Be Excellent To Each Other

A used ipad mini (1st gen 32GB) or a new Nexus 7 (16gb)
Which should I go for?

A few factors to consider:

Price: what's the cost difference here and how much are you bothered?
Ecosystem: if you've got existing iOS gear then the Apple side instantly becomes more attractive; or if you're already an Android guy then getting the Nexus means you've probably got apps/games you like and/or have already bought that you can stick on the thing.
Storage: with the specific options you've got there the Nexus is 16GB down to the iPad. What are you intending to use the device for and are you likely to want to store a shitload of stuff locally on it? If it's just for in the house then you can stream most anything you'd need off your own network so it's less of a problem either way but it depends on what you personally will use it for. You can connect up an external USB drive to the Nexus which I don't believe you can do with the iPad, but that's a bit of a pain obviously, and there's a weird limitation in that you can read from the drive but not write to it (without rooting anyway).
Hardware: by which I mean the fact that a first-gen iPad falls down a bit compared to the recent Nexus in terms of things like RAM, C/GPU power and the screen resolution. If you're not bothered about playing games on the thing then the lack of horsepower probably won't bother you (and it makes less of a difference in general when you're talking about Apple kit to be fair). The screen on the Nexus though is a massive bump up from the iPad and absolutely will make a difference even when just browsing the net and stuff. I've got a high DPI tablet in the shape of my Nexus 10 and it genuinely is a very nice thing to view content on.

As an owner of a 1st gen Nexus 7, I'd probably go with the iPad Mini. I'll probably get shot down in flames for this, but to my mind Android makes for better phones and iOS makes for better tablets.

Price both are the same at £200 Used vs New is the only difference.
Ecosystem - I have a ton of apple apps way back over four/five years now. Thanks to the ipads/ipod touch(s) & iphones the family own. But the apps I will be using on the device if I went with the nexus are mostly free.
Storage - not an issue at all I only want it for browsing, netflix & social. So a 16GB will be more than enough.
Hardware - The hardware is my only concern, the new nexus 7 does pack a punch for £200 & an ipad without a retina screen looks dull.

I've heard this kind of comment before; having never spent a great deal of time with an iPad and being perfectly content with my Nexus 10 (although for a very small number of apps admittedly): what is it about the Android tablet experience that people don't like?

If you're definitely just using it for stuff like internet and Netflix then I'd absolutely go with the Nexus purely because the screen is head and shoulders above the first-gen iPad (assuming the same quality as my Nexus 10 anyway).

I'd be a bit concerned that you will end up missing some of the apps you've already bought on an iOS device given that you've got a lengthy history on that platform but it's hard to predict because it depends entirely on your own usage. If you haven't already, I'd make a list of all the apps you consider utterly essential on a tablet and make 100% sure there's a version of those (or a good alternative) on Android. It's much less of a thing these days as Android gets all the big apps anyway but it's still worth being sure. Also, be aware that you still sometime get apps that are generally available for Android but only for specific devices; it's not the general case (the only example I can think of right now is the Sky Go app) but it does happen.

You may not be confusing this, in which case ignore me, but don't forget that it's 1st Gen iPad Mini, not 1st Gen iPad.

It makes no odds as the first gen of both was relatively low res (132 PPI for the iPad and 163 for the mini) whereas the new Nexus 7 got the bump up to 323 PPI. Which is actually higher than the Nexus 10 at 300 I now realise so that'll be pretty nice looking indeed.

Is the used iPad from a shop, or from a mate / eBay? I guess what I'm basically asking is: Can you take it back if it breaks?

It's from a friend

Thinking of the apps I use on my iphone that I would want on a tablet.

Safari
Email
Social Media (Twitter, TapaTalk, Newstap, Facebook)
Media (Youtube, Netflix, Tunein Radio, Amazon Cloud Player)
Others (Amazon, Ebay & Blogger)
Games - Not important but I play quite a few turn based games on the phone which would be nice to have on the tablet (save me using my phone) like Carcassonne, Lost Cities, Words with Friends etc.

