If you have been following me at all on Twitter or the Facebook, you know that I am a tech whore. I love gadgets. Drives my wife nuts. I have always been all about having information on the go. Back in 1999, it was my Philips WinCE device that I just HAD to have. Neat and fun device. Even had the built in modem, 14.4 I think. But that started my addiction. From there, it went on to Palm Pilots, Treo's, Kyocera Palm smartphone, BlackBerry's, iPod Touch, Droid X, iPhone....iPad. Ya, I have a problem. Luckily, work has payed for most of those because I have had to support them. Hey, isn't that called an enabler? Anyways, that's been part of the problem. They haven't been mine. So at the beginning of the year, I started putting money back to buy an iPad. But then something more sinister came up that stole my savings away. My son's graduation party. Then college expenses. Dang kids. So in the meantime, I kept using works devices. And waited for a good sale to come along. Finally last week, one did. I stayed up all night waiting for Best Buy to start the sale and I was lucky enough to score a Dell Streak 7 Android Tablet. $159! A steal! The 7" form factor is perfect for taking it around. The one thing I didn't like about the iPad was it's larger size. Doesn't fit in a coat pocket easily. Or my camera bag. One of the reasons I wanted a smaller device was to be able to carry it around with me when I got shooting pictures in case I needed to take notes. The Streak comes loaded with Android 3.2 and has 16GB storage. The 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra T20 is very fast. But, it's also the tablets Achilles heel. I've noticed that when I use processor heavy applications like video chat, the battery gets eaten VERY quickly. That seems to be a common thread with Android devices, but with proper application management, you can extend the battery life. Besides that, everything else about the device I really enjoy. This is not the end all be all of tablets, but for the price tag it can't be beat. And the fact that it has the true Android Market on it is a HUGE plus. I almost got caught up in buying one of those $100-ish devices, but none of them had the true market on it. Or a forward facing camera. This one does which comes in handy for my favorite application.
Skype. Being able to video chat with my Mom and Dad whenever is an awesome thing. They are in Michigan and I am in Ohio. Only get to see them a couple of times a year and so far, I think I've seen them more in the past week with this device then I had seen them all last year. So if you see this device around for a good price, grab it! I'm glad I did. And yes, Lotus Traveler has been installed. And it works. Awesomely.
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