Why not tablets? Phones have data plans that make them expensive. In
the long run (over the life of a project) it is cheaper to buy a tablet.
What makes you think tablets don't work? We're using Samsung Galaxy Tabs
for a project in Zambia and they're working fine. Pretty much any Android
tablet should work.
Cheers, Chris.
Aptivate | http://www.aptivate.org | Phone: +44 1223 760887
The Humanitarian Centre, Fenner's, Gresham Road, Cambridge CB1 2ES
Aptivate is a not-for-profit company registered in England and Wales
with company number 04980791.
I think data plans are less of a factor when running ODK. It could even run
on prepaid mobile credits. Since ODK could store data offline and send it
once a connectivity is present, there is more liberty to choose type of
connection (wifi, prepaid, postpaid) is more affordable.
Depending on the requirements and needs of the project, I think the only
edge of tablet over phones is the large screen screen (therefore larger
onscreen keyboard, bigger forms) and perhaps, more sturdy casing/body.
···
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 8:05 PM, Chris Wilson wrote:
Hi Kathryn,
On Tue, 15 Nov 2011, Ramirez, Kathryn wrote:
Why not tablets? Phones have data plans that make them expensive. In
the long run (over the life of a project) it is cheaper to buy a tablet.
What makes you think tablets don't work? We're using Samsung Galaxy Tabs
for a project in Zambia and they're working fine. Pretty much any Android
tablet should work.
Cheers, Chris.
Aptivate | http://www.aptivate.org | Phone: +44 1223 760887
The Humanitarian Centre, Fenner's, Gresham Road, Cambridge CB1 2ES
Aptivate is a not-for-profit company registered in England and Wales
with company number 04980791.
More to the point, we need to move away from "what phone is the
best" (or tablet). At KoBoToolbox, we have used a variety of phones.
Tablets are not our favorite choice because the size factor is not the
most efficient for the type of deployment we do, and also because of
battery life. Cheap phones (Huawei) are great for large deployment
with few interviews for each interviewer - so the poor screen and
overall phone is not too much of a factor. Inversely, we would want
something more robust where we need each phone to be used for 1000s of
interviews, in remotely areas. I think I may be repeating what is
obvious to most people here. So in short, you can evaluate phones
based on a series of criteria that you can weight based on how
important they are for your project. These could be:
(1) battery life
(2) screen size and quality
(3) price
(4) speed
(5) "solid feel"
(6) GPS accuracy
Obviously different projects would require different weights...
(and our 4 years old HTC mytouch are still going strongly!)
Patrick
···
On Nov 15, 10:30 am, Alison Perez wrote:
> Hi Kathryn!
>
> I think data plans are less of a factor when running ODK. It could even run
> on prepaid mobile credits. Since ODK could store data offline and send it
> once a connectivity is present, there is more liberty to choose type of
> connection (wifi, prepaid, postpaid) is more affordable.
>
> Depending on the requirements and needs of the project, I think the only
> edge of tablet over phones is the large screen screen (therefore larger
> onscreen keyboard, bigger forms) and perhaps, more sturdy casing/body.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 8:05 PM, Chris Wilson wrote:
> > Hi Kathryn,
>
> > On Tue, 15 Nov 2011, Ramirez, Kathryn wrote:
>
> > Why not tablets? Phones have data plans that make them expensive. In
> >> the long run (over the life of a project) it is cheaper to buy a tablet.
>
> > What makes you think tablets don't work? We're using Samsung Galaxy Tabs
> > for a project in Zambia and they're working fine. Pretty much any Android
> > tablet should work.
>
> > Cheers, Chris.
> > --
> > Aptivate |http://www.aptivate.org| Phone: +44 1223 760887
> > The Humanitarian Centre, Fenner's, Gresham Road, Cambridge CB1 2ES
>
> > Aptivate is a not-for-profit company registered in England and Wales
> > with company number 04980791.