How portable does it need to be? A Nexus 7 fits in a jacket pocket, the iPad Mini doesn't.

It will only go with me to work in the bag otherwise will stay at home.

I wouldn't get either. I'd probably get a Kindle Fire HD.

If money were no object - an iPad Mini Retina.

If I've got the versions right, the iPad Mini does't have a GPS, but does have a better camera. Any of those things important to you?

Safari: Chrome will come on the Nexus by default if you're alright with that. There are a number of other browsers available as well if Chrome doesn't suit.
Email: if you use Gmail then you're sorted from the outset obviously. There are shedloads of email clients available for Android for anything else that allows IMAP or POP3 access and dedicated apps for things like Hotmail and Yahoo.
Social media: For Twitter you've got the official client but I understand that's a bit shit so I don't know what your favourite alternative is and whether that's available for Android; that's worth looking into if you're a heavy user. TapaTalk and Facebook you're sorted for obviously. NewsTap I've never heard of but if it's this Usenet reader there doesn't appear to be an Android port. I'm sure there will be loads of alternatives for Android but I don't use Usenet so I can't speak to any of them, possible worth investigating.
Media: Youtube, Netflix and Tunein Radio all have official Android apps and the official Amazon MP3 app plays music from your Amazon Cloud Player so presumably that's sorted as well.
Others: there're official Amazon and eBay mobile shopping apps so you're covered there and, unsurprisingly, an official Blogger app as well.
Games: Carcassonne and Word with Friends exist so you're good there. Lost Cities isn't available on Android though and the dev is definitely not going to port it apparently.

Have not even looked at a Kindle Fire, I know nothing about it.
Is the amazon appstore for android the same for the kindle fire?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/mobile-apps/b/r ... 1661657031

Not having Google Play is a serious disadvantage to my mind; especially as non-Kindle devices can also install the Amazon app store and get the best of both worlds.

To actually add something useful to the conversation, I'd get the iPad mini, flog it on eBay for £250 and then buy the Nexus 7. Or, if it were a good friend, I'd tell him to put his iPad on eBay and then buy a Nexus 7.

It's a serious advantage to mine. It would mitigate the fact I'm using a Google OS.

Coming at this from a different angle if I go for the mini & the screen is not an issue then I'll keep it. If I don't like it I will get my £200 back & pass any extra back to my friend when flogging on ebay. I can then go get a nexus 7.

Sounds like a plan decision made.

It's Amazon's Android tablet range basically. It runs a heavily customised version of Android that's essentially a front to Amazon's store so you can only really get content on it from Amazon i.e. using their own Amazon app store. The Amazon app store has less apps available on it than the Google Play store you get access to with non-Kindle devices, although whether that would ever cause you any problems depends on the apps you're after obviously.

As I said in response to myp; non-Kindle Android devices get access to all the Amazon store front stuff but it doesn't work the other way round so you are definitely getting a more limited choice with a Kindle, but whether it would ever actually cause you a problem is impossible to say.

Spec and price-wise the latest 7" Kindle and the new Nexus are pretty close to each other so it's certainly an option.

Someone's put up an unused Surface device on the work 'buy/sell' page. Not tempted.

Riles loves his.

I've got a HP Elite Pad arriving soon for me to trial.

SE is rabidly anti-google.

These are the apps I'd need:

Kindle
Web browser
Netflix

Does the Kindle Fire come with those? If so, then I can avoid Google's ecosystem, which would be preferable.

They are quite nice and I can get them massively discounted, but they run Android.

The simple answer would be that iPad apps are specifically targeted towards iPad hardware and iPad screens, where a number of the apps I have on my Nexus 7 are exactly the same as the app was on my Galaxy S3, just stretched out more.

