adjust to the keyboard.  UT2004 actually ran better on Steam Deck than it ran on my Ryzen 7 5800H through the AMD application launcher using AMD graphics.  That experience on the 5800H was surprising, considering that my experience in 2004 was better on a Mac clone with an ATI card that was probably priced around US$200 in 2004. ATI's XClaim VR was the card from 2004.  The Steam Deck was awesome.

Cheap keyboard/mouse combo from Temu wasn't bad.  Longevity?  Who knows?

 Update 2023.12.26: I have Hogwarts Legacy on Steam Deck.  Performance is good so far.  I need to acclimate myself to the controls or I won't go far. 

Update 2024.01.13: Ayaneo has just announced a Steam Deck-like device using a SteamOS-like operating system, Ayaneo Next Lite.  It's starting just a bit cheaper than Steam Deck, but who knows whether they'll continue to support the operating system or not.  The company has so many devices that it may just be throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.

Update 2024.03.08: Ayaneo Next Lite will be shipped with Windows 11, for some reason.  Orange Pi Neo has been announced with Manjaro Linux Gaming Edition.  Supposedly, it will be less expensive than Steam Deck, even with Hall Effect triggers and a higher resolution display.

I've been acclimating myself to SteamOS desktop and updates through Discover.  Trying to work a machine without a good desktop interface is difficult, but this one is good.  When I was experimenting with Ubuntu back around 2005, there was a lot to dislike.  GNOME desktop wasn't good and Ubuntu's Unity was different, not better.  People raved about KDE but it wasn't that far along, either.

In any case, it's good to have a handheld device that can replace a desktop computer in a pinch.

Update 2024.03.19: Windows 11 Update KB5035853 has caused problems on Ally and others like it that use an AMD APU.  Too many times Microsoft isn't paying attention, but with millions of configurations, how can they test enough of them?

Update 2024.05.27: Things are better and there are more alternatives yet.  ASUS has an Ally X with some redesigns to fix and make things better.  We'll see if it corrects ruining the SD Card by overheating it.  It's still fairly expensive and Armoury Crate isn't much of a game launcher.

The newer Steam Deck OLED is a better performer and the display dazzles all but the most frugal.  There are over 15,000 games Verified or Playable now.

I've been playing a few games from Netmarble, some for Android, some for Windows.  I haven't got to the point where I want to try games outside of Steam on the Steam Deck.  I downloaded two launchers for the desktop, but haven't done much to try them.

Update 2024.09.09: I noticed this week in a couple of articles that AMD is close to a new generation of APUs for handheld devices.  There was a mention of Escher, which was in the same category as Van Gogh, the APU in the Steam Deck.  There was also a mention of Z2 and Z2 Extreme, the processors in the ASUS Ally and Legion Go. Supposedly, the Z2/Z2 Extreme will arrive first quarter of 2025 but the replacement for the Van Gogh may take longer.  It would be interesting to see how Valve handles a replacement for the current APU, not only in software, but in game verification.  Obviously, it has to be fully compatible, but will it support more to deal with technical difficulties we've seen on Steam Deck?

Update 2024.10.24: SteamOS has been updated to version 3.6.

I know that Legion Go and ROG Ally X are making improvements in handheld devices.  I don't see myself switching at this point.  I have a Windows 11 Pro machine and it seems as though the performance has become worse with every update.  Anything extra that they can eek out of Steam Deck would be appreciated.

Update 2024.12.28: At CES, there should be an announcement between Valve and Lenovo that the Legion Go will come in a SteamOS version.  Valve has been busy working on SteamOS to add drivers and such to make their distribution of Linux work for any handheld that works like the Steam Deck.

Steam Deck itself has been available in Australia for a bit, but it still has a long way to go.  The operating system is working well and many games run without major problems.  The minor problems often offset the problems that Windows has.

Update 2025.01.24: It has been a couple of days since I got a notice from Nintendo that the Switch 2 was being announced.  They didn't really go into enough detail about what it is.  I will guess that it isn't powerful enough because they always go less powerful than they should.  The extra port and the controller-as-a-mouse functionality is interesting.  However, after the number of portable gaming systems in the last few years, will it be enough?  Will the Switch 2 have enough power to play games without a Nintendo character, i.e. AAA games?

