Hey y’all,
I’m looking for a low-cost tablet for watching Tablo (legacy app) along with streaming services like Netflix, Prime, Hulu, etc., in addition to AA and Southwest movies and media while traveling and on flights.
Any suggestions or things to stay away from? This should be non-Apple devices.
I have a Lenovo tablet that won’t play sound with the Legacy app and won’t play video with the 4th gen app so I would stay away from that one!
You may not like Apple devices, but our 2-year-old 528GB iPad Pro has been pretty flawless for all media uses. We have our entire music and photos libraries on it. We also have multiple streaming apps on it, including Tablo. We have a $25 unlimited 5G cell data plan on it. Even LTE works for streaming most times if the tower is not too busy. The USB-C port supports an HDMI adapter that gives us direct TV connect in the RV, and avoids cell plan streaming restrictions (cell carriers generally don’t allow streaming to TVs via wifi casting). Both SW and United on-board apps work fine. Battery life is excellent.
We have a love-hate relationship with the Apple ecosystem, but this iPad has been our go-to “Swiss army knife” for all sorts of portable media applications. It just works, which is better than I can say for a lot of other tech gadgetry these days.
This sounds like it’d be great. We have the same relationship with Apple products, but we’re thinking about transitioning back after several years (last phone was the iPhone 6). We’re just not too excited about the cost.
I just checked replacing our iPad Pro 11” 512gb w/cell that we bought in 2022 for $1,199 + $299 for the Magic Keyboard would be nearly $2,000 today (latest equiv version). Wow. That’s higher-end laptop money.
I think their better iPhone models are $1,500+.
Ridiculous.
Apple doesn’t do “low-end”. I ordered the Galaxy Tab 11+. We’ll see how it goes.
Update: @classicrockguy it’s not that we don’t like Apple products - it’s that they’re so darn expensive and usually don’t play well outside their ecosystem.
We got the Galaxy Tab 11+ and it works just fine. No issues getting the Legacy app installed and I think my wife will enjoy using it remotely.
Thanks for the feedback and advice.
Glad te hear that worked out for you.
bought ipad for durability. guy at microbecenter told me ipad demos get beat up all day and still work, whereas they can’t keep android brands as demos for more than a few dàys.
YMMV, my gen 1 ipad pro will be 11years old next month, still basically works except some hiccups with google search. i think i’d have gone through two or more android tablets in 11 years.
also took advice to always use the TOTL Otterbox, never regretted it and saved me a couple times 
Thanks for your thoughts.
Even if you went through 4 or 5 Android tablets in 11 years, you’d still pay less than an a single iPad, plus you’d get the most updated tech with which to surf the web, stream, and using office apps. We’ve got no other uses for a tablet - especially one we can’t afford.
While the Amazon Fire 10 HD is a great tablet at a great price (currenthly <$80), know that the Tablo app will only play sound but will not show any video on the Fire 10 and some other Fire tablets. This problems has been ongoing for two years, and all Tablo support will provide is the same we are working on it canned response.
Trust me, there’s no way that expensive iPad works 11 years+. Not because of hw failure, but because Apple will deprecate it by not supporting it anymore. It’s their way. My guess is that I’m not alone in having multiple “fondle slabs” that would work if only Apple supported them.
Sure, you get the same sort of foolishness on the Android side, but since you paid less than half as much, maybe it’s less crazy (?).
Personally, I’d avoid tablets completely. If a business needs them, fine, but let the business deal with the cost of constant replacements on a (possibly) short lifecycle. Anymore, I think even business wise, the age of “the tablet” is dead though.
Try opening the new TabloView app on a Windows laptop and serving the link to it out to your Amazon Fire 10 HD tablet. See if that works. Klugy, but it might work.
Our only use-case is for airplane travel streaming, and maybe at the AirBnB.
Good to hear the Galaxy Tab worked out. For travel use like this, I have found the mid-range Samsung tablets a better balance than the cheapest options: at least 4 GB of RAM, a decent bright screen, and Widevine L1 support make a real difference for streaming apps, and USB-C charging keeps the kit simple on flights. The very cheap tablets I tried tended to stutter on live TV apps and run out of storage quickly once a few streaming apps were installed, so checking app compatibility and storage before buying is worth the extra step.
“Trust me, there’s no way that expensive iPad works 11 years+. Not because of hw failure, but because Apple will deprecate it by not supporting it anymore”.
While Apple support is ended iPads will continue to work till the battery needs replacement.
I recently gave away an iPad 3 whose Apple support was long gone that continued to do what I bought it to do and the new owner tells me it is still doing what he needs.
That’s good, I don’t like companies that “advertise green-ness” and create massive aluminum landfills (talking about you Apple).
Like many you miss the point… by not having to buy an iPad 4,5,6,7,8,9,10, and 11 in 14.6 years I saved a lot of money and there is a lot less aluminum in the landfill than all the plastic and electronics from all the tablets from all the anonymous Chinese tablet manufacturers that DIED during all those years I had ONE iPad.
Apple products like Toyotas cost too much and are worth every cent.
I got your point, just that there are ton of apps that simply will not run (by design). Bricked by Apple and/or app manufacturers not supporting that which Apple says they should not support.
And to sharpen the point I said "I recently gave away an iPad 3 whose Apple support was long gone that continued to do what I bought it to do".