It’s Valentine’s Day, and what better way to make a sickeningly showy display of love for your partner than to buy them a tablet? Okay, a trip to Venice would be nice. But this is Padvance, not Holidayvance.

Seriously, though – buy your sweetheart a tablet. It’s one of the few gifts that’s virtually guaranteed to be well received regardless of sex, age or interests.

You want a better reason than that to buy a tablet for your loved one? Here, have five.

Because they heart games

Everyone knows that tablets – particularly the iPad – are the hot platform for games right now.

Not necessarily for hard-core gamers, admittedly. But for everyone else – which is the vast majority of people – it’s all about those intuitive, cheap, and bite-size morsels of gaming goodness that tablets excel at.

The best thing about tablet gaming is that it’s such a fast-moving and reactive field. Developers will continuously update their games with new content and new themes.

One of the main trends in recent years is the seasonal update. Around Valentine’s Day, all the major mobile developers roll out loved-up themes for their games with new skins and new gameplay elements.

Check out Pixel People, Where’s My Valentine?, and Clay Jam for starters.

Tablets come in cool colours

We’re not going to be drawn into notions of which colours suit which genders, but it’s an inescapable fact that certain people like a little eye candy to go with their quad-core processors and high definition displays.

In fact, Samsung has just released a red Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 with Valentine’s Day firmly in mind. Okay, so it’s only available in South Korea right now, and the promotional images are more than a little cheesy.

But can you honestly tell us that your other half wouldn’t find this cool? What’s that? They want an iPad? Oh. Well, you’re stuck with black or white then.

It’ll free up the TV

Anyone who chooses to observe the special day of love/cynical marketing scam that is Valentine’s Day will know that there’s a certain expectation on you to create an affectionate atmosphere.

Nowhere is this concept more stretched than in the living room. Being forced to watch what the other person wants – whether that’s The Five Year Engagement, four consecutive episodes of House of Cards, or ten minutes of When Caravans Implode 3 (note: one of these is made up) – can spoil the romantic mood somewhat.

A tablet frees you from this burden. It offers you a second screen without demanding that you sit in another room like a sulky teenager. Just boot up the Hulu (in the US), LoveFilm (in the UK), or Netflix (both) apps on your tablet, plug in a set of discreet earbuds, and you’re away.

It doesn’t have to break the bank

So you want to make the grand gesture of buying a swanky tablet for your other half, but you’re still feeling the burn from the end of year festivities/tax bill? We feel your pain.

Don’t think that the iPad is your only route, though. If you want a full-powered tablet with all the mod cons at less than half the price, may we steer you in the direction of the Google Nexus 7?

For just £159 / $199 you can have a quad-core tablet with a 7-inch HD display and the beautiful Android Jelly Bean OS. The Google Play Store has made huge strides in recent years to the point where there’s plenty of app choice.

It’s the best value tablet out there by some margin, and Google even has a few of the entry-level models in stock for once. At least, they did at the time of writing.

Chance to make an impression

Flowers, booze, nice meal. Maybe some chocolates. You all know the score, and so does your partner. Adding the right tablet to the mix could make your Valentine’s Day fizz like an Alka Seltzer popped into a glass of champagne.

Here’s an idea – rather than give your loved one a soppy card, simply buy a slightly bigger-than-average greetings card, discard the actual card bit, and slide an iPad mini into the envelope instead.

Of course, you’ll have to make sure your partner doesn’t lob it on the floor or rest their drink on it, but what an opportunity to use the latest iDevice’s slender frame for the mother of all Valentine’s Day surprises!

Article source: http://www.padvance.com/5-reasons-to-buy-a-tablet-for-your-loved-one-this-valentines-day/

On Sunday, the wheel of the Chinese Zodiac will turn from Year of the Dragon to the Year of the Snake. Whether you plan to celebrate the lunar new year this weekend or not, we’ve decided to get you an early present: a list of the best snake and snake-themed games on the App Store!

