Despite the ease of being entertained anywhere that comes with owning a smartphone, only about 1% of all mobile traffic is pornography — after all, maybe you don’t want that grandmother next to you on the bus to see you watching. But a new study says that for those people who do indulge on their devices, they’re putting their phones at a high risk of catching something unhealthy. And by that we mean malware, of course. [More]
tablets
My Quest For A Defect-Free Microsoft Surface Goes Surprisingly Poorly
By 1.2.13
Being an early adopter can be difficult. Overall, Grady likes his new Microsoft Surface tablet, but noticed some hardware issues, like light distortion and a power button that doesn’t feel right. Those are relatively minor issues when the entire device is working well, but not what Grady expected when he laid out $600 for a new tablet. That’s when he began his quest to return his Surface to Microsoft and obtain one with no defects, cosmetic or otherwise. This quest turned out to be more difficult than he had predicted. [More]
Everyone Spent Christmas Day Activating Their Shiny New Gadgets & Downloading Apps
By 12.28.12
Forget those crackling fireplaces, this year Americans were lit by the soft, blue electric glow of their brand new Android and iOS devices on Christmas Day, as more people spent the holiday activating their gadgets and downloading apps. Nothing like quality time with the ones you love and all your electronics, eh? [More]
Gift-Givers, Beware Of Google’s Short Return Window For Nexus Devices
By 12.13.12
Are you buying a product from Google’s Nexus line as a gift this holiday season, or for an upcoming special event? It’s too late for reader Joan, but she wants everyone to know that you should probably make your purchase from somewhere with a looser return policy than the Google Play store if your gift-giving occasion is more than two weeks or so away. That’s because you can’t return items more than 15 days after purchase unless they’re defective. [More]
Sears Loses A Nexus 7 Sale, Misses The Point
By 12.7.12
Bill has been a loyal Sears customer for most of his life. They happen to sell the Nexus 7 tablet, which he wanted to get for his wife for Christmas (hope she doesn’t read Consumerist) for a competitive price, and he could get Shop Your Way rewards points. Score! He ordered up the tablet online, then headed over to the store to pick it up. Then things started to go terribly wrong. [More]
Staples, Where ‘Item In Stock’ Means ‘Meh, I Don’t Feel Like It’
By 11.5.12
Perhaps irrationally, Robert thought that because the Staples website said that the tablet he desired was “in stock” at the nearest Staples store, that meant that it would be available for purchase. You can’t be too sure, so he called up the store. Yes: they had three tablets! Score! He drove to the store to bring home his precious, precious Nexus 7. The very same employee he had spoken to on the phone dispatched someone to get the tablet, and he was told that there were none in stock. [More]
Maybe Best Buy Would Compete Better If Their Employees Acknowledged Customers
By 10.29.12
Ryan wanted to buy a tablet, but he’s in the Northeast and couldn’t expect a delivery to show up reliably while his region is getting smacked by a massive Frankenstorm. He took the opportunity to try to buy the tablet he desired in person. Where he lives, the main place to buy electronics is Best Buy, which had the Asus Transformer Infinity in stock. Should be simple enough: go to the store, buy the tablet, then come home and play with the tablet. Right? [More]
Amazon Makes A Push To Get Kindles Into A Very Lucrative Market — Schools
By 10.17.12
Let’s see… where is a place with a captive audience that will always involve reading books, paper or otherwise, that will also need to keep updating its tools as the years go by? Oh yes, schools. They’re quite an attractive market for the makers of tablet and e-readers, and now Amazon is making a big push to make sure Kindles are the technology of choice in schools. [More]
Google Won’t Replace Your Broken Nexus 7 Until You Put Up $200 Collateral
By 10.12.12
Google does many things very well, like selling ads against your e-mail and designing mobile operating systems. What they’re not all that good at is customer service. Trey was really excited to buy the Nexus 7 tablet direct from Google. Great tablet, great price. The problem was that he would have to get his tech support directly from Google. That doesn’t seem like such a bad idea… unless you’ve tried to deal with Google’s tech support. [More]
Does Our Love Of Tablets & Smartphones Signal The Beginning Of The End For PCs?