Waiting for Valve to do something about Steam Deck feels like being in the waiting room of a doctor who has bad news for you.  They might have cleaned up SteamOS 3.6 enough to calm down the problems.  They're not big enough to have a huge distribution network, so things are moving slowly.  By the time they have it under control, they'll probably announce Steam Deck 2.

I've been considering moving to SteamOS for my Windows 11 Pro laptop computer.  It takes so long just to get it to the login page, even though it's using an M.2 SSD.  The 24H2 update gave me hope and then, it's no better.

Update 2025.02.26: Valve's Steam Deck is three years old.  My Steam Deck is about two years old.  The device still doesn't have a major distribution network but sells well.  The company is working on a Steam console and apparently, another VR headset.  Is SteamOS enough to upset Windows?  The company is still working on a one-size-fits-all version of SteamOS to be installed almost anywhere.

I watched someone install a version of Red Hat's Fedora offshoot called Nobara.  There seems to be an Nvidia version that I could use, as well as a SteamOS version.  It started up like it was still 2004, but eventually booted into a SteamOS-looking interface, similar to when I use my Steam Deck with keyboard and mouse.

Update 2025.04.06: Guess what isn't going to arrive in the USA?  The Nintendo Switch 2 is being delayed, due to the tariffs from the White House. 

Update 2025.11.15: Valve announced Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and a second generation Steam Controller just recently.

 I've got the original Steam Controller (somewhere) and it's both really good and really bad, at the same time.  Hopefully, the new one will be amazing since they've learnt a lot from the Steam Deck usage.

Steam Machine is just a Linux-based box computer for Steam-based games.  Anything that runs on Steam Deck will run on Steam Machine, but FASTER.  Will it be as good as current Playstation or Xbox models?  It may not matter.

 Steam Frame is another matter.  The Valve Index was expensive and then, Apple made it look inexpensive.  I suspect that it only sold a few hundred times.  I would like a VR headset, especially one that has the processing inside it as Apple has done.  If they have the energy for it as they've had for Steam Deck, they might do well.  Samsung just introduced another entry into the market.

 Valve could really use a Steam Deck with much more processing power.  The AMD Escher variant was designed to replace the Van Gogh variant and they should be planning to use it. 

Update 2025.12.23: The LCD version of the Steam Deck is finished.  When supplies run out, they won't be sold any longer, except for refurbished models, I'd expect.

I wish that this meant that a follow-on product was in the works, but they seem to be allowing anyone and everyone to load SteamOS. 

Update 2026.02.25: The Steam Deck is four years old today.

 I waited a while to buy mine.  They had so many shortages and couldn't deliver for the longest time, so I waited.  Now, with AI servers needing RAM and storage, things are slowing to a standstill.

I saw the other day that AMD is not providing firmware updates for the Z1 or Z1 Extreme APUs and Lenovo made a similar announcement.  SteamOS seems a better bet but can they cover all AMD APUs? 

PC can... (fold in ways Macs cannot) ... and then, it is finished.

You've probably seen all these new PC can... advertisements from Intel.

They're almost all extremely accurate.  In fact, Lenovo's Flex and Yoga lines of laptop computers have been extremely interesting to me.

I have a Flex 14 on the way.  (Flex is apparently Yoga on a low cost diet.) US$749.99 doesn't seem bad for a dual core i7, 1920x1080 touch-enabled display with Intel 520 graphics, 8 GB of RAM and 1 TB hard drive.  I've already seen this one work and it seems reliable, and a good (but not great) performer.  It folds into multiple different configurations, including a convertible/tablet much better than the original IBM ThinkPad from the 1990s.  It's about 1/3 the price of something refurbished I'd be buying from Apple.  I'm not saying that they would be equivalent machines, though.

Lenovo Flex 3 14

Now, I haven't been a Windows user, by choice, since Windows 3.1 on an IBM L40SX.  I used Windows 98SE for a while because I had a machine given to me.  I was like the PC manager in the Mac advertisements who went home to his Mac after an unhappy day handling Windows problems.  24 years is a long interval between a desire to use Windows but things have changed.  To me, Microsoft had always been a pain, with their sloppy coding, anti-competitive attitude, and unwillingness to take care of bugs and security problems.  With Windows 7, they started to change all that, and I considered what they did to be an opportunity to switch.