>
> > --
> > Post: opendatakit@googlegroups.com
> > Unsubscribe: opendatakit+unsubscribe@**googlegroups.com
> > Options:http://groups.google.com/**group/opendatakit?hl=en
>
> --
> *Alison O. Perez
> Software Developer
> Wireless Access for Health (WAH)
> Province of Tarlac, Philippines
>
> Website:http://perez-ph.net
> Blog:http://darthblitzkrieg.blogspot.com
> Skype / IM: darth_ali
>
> "Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they
> may start a winning game." -- Johann Wolfgang Goethe*- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
My organization, the Africa Soil Information Service, has been
experimenting with both tablets and phones. In general, our
enumerators prefer the tablets. They like the bigger screen, and we
like the better battery life (our experience). We've faced two major
problems with the particular tablet we are using, the Samsung Galaxy
Tab. From our experience, the GPS hardware in the tablet is very poor.
We've written a few blog posts on the topic of hardware selection.
I'm not sure if I read your post correctly. Are you suggesting that
the tablets you used had worse battery life than the phones you were
using? That seems strange to me. What hardware have you tested? Were
you using GPS at all?
-Eric Couper
···
On Nov 15, 9:54 pm, Patrick Vinck wrote:
> More to the point, we need to move away from "what phone is the
> best" (or tablet). At KoBoToolbox, we have used a variety of phones.
> Tablets are not our favorite choice because the size factor is not the
> most efficient for the type of deployment we do, and also because of
> battery life. Cheap phones (Huawei) are great for large deployment
> with few interviews for each interviewer - so the poor screen and
> overall phone is not too much of a factor. Inversely, we would want
> something more robust where we need each phone to be used for 1000s of
> interviews, in remotely areas. I think I may be repeating what is
> obvious to most people here. So in short, you can evaluate phones
> based on a series of criteria that you can weight based on how
> important they are for your project. These could be:
>
> (1) battery life
> (2) screen size and quality
> (3) price
> (4) speed
> (5) "solid feel"
> (6) GPS accuracy
>
> Obviously different projects would require different weights...
> (and our 4 years old HTC mytouch are still going strongly!)
>
> Patrickwww.kobotoolbox.org
>
> On Nov 15, 10:30 am, Alison Perez wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Hi Kathryn!
>
> > I think data plans are less of a factor when running ODK. It could even run
> > on prepaid mobile credits. Since ODK could store data offline and send it
> > once a connectivity is present, there is more liberty to choose type of
> > connection (wifi, prepaid, postpaid) is more affordable.
>
> > Depending on the requirements and needs of the project, I think the only
> > edge of tablet over phones is the large screen screen (therefore larger
> > onscreen keyboard, bigger forms) and perhaps, more sturdy casing/body.
>
> > On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 8:05 PM, Chris Wilson wrote:
> > > Hi Kathryn,
>
> > > On Tue, 15 Nov 2011, Ramirez, Kathryn wrote:
>
> > > Why not tablets? Phones have data plans that make them expensive. In
> > >> the long run (over the life of a project) it is cheaper to buy a tablet.
>
> > > What makes you think tablets don't work? We're using Samsung Galaxy Tabs
> > > for a project in Zambia and they're working fine. Pretty much any Android
> > > tablet should work.
>
> > > Cheers, Chris.
> > > --
> > > Aptivate |http://www.aptivate.org|Phone:+44 1223 760887begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +44 1223 760887
> > > The Humanitarian Centre, Fenner's, Gresham Road, Cambridge CB1 2ES
>
> > > Aptivate is a not-for-profit company registered in England and Wales
> > > with company number 04980791.
>
> > > --
> > > Post: opendatakit@googlegroups.com
> > > Unsubscribe: opendatakit+unsubscribe@**googlegroups.com
> > > Options:http://groups.google.com/**group/opendatakit?hl=en
>
> > --
> > *Alison O. Perez
> > Software Developer
> > Wireless Access for Health (WAH)
> > Province of Tarlac, Philippines
>
> > Website:http://perez-ph.net
> > Blog:http://darthblitzkrieg.blogspot.com
> > Skype / IM: darth_ali
>
> > "Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they
> > may start a winning game." -- Johann Wolfgang Goethe*- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -
···
Le 21 nov. 2011 16:24, "Peter Crees" a écrit :
I am interested in the super cheap 7" android tablets for use with
ODK, devices that cost <$90.
The ePad / aPad Chinese tablets with resistive touchscreens.
Generally these run Froyo (Android 2.2) and have very limited RAM,
only front facing cameras and no GPS. They usually need USB modem to
get mobile data.
e.g.