Graceful, cunning, calm, and composed, those born under the sign of the snake are individuals of keen intellect who aren’t prone to emotional outbursts. While a Rooster or a Tiger might enjoy playing Temple Run till their thumbs are sore, a snake demands a little more from their games.

Beat Sneak Bandit

This game didn’t wind up on our list by accident (we swear, we didn’t think it was Beat Snake Bandit!), it absolutely belongs with its serpentine brethren. Mixing classic puzzling with rhythm-game style beatmatching, Beat Sneak Bandit reminds us all that Snakes are as graceful as they are wise.
App Store: Beat Sneak Bandit ($2.99 / £1.99)

Snake ’97

It’d be impossible to create this list without paying homage to one of the first mobile games ever released: the 1997 edition of Nokia’s famous Snake. Full of retro, monotone sounds and a dot-matrix pixel display, Snake ’97 will remind you of an earlier age of gaming on the go when your graphing calculator was more powerful than your phone.
App Store: Snake ‘97 (99c / 69p)

Call of Snakes

Combining the classic arcade gameplay of Snake with standard shooter physics, Call of Snakes is a pixelated powerhouse of a game. While it’s not much deeper in terms of Snake in terms of gameplay, the ability to combine your troops to form a snake-line squadron makes it a ton of fun for those who like to run and gun.
App Store: Call of Snakes (99c / 69p)

The Room

A test for the wisest of Snakes, this award-winning puzzler (and Apple’s pick for iPad Game of the Year) will put the keenest of intellects to the test. In The Room, you must examine, manipulate, and ultimately solve a series of beautifully-rendered puzzle boxes in your quest to unravel the mysterious events of the plot. As an added bonus, this incredible iPad-only game is on sale for a limited time!

App Store: The Roomi (99c / 69p)

Article source: http://www.padvance.com/ring-in-the-year-of-the-snake-with-these-ipad-games/

There’s long been discussion about whether games are art. I’m not going to get into that discussion here, because it’s essentially a circular argument that, with the right participants, can go on forever. However, an artist in China has now raised a new question – are iPads art?

The artist in question goes by the name of Li Liao, and, as The New Yorker reports, his latest exhibition, which is part of a larger show called ON/OFF, features among other things, an iPad sat on a white plinth.

Li got a job at the infamous Foxconn plant, which makes iPads for Apple, and worked there for 45 days, earning enough money in that time to buy himself an iPad. That tablet, along with other relics from his time at the plant, now sits on display at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing.

For Li, the work is about the disconnect between the people who make iPads, and the iPads themselves. “I don’t think this experience changed my perception of the products; it only made one thing clearer: many of the products in this world actually have nothing to do with the workers who made them. To most of the workers there, Apple was just a name, a logo.”

If you’ve got a spare few minutes, it’s well worth heading over to The New Yorker and giving the interview a read.

Article source: http://www.padvance.com/ipad-goes-on-display-in-a-chinese-art-gallery/

A lot of good things have been written about Google’s first officially branded 10inch Android tablet, the Nexus 10, but few of them were written about the device’s GPU. Well, it looks like the big G and Samsung might be ready to right that wrong with a new version of the tablet sporting a far meatier chipset.

The problem with the first generation Nexus 10 is that the GPU can’t quite keep up with the demands of the gorgeous 300ppi screen, leaving you with a high resolution tablet that can’t keep up with the content it wants to show you.

The solution? Whack a new chip in there. According to sources close to BrightSideofNews, Google and Samsung were showing off the new version of the tablet at CES 2013, albeit in the same chassis as the first generation model.

According to the site the new Nexus 10 will ship with shift from a dual-core to a multi-core design, with the T604 GPU core that’s in there now being replaced with an 8-core T628 GPU. That’s a lot more cores for your buck, but apparently there’ll be no other changes to the inner workings of the tablet.