Windows 10 is good.  Is it great?  I'll let you know.  What's not great is Apple's attitude toward my productivity.  I'm currently using a machine that was introduced in mid-2012, a 2.6 GHz Quad Core i7 MacBook Pro.  I immediately replaced the hard drive with a 480 GB SSD and put 16 GB of RAM into it, as well.  Today, it's a good machine but three years is quite a long time for a computer.  When I'm working it hard with hundreds of photographs or video processing, the CPU is reporting that it is hot enough to boil water.

That's not the real problem, though.  Apple's attitude toward software quality changed quite a while ago during Mac OS X 10.5 when Avie Tevanian left the company.  They became sloppy and careless.  They didn't care about security.  It has continued and has been exacerbated by the iPad and iPhone, and in the last week or so, there was an announcement from Blizzard/Activision that the latest game would not be available for Mac, unlike previous dual operating system releases from Blizzard.  Part of the problem is that OpenGL has not been updated for a very long time.  Apparently, the Metal game functionality is not friendly, ready, or perhaps, it just has a big learning curve.

I don't expect this newer 2.5 GHz dual core i7 in the Lenovo laptop will be faster than that of my 2012 MacBook Pro but it has the Turbo mode, even though there are only half the cores to compete against the older quad core i7.  Considering that I want to use this for video creation and light gaming, it should be enough.  Applications have certainly become more complicated.  I need to learn whether it will accept a 16 GB RAM card in its single slot.  I suspect it may need the extra working space, although Windows 10 should be efficient even though it is early in its commercial existence.

It should be interesting to see the various games from Valve Software that I have on Steam, work on Windows 10, if they're even compatible yet.

I was helping the person who got it first to get some extra browsers, register the machine, and get started with a video project.  I was really unhappy with the trackpad because I would try to click and the cursor would move each time.  He said to double tap the trackpad and that worked incredibly well.  I'd seen reviews complaining about the trackpad, so maybe there isn't a real problem.  Let's see how right-click works.  Two finger scrolling works almost as well as with my Macs.

We'll see how I like it when I get it Wednesday or so.

Update 2015.11.18: Everything is here.  I've downloaded Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, as well as loading Sony Movie Studio Suite.

I'm enjoying some frustration.  Things have not worked as well as I would have expected but there is a new computer and a new operating system, plus the keyboard and trackpad are surprising me.  I suppose that I will survive.

It seems that Lenovo isn't happy with the inbuilt Intel graphics hardware.  I don't know if this is a problem with the diagnostics or if the graphics hardware is actually broken or just lacking.  Another of the Lenovo applications was trying to download an update for their photo application and it wasn't able to do it for whatever reason.  The good thing is that I checked for Superfish and it didn't exist.

Mathematical Operations?

I've used about 4 GB today getting updates.  What's strange is that Windows says that it's getting critical updates but then, McAfee LiveSafe (I think that's what it is) managed to find 4 other updates, including 2 that were marked critical.  Flash was included in those, but that's a weekly security update anyway.  Die, Flash, die!

I'm guessing that this probably wasn't the whole big update that is available, so that will take more bandwidth from my monthly allowance.  It's always tough getting a new machine going, isn't it?

I'm thinking about ditching McAfee for Bitdefender, especially since the McAfee suite is just a trial package.  I know that none are perfect but there can be so many exploits that I need something truly strong.  Bitdefender and Kapersky have the best ratings. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware is suggested to be an excellent companion to anti-virus.  It's not cheap to be safe but why let your machine be compromised and have it helping the bad guys take what they want and slow you down?

Update 2015.11.19: Software Update found system version 1511, I believe it was--the big one.

It used another 3 GB but completed.  Hopefully, the stability will be improved and they didn't introduce too many new problems.  It's a new Microsoft, right?

Actually, it didn't.  I used an approximate total of 7 GB since I powered on the machine.  That would be a lot of updates.

Update 2015.11.20: Switching between shapes/orientations is interesting.  I wasn't able to use it in tent mode yet.  It was sliding quite a lot, possibly because the rubberized material around the computer half was not used around the display half.  It has a harder finish, continued from the cover.