For me it's slightly different anyway - I work for an Apple Reseller, so our office email and calendars are all, understandably, iCloud compatible, so having an iOS device would be an advantage for me (I've only got Android mobile devices right now). Even our holiday and sickness self-cert forms are done using an iPad app. In my ideal world, that would mean having a Nexus 5 as my phone and an iPad Mini Retina for a tablet.

That said, I'm apparently soon going to be given the option of taking a work-supplied iPhone or having a phone subsidy added to my salary to use my personal phone for work use - and I'm almost certainly going to take the subsidy. I do believe Android makes for a better phone OS.

With Google moving Play to become a development platform, rather than just a store, and moving more and more of Android's components out of the open source part and into the closed source part, Amazon will find it harder and harder to maintain compatibility in its Android fork. That means app devs will increasingly have to move down the road of essentially writing one-and-a-half or even two entries versions of their apps. It's already hard work eg any app that has to display a map calls Google Maps via an API that doesn't exist on unofficial Android; Amazon have written a drop-in replacement to run on the Fires but it lags behind the Google version in terms of features. So if you want to support the latest features on Android, you need an entire different lump of code on Fire OS.

It's an uncertain future for the Amazon App Store. Could be it brings enough business to justify the hassles for devs. Could be it doesn't.

Also, I didn't realise until recently -- any hardware OEM that makes any device running an Android fork is kicked out of the Open Handset Alliance and can't make actual Android phones any more. So when Amazon goes shopping for hardware partners it has to immediately cross off the best of them -- Samsung, HTC, etc. So far it's managed to square that circle without producing crappy hardware though, but it must be a challenge.

Oh, I know; and I'm sure he's got his reasons. But I was trying to make a recommendation to fit gospvg's requirements specifically so I don't really have a response for "get a Kindle because Google sux".

I suspect we read the same article recently (was it you that linked it actually?) as I heard about that the other day as well; pretty evil stuff on the face of it. Any idea who Amazon have contracted to build the Kindle hardware as I couldn't find an answer on that.

So continues the proud Beex tradition of Hidden Option C

Nope, Windows 8 (assuming we're talking about the same thing).

It comes with the first two, and Netflix is available on the Amazon app store (for free).

Blimey, that's pretty crappy of them. To be fair to Google their motto is "Don't Be Evil", It isn't "Don't Be Cunts".
Google sounds like a bit of a crappy company these days, I wouldn't want to work there

Interesting to know. I'll probably just spend the extra £110 and get the iPad Mini instead.

I'm not convinced - what's the point of the OHA if its members merrily carry on with the stuff that's not O?

Yep the one that is arriving has windows 8 & a keyboard dock. Go to see if it is a replacement for a laptop for a particular user.

Sorry, I was thinking of the HP Slate. I really should know our own products better.

Even without your Google aversion the Slate's pretty crappy. A friend of mine has one and even for the price it's not very good.

I should add, given that your stated use case is read comics (which is mine as well): definitely get something with a high-res screen, the difference it makes cannot be over-stated.

As long as they meet their commitments to the OHA why is it anyone's business what else they get up to? It does seem a bit pointless to be in it if you're going to work on other stuff but that's their choice and one shouldn't preclude the other.

Could have been. I shared it on twitter. It's here if anyone wants to read it.

Not sure I agree with 'evil' here. It's pretty hard-nosed business, for sure, but it's not like Amazon is any stranger to that.

Absolutely - and fragmentation is the biggest criticism constantly levelled at Android, I can see why they'd want to avoid encouraging it to worsen.

You do that by making the OHA an attractive thing to be involved in, not by forcing people to be involved otherwise they are cut out completely.
There is a difference between encouragement, and being dicks.

But... It's the Open Handset Alliance. If you're not making open handsets, what are you doing being in the Open Handset Alliance?

It's like joining the vegetarian alliance and eating meat.

But... they are making open handsets, they are also making non-open handsets.

It's like having a farm and only being able to sell your milk, if you agree to not sell your crops.

But you don't have to be a member of the OHA to sell handsets with Android on them.