Verizon's Ellipsis 7 is a good deal in the small tablet arena

When the Ellipsis 7 tablet from Verizon Wireless arrived in my hands, I had a feeling that it could be a keeper. This is Verizon’s home-bred, in-house, call-it-their-own device and I could hardly wait to take it for a spin.

The first thing I did was to see if it would fit the inside pocket of my business jacket. Bingo, it did. So finally I had found a tablet that I could carry around without having to hold it my hands or place in a brief case. Just tuck it in my inside coat pocket and go.

The Ellipsis 7 is a 4G Android device running the 4.2.2 operating system, also known as Jelly Bean. It has a seven-inch display and front-facing speakers along the bottom that sound really good. Along the top of the device you'll find the headset port, which is where I think all headset ports should be located – hint, hint to the iPhone 5 designers.

Along the bottom is the USB mini port for charging, while the right side holds a MicroSD card slot, microphone, power and volume keys, along with the SIM card slot.

On the back is a 3.2 megapixel camera, which is probably the weakest link of the Ellipsis 7 features. But who takes serious photos with a tablet, so I didn't mind having a lesser-quality camera than some of the competing tablets. Having only 8 megabytes of memory could be also be looked at as a weak link, compared with other tablets in this category that are sporting an average of 16MB and tops out at 128MB for some tablets, such as the iPad Mini.

Setting up most email accounts only required a username and password, with the tablet doing most the behind-the-scenes setup. My Google and Hotmail email accounts were up and running in a matter of minutes. Setting up a corporate Exchange account was equally as easy, you’ll just need to pay close attention to your Domain and Server settings. I had Exchange mail arriving in under five minutes.

Although I have access to a Mac desktop, laptop, iPad and iPhone, I found myself using the Ellipsis 7 often to check multiple email accounts, conduct google searches and monitor my social media accounts. The speed of Verizon’s 4G network and the 7-inch size made this tablet quite handy. I especially like the front-facing speakers and the quality of the sound, which was great for YouTube videos.

During my time with the Ellipsis 7, I download several apps from the Google Play store without a hitch. Again, the fast network was the key for a smooth download process. This device also comes with several desirable apps installed, such as iHeartRadio, Flipboard, Amazon Kindle reader, and Redbox Instant for movies. The included Navigation app is also pretty handy.

The other tablets in the 7-inch display category have similar or better features, such as the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX, Google Nexus 7 and the Samsung Galaxy 3. Although they also might have more memory options or a faster processor, the Ellipsis has them all beat on price. At the current time the Ellipsis 7 can be a great holiday gift until Dec. 31 for $49 with a two-year contract, or for $249 if you don’t want to sign a contract.

When you think about a starting price of $329 for the iPad Mini with Retina display that can quickly rocket to over $800 loaded, or around $400 for a fully loaded Kindle Fire HDX, the Ellipsis 7 looks good for the budget and will satisfy most digital needs.

If you need more display area, the iPad Mini’s 7.9-inch display is very generous for a small tablet, but you’ll need to open your wallet a little wider. Or you can move up the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX for a few more bucks.

But if the budget is tight, the Ellipsis 7 will take you anywhere you want to be in the digital world and perform like a champ for less cost. I’m call it a good deal.

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iPad Mini arrives to battle other 7-inch tablets for dominance

Now that the iPad Mini has finally been unveiled, the real question is how it will fare among all the other small tablets on the market.

Apple has given us a mini version of previous iPads, with an A5 dual-core chip, a 7.9-inch display, and a starting price of $329 for the 16 GB version. For the 32 GB and 64 GB models, you’ll need $429 and $529 for the latter.

It also has a 10-hour battery life, LTE network capability, updated Wi-Fi performance, and as expected, the new Lightning connector that made a debut on the iPhone 5 and the new iPods announced on Sept. 12. It’s also around 24 percent less in depth than the most recent iPad.

All of these features will certainly attract some attention, especially Apple fans, but the mini Apple wonder does have a few shortcomings. The resolution, which is 1024 x 768, doesn’t stack up with competing tablets and the A5 dual-core processor is from older hardware, being last used in the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S

Another area of concern is as the holiday shopping season draws near, the price of tablets might be a factor and the iPad Mini might have to struggle to gain buyers with its $329 starting price.

The iPad Mini will certainly have plenty of competition on the shelves among the seven to eight-inch devices. It requires little time and thought for the Kindle family of e-readers to pop in your head, for all the good reasons. They are considered cheap at a starting price of $179 for the Kindle Paperwhite, or even cheaper if you look at one of the entry-level Kindles for only $69 or one of the other older models still being sold.