I was able to use it in convertible/tablet mode.  It is effective, but having used an actual tablet, using a 14 inch convertible is not comfortable.  Using it in display only mode, with the keyboard upside down worked the best.  The only real problem is that the on-screen keyboard is not automatically activated when needed.  However, this is sometimes a problem with my 2013 Google Nexus 7 tablet.

The physical keyboard has been a problem and is a problem as I'm trying to write this.  It isn't necessary to jam so many keys in so little space.  If the cursor keys would have been moved lower, they wouldn't be so actively in my way.  Backspace either works amazingly quickly or the computer beeps at me.  However, this is a new user problem.

Similarly, the split trackpad has a learning curve.  I've been using a Mac trackpad since 2005.  That one had a single button.  The newer, mid-2012 model had no button.  Both use 2 fingers to right-click.  Accidental cursor movement while starting to type has been a problem.

One thing that works quite well, unexpectedly well, is the Windows Store.  I have been unhappy with Apple's Mac App Store and sometimes, the iTunes store.  The Mac App Store software often has a problem with downloads and purchases, for me.

e.g., I went to download One Drive, and it immediately failed.  It suggested that I retry the operation from the Purchases page.  The same thing happened.  (It was interesting to see the word "Error", as this was forbidden in the early days of the Macintosh.)  I waited a couple of hours and after two times, the download and installation was successful.  Using the Windows store, updates worked immediately.

It's good to see that Microsoft has seen enough competition to re-think their desire to survive.

2015.11.27: Having bought the Malwarebytes Premium Anti-Malware, Anti-Exploit package, installing it was necessary, and slightly painful.  The Anti-Exploit application was installed easily.  The Anti-Malware kept saying "Downloading" but it never finished.  The company gave me a link to a download and after this was installed, clicking "Activation" allowed me to enter the licensing information.

I've been noticing that the display is economical.  Sure, it has a resolution of 1920x1080 but the refresh rate is 60 Hz.  It has ten touch recognition. which is great, if you happen to use ten at once.  Perhaps, two people could finger paint at the same time or play finger twister.  The real trouble with the display is the depth of the color.  I put up one of my photos from around sunset and there is nasty banding that isn't in the photo itself.  At least, it doesn't display a posterization sort of effect.

Update 2015.12.02: I saw a Yoga model for the same price, which was approximately the same but allowed more RAM, had an m7 instead of I7, was thinner, and had an amazing surface texture.  I don't really need thinner but 16 GB of RAM would be good for video processing.  I keep looking and it seems almost completely the same inside except for the SSD and the maximum RAM.

I'd think a dual core I7 with 8 GB of RAM would be plenty for general speediness and it has yet to show that.  Perhaps, it's just that Windows 10 is so new and that I'm accustomed to a fast SSD on Mac OS X instead of a 5400 rpm hard drive.  Perhaps, Windows 10 needs to become accustomed to what I do.

I recently bought a new Panasonic 25mm f/1.7 lens and Adorama offered me a discount on the already discounted Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements 14.  I installed it on the Windows machine, as I'm still not comfortable with the Sony Movie Studio package and I want some familiarity with Premiere, even a junior version.  Naturally, after installation, there was a 130 MB update.

I still haven't decided on anti-virus software because there are three versions of Bitdefender.  The minimum is probably enough, as I removed the McAfee LiveSafe or whatever, and I'm now running Windows Defender for anti-virus and firewall with Malwarebytes anti-malware and anti-exploit.

Update 2016.07.10: That is finished. I gave away the Flex 3 the other day to someone whose laptop computer was destroyed.

I spent way too much time updating and not using it, so this is a better solution.

It's a bit sad that a machine from 2012 was faster and more capable.  Thank goodness I didn't buy anything with a Core M processor.  I'm sure i would have been upset.  However, the touch screen technology was interesting.  It occasionally made things more usable.

Update 2016.07.31: Newegg has refurbished models for around US$500, including the Flex 3 I had and the 15.6 inch model with a nVidia GT940M.

Fixing the 2013 iPad mini price problem

Those who have read about my reaction to the higher than expected price for the 2013 iPad mini, or those who have talked to me about it, may be able to sense how ridiculous I felt for waiting for the updated tablet as I saw the announcement.  While the display density increased greatly and the performance is much, much, much better, the display quality is lacking, and the price is rather high when you consider the size and the display quality.

