$500 budget tablet - Page 3

$499 for the 16GB Galaxy Note, $549 for the 32GB version. Does everything you want and more.

The 16GB version seems to be available in both white and gray, the 32GB version only seems to come in gray.

I'll be picking up the 32GB one in the coming weeks.

The note is cool. In my mind, it's what the Asus Transformer should have been a long time ago. A basic android tablet with a working stylus. However, $500 is a lot of money, especially for an OS that works off apps. Even though the RT will be similar in that it only runs Apps, and the Pro is coming 3 months later, I'd wait for the pro. As soon as that Pro comes out, watch every android tablet plummet in value. No one can compete with a tablet that has BOTH a stylus, an active digitizer, and Windows software (OneNote anyone?).

The note seems cool, but will become useless really fast. I'm taking a year off school, so come Fall 2013 I'm hoping the Pro is a lot cheaper and I can start using that for note taking.

The two obvious choices are the Galaxy 2 Note and the Transformer Infinity. They both have great GPUs, but the GPU in the Note is better than the one on the Infinity. The Infinity is also hampered slightly by its high resolution, because it has twice the pixels to render of the Note. They still both play games smoothly, though.

The thing to ask yourself when choosing between the two is: "Am I an artist, or do I want to focus on productivity?" The Note's stylus seems to be more accurate than a capacitive stylus for the Infinity, and you can't rest your hand on the Infinity while drawing like you can on the Note. The Infinity, however, has a keyboard option that makes typing a breeze. The software keyboard on any tablet makes it hard to get through a paragraph without wanting to murder everyone in your general vicinity. As a matter of fact, I'm typing out my post here on the old original Transformer tablet, with which I do the vast majority of my web browsing and emailing.

I chose the Transformer Infinity, and it should be at my doorstep this afternoon. I'll be using it for the same stuff I use my current Transformer for... email, browsing, SSH, and remote access to my desktop with TeamViewer... but I'll be able to play 1080p video, which I've been missing (I hate having to re-transcode all of my videos for one tablet). I take notes much faster on a keyboard than I do by hand, and I was easily able to adjust to the smaller keyboard.

I would have chosen the Note, though, if I was interested in using artistic apps like Adobe's Photoshop Touch, I would have gotten the Note. It really seems to be the best choice if art and multimedia are most important to you.