For more bells and whistles in the Kindle family, there is the Kindle Fire at $159 and the Kindle Fire HD for $199. But when has been called “one of the best values in the e-reader market” belongs to the $179 Kindle Paperwhite WiFi + 3G, which has free 3G wireless for downloading books anytime and anywhere.

Then the Android family of devices are next with the Google Nexus 7 leading the pack starting at $199, rumors of getting even cheaper soon. The other choice is the Barnes & Noble Nook HD for $199 and some change.

Another new entry in the tablet market is the Insignia Flex that can be found in Best Buy stores around Nov. 1 with a starting price of $239.

I think we can see a trend that tablet prices should not be too far north of $200 to stay competitive and entice consumer to reach for some cash in retail stores or punch the checkout button online. The iPad Mini is way north of that price.

But we’re talking Apple here, with a sense of upscale and quality among all the iDevices. Just maybe the iPad Mini can continue this mystique and bring cause for us to shell out a few more bucks for the latest creation from folks in Cupertino, Calif.

During the special event where the iPad Mini was announced, the education and business markets were highly pitched, so maybe a part of Apple’s strategy for this new device is for schools and enterprise users.

I’m going to put on my consumer hat and say I’ll consider the new iPad Mini. My current iPad now has a Bluetooth keyboard case, which turns it into an almost-a-laptop for tweeting, updating social networks and even creating an article for this blog while on the go. But it’s kind of clunky to hold and awkward to just read articles.

So I need a smaller e-reader for books, newspapers and magazines, along with my favorite apps for consuming content. This task is now handled by my Nook Color, which does a good job as a content reader. But it’s kind of a standalone device, since I don’t have an Android smartphone to have a synced-up relationship with the Android family of devices and their cloud applications.

With the iPad Mini, I could tap into iCloud and have all iDevices in sync with each other. These would include an iMac, MacBook, iPhones, iPod Touch and of course, the new iPad Mini.

My other requirement is that it’ll slip into the inside pocket of my jacket, which the Nook Color, with its 5-inch width, does just that. But the iPad Mini’s 5.3-inch width might be a tight fit or no fit at all. I’ll see about that.

So I could see an iPad Mini in my future as an e-reader, but the price is going to require me sleeping on the idea more than once.

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Google Nexus 7 bringing NFC features to tablet arena

The Google tablet is no longer a rumor. Now we'll have the Google Nexus 7 by mid-July, or you can pre-order right now on Google's website for $199.

According to Google, pre-ordered tablets will ship in two-three weeks and for a limited time, you'll get $25 to spend in Google's Play store on apps, games, books and movies. Google is also throwing in a free copy of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

The Nexus 7 will have a 7-inch display and weigh about 0.75 pounds, which is right in line with other tablets of this size. It'll use Android's latest operating system, which is Jelly Bean, or Android 4.1, if you keep track of the version numbers.

Google on their website has the battery rated for 10 hours of web browsing or 10 hours of e-reading, as well as over 8 hours of HD video playback.

The Nexus 7 was built to work with Google Play, or Google's app store, where they're pitching over 600,000 apps and games and over four million books. Online storage also is available at Google Play for 20,000 songs.

The big challenge for the Nexus 7 later this year will be if it can compete in the marketplace against all the other 7-inch tablets already on the shelves. It's a late arrival, while the Amazon Kindle Fire, the Nooks from Barnes & Noble, the Samsung Galaxy Tabs and the BlackBerry Playbook have a big head start.

The Kindles arrived in 2007, followed by the Nook in 2009 and the first iPad was announced in January of 2010. All the others quickly followed the iPad and have been trying to compete in a challenging tablet arena over the past couple if years.

The Nexus 7 just might have an advantage over the competitors with its Near Field Communication feature, or NFC. It'll have the "Android Beam" feature, which will allow the tablet to share information with other NFC enabled devices with just a tap. I imagine, the NFC capability will also allow the Nexus 7 to carry out mobile payments, purchase tickets and other wireless transactions.

Google announced at the Google I/O conference this week in San Francisco that more than one million Android NFC devices are shipping each week. So the Nexus 7 is on the cutting edge of this technology and that might the advantage that paints a bright future for Google's new tablet.

If you're itching for a Nexus 7, you can visit their website now. The 8 gigabyte model is $199 and the 16 GB model will cost $249. Both models have 1 GB of memory and are Wi-Fi only. You'll find a USB cable, wall charger and a quick-start guide in the box. A cover is available for around $20.

We should know around the holiday shopping season if the Nexus 7 is going to be a game-changer in the tablet arena.

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