As an alternative, I thought about waiting for a refurbished unit or buying a refurbished iPad Air or 4th generation full sized iPad.

Last week, I looked a bit and thought about every opportunity to make the wrong decision.  This week, I went out to take a look at several tablets, including the following:

• Amazon Fire HDX
• Barnes & Noble Nook HD+
• EVGA Tegra Note 7
• 2013 Google Nexus 7
• Lenovo IdeaTab/IdeaPad
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7

First, Windows RT was low on my list.  I have a good feeling about Android and iOS.  There may come a day when I warm to Windows RT but that was not today.  Being comfortable is a great thing, and knowing that Google and Apple are willing to update their products within a certain range of time gives me a good feeling.  I'm still uncomfortable with all of the WP7 phones that were pushed to extinction by Microsoft.

Second, the display had to be better than average.  You can have a high density display that looks terrible, just ask 2013 iPad mini (Retina) owners.  That display covers only something like 66% of the sRGB gamut, which is quite low, especially when the cost of the whole product jumped US$70.  I need to be able to read Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and legal-ese--that fine print you can't normally see clearly.  Western languages are fairly easy to read on most displays.  We used to use a 7x9 print matrix to printer western characters in the 1980s.  If not for Japanese and Chinese, we may never have pushed past that "spray painting" type of printing.

Amazon has done a great job with their tablets in order to sell media.  Each tablet is a winner.  I'm even thrilled with their execution of the walled garden to take care of the customer experience.  I could live with it, much the way I live with Apple's way.  No fuss, no muss.

Barnes & Noble is leaving the hardware business.  They have exceptional prices on their equipment.  Their largest tablet was US$179, which had an 8 inch display.  However, while I was listening to the Barnes & Noble people having trouble with the tablet they were using to show someone, I was concerned that there were issues other than the speed of the internet connection.  1 + 1 = 2, does it not?  Being twice as nervous is not good.

EVGA Tegra Note 7 looks like a good tablet at a good price.  However, I can't get the notion out of my head that an nVidia Tegra processor is going to be a problem again, as it was with the 2012 Google Nexus 7.

Once bitten, twice shy?  Given that I had two of the 2012 Google Nexus 7 models, and wasn't happy with either, I had cause to be concerned.  However, a lot of the same concerns were boldly announced in reviews for the 2012 model and were not to be found in the 2013 models.  I tried the 2013 model at a couple of stores and found it to be strong and quick with a better than average display.  The number one item to Google's favor was that they would provide system updates faithfully where the others might not, especially for the bargain tablets.

Speaking of bargain tablets, I saw a couple of Lenovo IdeaTab (Android, right?) tablets at discount at Best Buy.  One was US$119, like one of those cheapo tablets that never gets an update and you wonder where the company went with your money three months later.  Lenovo does a great job with premium products, but I rarely hear great things about their bargains.

Samsung, oh, Samsung, how you make me wish you'd stayed just a component supplier.  You provided everyone with great components and let them do the user experience work and it was a great combination.  Then, you decided that you could make more money by competing with them, and you developed the whole product, except that you always shortchange on the development.  You leave bugs in the software, and the user experience is less than ideal.  Your checklist formula is great for you but it's not great for the consumer.

After all that, I ended up with a 16 GB 2013 Google Nexus 7 at a US$30 discount.  I bought a US$20 travel case and the US$30 protection plan that was reduced in price because of the discount on the tablet.  It still came to quite a bit but the difference between everything I bought and the price of an Apple iPad mini was still over US$125.

I hope my experience is good.  Android 4.3 is on the device (and supposedly 4.4 is getting to everyone slowly).  It's been doing a lot of updates, as you could expect from a new product.  It's still amazing to me how many things are not really good on a tablet.  It's been 3 years since my Android-based phone and Android 2.2, so what's the problem?  Why are they having to code individual fixes for several devices instead of providing one application for tablets and another for phones?  Google has recently implemented "Designed for phones" to let tablet owners know that an application won't utilize the extra space so well.  Wasn't it CEO Eric Schmidt who said that they didn't need separate layouts for tablets and phones?

