Okay, maybe not a disaster. Disaster is when your house burns down. But quite a disappointment.
Last spring, as I recall, a generous reader sent me a little Trio tablet he wasn’t using. All summer it got used for not much more than a boombox on laundry day, but I knew it would come in great handy during the dark weeks near the winter solstice when I really don’t like to run the laptop in the evening. And so it proved; I can read ebooks or watch movies completely without guilt. Hardly essential, but still a good thing to have around.
And then just a few minutes ago, out of the blue, disaster struck. The tablet was charging on the counter, I’d been outside messing with batteries. I came in and was fiddling with something completely non-kitchen-related when behind me there was a terrible racket. A pot lid, all by itself and for no discernible reason, came rolling off its high cabinet shelf. It bounced off the counter and crashed to the floor.
LB and I just looked at each other: “Did you do that?” I picked up the lid and marveled that it was unbroken. Then I turned to the counter…
What were the chances? I can’t even curse whatever moment of carelessness caused the accident – that lid had been up there for a week or more and nobody was anywhere near the cabinet. And when it fell it hit the tablet’s screen edge-on. The tablet still boots up, but the touchscreen is FUBAR. Ruined.
I am so bummed. The irony is that I have a duplicate of the pot lid. If it had broken, I’d only be out a little sweeping. But I’m going to miss that tablet. Wonder what they cost?
The Nook 7″ tablet looks pretty good at $50. Amazon Fire 7″ is around $40 shipped. Both have cameras. I’ve got a current Fire 7, and a last generation Nook (no camera)–I’d have got the current Nook instead of the Fire, had I known about it at the time. The Fire has Amazon’s app store instead of the normal Android app store, and has ads on the lock screen–but there are apps that are free on Amazon that are paid on Android.
I’ve got a fire tablet, and my wife has one of the newer nooks, I’d recommend the nook, the amazon app store is very limited I had to jump through hoops to get a decent reader app the works with the non amazon books I own. On the nook you can install the kindle app to read the bargain amazon e-books. You can find generic cheap android tablets for $30 or less but they are less than half the quality of the $50 nook.
That’s very good to know, about the Nook. I’ll look into it. Thanks, guys.
Joel, You pick the product,I’ll buy it on amazon and they’ll ship it to you.I really want to do this,let me know and it will happen this week.
Certainly none of my business, and I don’t want to refresh wood stove fears, but….I trust you do have a Plan B in the event of A More Severe Calamity.
You trust correctly.
Bill, email sent.
NOOooo…