By 10.11.12
If college kids today could see the hulking mass of plastic and metal parts that comprised the PC I was required to buy from my college freshman year, they would probably never stop laughing. It used to be that to get by in the computing world, a personal computer was the necessary gadget. But as shipments of PCs are forecast to fall for the first time in 11 years, times could be a-changin’. [More]
Hey, Verizon And Motorola, I Want My Ice Cream Sandwich
By 9.19.12
Reader GC owns an Android tablet purchased from Verizon Wireless. Customers were promised that the device would receive an update to the latest version a newer version of the Android operating system, called Ice Cream Sandwich, by now. The promised update has come for the larger version of the tablet, the Droid xyboard, but not for its little brother. Sure, GC could jailbreak the device, but why do that and void the warranty when the update was supposed to be here by now? [More]
Would You Entrust The Safety Of Your Online Information To A Wave Of The Hand?
By 9.14.12
The future is here, folks. Soon it’ll be just like we imagined as kids — holodecks, computers as thin as thin can be and there better be some hovercrafts arriving soon. But even as technology marches on, there are certain things we might feel a little bit squirrelly about doing away with. Like our online passwords, which are pesky to remember but ultimately safeguard all our online information. Intel is banking on our annoyance with keeping track of passwords with its new tablet software that grants access via a biometric sensors. [More]
Toys 'R' Us Releasing Tablet For Kids So Yours Won't Get As Smudgy During Epic Angry Birds Sessions
By 9.10.12
My six-year-old nephew, who is of course perfect, is forever taking control of his mother’s iPod Touch in order to show me his latest conquest in Angry Birds or some game involving vegetables and zombies (which clearly go together). Because his mom is a saint of a woman, she doesn’t seem to mind when he smudges up the screen with his eager, ketchup-covered fingers. But in case you’re not a saint, Toys ‘R’ Us is hoping you might want to shell out some dough just to get your tablet kid-free with its new offering. [More]
There's No Good Reason Why ASUS Would Steal My Broken Power Cable
By 9.4.12
When he had problems with his ASUS tablet dock, he packed up the dock and its power cable and sent it off to ASUS for some loving warranty repair care. Both the dock and the power cable had separate, seemingly unrelated problems. He suspected this might cause some confusion at ASUS, so he was sure to clarify that both parts had their own issues. He had not anticipated that the dock’s cable would disappear somewhere between his house and when the equipment was checked in at ASUS repair. [More]
What’s The Difference Between A Tablet And A Netbook? Tiger Direct Doesn’t Know
By 7.16.12
Buying refurbished electronics can be a money-saving way to get like-new items at a great price. Or it can be a money-losing nightmare of defective products, wrong parts, and missing accessories. Guess which category Ralph’s recent purchase of a tablet from TigerD irect falls under? The fun began when they shipped him a netbook instead of a tablet PC…and couldn’t get anyone to understand the difference. [More]
7 RMAs Later, Asus Still Won't Replace My Tablet
By 5.10.12
Richard just wants a working tablet. He’s sent his Asus Transformer in for repair seven separate times. It’s usually for variations of the same issue, but Asus’s records disagree. Handy, because those different service records mean that as far as Asus is concerned, the tablet hasn’t come in over and over for the same issue, and doesn’t need to be replaced. [More]
Toshiba Thrive Tablet Cracks While Being Held: Sorry, That's Your Fault
By 5.8.12
Alex writes that his five-month-old Toshiba Thrive tablet cracked, sort of under its own weight. Is that possible? Maybe. Stranger things have happened to electronics. But everyone he’s talked to at Toshiba doesn’t think so, and they’re acting like it was accidental damage. [More]
How Hard Should I Try To Give Back Someone Else's Tablet?
By 4.27.12
Last week, Brian received a package from the ASUS repair center. It was a freshly repaired tablet, the same model that he owns. Except he hadn’t sent his in for repair lately. Someone else’s address appeared on the return merchandise authorization (RMA) form inside the box, but the label on the outside had Brian’s information. He wonders: how much time and money should he invest in getting this package home when Asus doesn’t particularly seem to care? [More]