I look forward to finding what works well.  As I use a certain filling station chain for diesel fuel, I've accumulated quite a few points and used 10,000 of those points to buy a US$10 Google Play gift card.  It's not a lot but it should get me started without emptying my wallet of real money.

I wonder how many others are thinking similarly.  Apple have opened a huge hole between them and the less expensive competition.  Will people buy the iPad mini?  Undoubtedly, there will be many buying it.  The iOS ecosystem is wonderful.  The Android ecosystem is coming along, but I'm still seeing far too many copyright violations where people use well-known characters in copies of their games.  However, they are fewer than in 2011.  If Google can abstract the hardware well enough that a developer can develop for two layouts, instead of focusing on hundreds of individual devices, the software problem will vanish.  Since Ubuntu and Firefox are new names to mobile devices, it gives Google incentive to fix their problems NOW.  Oh well, my tablet is working well, so far.  Hopefully, it stays that way.

I hope Apple is as happy with my solution as I am.

Update 2015.04.08: There are rumors about the iPad mini 4.  Nothing has really been said about the processor, and that is what has to be the best to generate real excitement and sales.

Now, the tablet market is fairly stagnant.  My 2013 Google Nexus 7 tablet hasn't been replaced by Google yet.  It could probably use a stronger processor, but I suspect that they're trying to make up for losses they took on the front end that made it such a great bargain.  Apple seems to be making their money all along.

I really believe that for a tablet to be portable, it needs to be 7-8 inches diagonally across the display.  I've seen plenty of people trying to take photos of video with ~10 inch tablets and it's just silly, especially when you consider the cameras are not very good.

nVidia Shield is the only really new tablet but it's rather special purpose.  Samsung continues to update their tablets and generate new model names and numbers, but is anyone buying them or do they only get them for free, as part of a data plan?

7 inch tablets and the Google Nexus 7

Google announced an 8GB tablet this week for the excellent price of US$199.  It's a re-work of an earlier ASUS tablet and that's a good thing.  The tablet includes the nVidia Tegra 3 System-on-a-Chip and a 1280x800 resolution IPS display.  That's a lot for the price.

There is a rather huge drawback: 5.92 GB is all that's available from the 8 GB of storage.  Additionally, there is no microSD slot to hold your images and music.  Update: I almost bought the 16 GB version at Sam's Club for US$246 and change.  I held the ticket in my hand for quite a while to think about it.  In the end, I couldn't justify being early, especially when ASUS has a variable track record and Google isn't all that reliable in my eyes, either.  Besides, there would be some fanatic who would get there late and wouldn't be able to buy one since I took the last ticket.  I hope he/she enjoys it.

As someone who struggled with the LG Optimus and its paltry 170 MB of user available storage (and the numerous low storage warnings, even with the microSD card), I think those who buy the 8GB version of the Nexus 7 tablet will be returning it for the 16GB version.  I would.

I'm all for such a tablet and the extra US$50 won't really be that much, considering that not so long ago, it would cost US$100 to go from 8GB to 16GB of storage.

What holds me back is the 16:9 format of the tablet.  I was really hoping for a 7.75-7.85 inch tablet in the 4:3 format, as the current 7 inch (and 10 inch) tablets in 16:9 format are just uncomfortable.  Sure, they're made specifically to display movies well, but I won't be watching movies that much.  Ever see the digital copy for Google in the Blu-Ray/DVD package with digital copy?

I think the Nexus 7 is a good attempt at the first tablet and it obviously attacks Amazon.com's Kindle Fire and the Amazon App Store, which is probably more of a problem for Google than it is for Amazon.com.  Jeff Bezos was likely yelling at people this week but Amazon.com acts quickly and they'll likely get their act together and smack Google for what they've done.

I suspect the Kindle Fire will be revised quickly and better than ever.  Since Amazon.com already have stores in various countries other than the U.S.A., I can't imagine why they haven't managed to be more in electronic publishing of books, movies, music elsewhere.

If anyone is a loser in all of this, it's Acer.  They can't seem to design good products to save themselves.  Lenovo will probably overtake them.  Of course, if Apple announces a 7.75-7.85 inch tablet in September, Google and ASUS may be hurting, as well.