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Can I get a few opinions?

Covart

Covart

Android Enthusiast
just a quick background. i just took the plunge into Android with ICS on my Touchpad and I have done a lot of background reading first, before doing anything to my 32gb Touchpad that is running perfectly on WebOS. I also use an iPhone 4 and iPad2 (both jailbroken) and I customize them to the point they are fully functional, more like Android.

Anyway, I have a couple of questions. First and foremost, is the web browsing experience. Since I have a vanilla flavor of Android (CM9) and not a skinned UI (at least I dont believe it is) with a stock browser, I have been looking everywhere for a quality browser. It came down to Dolphin HD and Boat, full versions, not mini. One really annoying feature is that no matter what I try, I can not get the top portion with the tabs and search bar to stay when I scroll down. I also wanted forward and back buttons on screen, so although Dolphin has the swipe feature, that was like adding another button, when one would do fine. I tried Firefox too (sucked) and the stock browser (sucked). Surely, you guys have seen Atomic Web Browser on an iPad. This is how all web browsers on tablets should function. I can not believe Android doesn't have something like this?

Lastly, the best keyboard I could find was TabletKeyboard Free, since it is the most computer like in functionality. It also keeps my keyboards on my tablets very similar. Is there another keyboard that is even better than this? i have gone through a lot of the free keyboard in the play store, but am def willing to buy a better option.

sorry for the long post and I appreciate any input.
 
here is an example of Atomic on the iPad. Note that my info on top stays put, regardless if I scroll up or down. I also have the forward and back buttons at the top, more like a regular desktop browser. When I start my web browser, I have 5 tabs that automatically come up. Is there anything more like this out there?

18179939-a7ba-04f6.jpg
 
Covart said:
Anyway, I have a couple of questions. First and foremost, is the web browsing experience. Since I have a vanilla flavor of Android (CM9) and not a skinned UI (at least I dont believe it is) with a stock browser, I have been looking everywhere for a quality browser. It came down to Dolphin HD and Boat, full versions, not mini. One really annoying feature is that no matter what I try, I can not get the top portion with the tabs and search bar to stay when I scroll down. I also wanted forward and back buttons on screen, so although Dolphin has the swipe feature, that was like adding another button, when one would do fine. I tried Firefox too (sucked) and the stock browser (sucked). Surely, you guys have seen Atomic Web Browser on an iPad. This is how all web browsers on tablets should function. I can not believe Android doesn't have something like this?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, when dealing with ALPHA releases, annoyances like the top bar of a web browser not sticking is not uncommon. Please keep in mind that the developers of Cyanogen Mod are not writing the ICS implementation for the Touchpad from scratch. They are taking someone elses code and modifying it to work on a device other than what it was originally intended for. As such quirks such as what you describe are almost guaranteed... ;)
 
Martimus said:
Unfortunately, when dealing with ALPHA releases, annoyances like the top bar of a web browser not sticking is not uncommon. Please keep in mind that the developers of Cyanogen Mod are not writing the ICS implementation for the Touchpad from scratch. They are taking someone elses code and modifying it to work on a device other than what it was originally intended for. As such quirks such as what you describe are almost guaranteed... ;)
Click to expand...

thank you for your input. in all my reading on cm9, i never saw anything regarding the web browser issue. i know it is literally an Alpha mod, but to me it is pretty stable and more like a Beta. Really enjoying it so far, and will likely lead me to another Android tablet running ICS.

Again, appreciate your response.
 
Covart said:
thank you for your input. in all my reading on cm9, i never saw anything regarding the web browser issue. i know it is literally an Alpha mod, but to me it is pretty stable and more like a Beta. Really enjoying it so far, and will likely lead me to another Android tablet running ICS.

Again, appreciate your response.
Click to expand...

I completely agree with you on the fact that Alpha 2 looks more like Beta 1 than an Alpha really. For the browser issues and options you are looking for I would recommend Chrome Beta --- note the beta it has some problems that I have noticed with heavily flash based pages but it is still ok. Only about 5% of the time do I have to run a website in the stock browser to ensure that it works.

As for the keyboard deal I am a pretty classy individual. I use the stock keyboard (if I understood right about the keyboard styles not physical keyboard) or the other app I like is swiftkey x tablet, splits the keyboard in half so you can type with your thumbs and it has a numb pad in the middle of the screen for easy access of numbers. I downloaded the free trial and it is going to be up pretty soon so I will just dish out the 3 dollars to get the full app because I personally think it is really nice.


Hopefully I was of some help to you. Note that to get Chrome Beta to work on the tochpad you will need to edit your system file with ESExplorer with root permissions so that you can make it think that it is stock ICS I dont know why google did that but it is no biggy.
 
alextop30 said:
I completely agree with you on the fact that Alpha 2 looks more like Beta 1 than an Alpha really. For the browser issues and options you are looking for I would recommend Chrome Beta --- note the beta it has some problems that I have noticed with heavily flash based pages but it is still ok. Only about 5% of the time do I have to run a website in the stock browser to ensure that it works.

As for the keyboard deal I am a pretty classy individual. I use the stock keyboard (if I understood right about the keyboard styles not physical keyboard) or the other app I like is swiftkey x tablet, splits the keyboard in half so you can type with your thumbs and it has a numb pad in the middle of the screen for easy access of numbers. I downloaded the free trial and it is going to be up pretty soon so I will just dish out the 3 dollars to get the full app because I personally think it is really nice.


Hopefully I was of some help to you. Note that to get Chrome Beta to work on the tochpad you will need to edit your system file with ESExplorer with root permissions so that you can make it think that it is stock ICS I dont know why google did that but it is no biggy.
Click to expand...

thanks for the info. i did read up on using chrome, but saw that wqs still in the beta phase,so was going to hold off... for now. Boat does most ofwhat I need for now.

i update with the nightly buildsnow, looking for new things towork with. this has been more fun than i thought itmwould be.
 
I too have to recommend Chrome Beta, and I am a FireFox fan for the PC. You are correct when you say the Android lacks a perfect browser experience, but Chrome does get it pretty close. It still needs work, for example, why can you not set a home page? But I do like the fact I can install chrome on my PC, book mark all the things I want, them Chrome on my tablet syncs them.
 
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