There’s no confirmation from Google yet, but we’ll keep a close eye on MWC 2013 at the end of next month, and if a new Nexus 10 raises its head, we’ll make sure you’re the first to know.

Article source: http://www.padvance.com/rumour-google-set-to-unveil-second-generation-nexus-10-at-mwc/

If you’ve been dying to purchase a Surface tablet but found the RT to be too underpowered, you’re in luck: the Microsoft Surface Pro will debut in North America on February 9.

The release date, as revealed by Microsoft Surface general manager Panos Panay, comes a few weeks after the initially launch window of “late January” which was expected when pricing for the Surface Pro line of tablets was revealed.

Pro performance at a pro price

There’s no word yet on an international release, but CNET reports that the Surface Pro will go on sale at Microsoft Stores, Best Buy, Staples, and Microsoft’s website in the U.S. while it will be available at “a number of locations” in Canada.

The Microsoft Surface Pro starts at $899 for the 64GB model, while the 128GB model will be available for $999. Neither price includes the Touch or Type Cover keyboards which – while not mandatory – are extremely useful in navigating around your Surface tablet if you don’t plan on using your own keyboard and mouse.

A Touch Cover will cost you $120, while the more robust Type Cover runs $130. Thus, with the price of a cover added into the cost, the real starting price for a Surface Pro Tablet is closer to $1019.

Article source: http://www.padvance.com/microsoft-surface-pro-available-in-us-and-canada-on-february-9/

At a quick glance, one could look at the words “Kona, Roma, and Santos” and think they were looking at the names of three high-end coffee roasts, but to tablet aficionados they’re the codenames of the next generation of Samsung tablets.

On Tuesday, Sammobile.com cited its “Korean insider” who provided information about what the tablet community can expect from Samsung in the first half of 2013. The first of the three tablets to be referenced, codenamed KONA, is the 8” Galaxy Note tablet that we reported on yesterday.

Outside of confirming the specs that we already knew (namely its 1.6GHz quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM) we learned that KONA will limbo in at a weight of 330g with a thickness of 7.95mm.

Samsung’s got tablets on the brain if this rumour proves true.

SANTOS is the codename assigned to the new line of Galaxy Tab 3 slates, which will come in a 10.1″ model with the possibility of a 7″ variant looming as well. Outside of the name, size, and fact that they’ll come in 3G and Wi-Fi varieties, the only thing known about SANTOS slates is that Samsung will release them in white first on account of “some winter feelings”.

The final line of rumoured tablets, ROMA, is a high-end tablet that will come in 16GB and 32GB variants with a 5-megapixel camera. There’s no word on the other technical specs or OS expected with the ROMA (Samsung GT-P8200) but it should be out in the first half of 2013 as well.

Article source: http://www.padvance.com/rumour-samsung-planning-three-new-tablets-lines-for-first-half-of-2013/

One month ago today, many of us were buried under piles of discarded wrapping paper, new toys, and holiday cheer but now we stand with little except the frigid blasts of winter to keep us warm. Thankfully, this is a prefect time to turn to tablet gaming for warmth* and entertainment!

This week’s crop of top iPad games features a complete redesign of pinball as we know it, a twisty, turn-y tree adventure, a Match-3/RPG mash-up, and an atmospheric indie adventure/mystery title. Do any of these belong on your iPad? Read on and judge for yourself!

*Note: we here at Padvance do not advocate tablet gaming as a means of staying warm.

Momonga: Pinball Adventure

An adventure game on a pinball table, or – more accurately – an adventure game with pinball elements, Momonga mixes an overarching plot with boss fights, exploration, and plenty of pinball challenges as you lead the flying squirrel Momonga on a quest to rescue his friends and family from the talons of the evil owls.

Price: Free – $1.99 / £1.49
App Store: Momonga Pinball Adventure

Zen Training

Not particularly Zen in the least, this simple puzzle game has you rotate a ring of stones around a tree to catch falling stones of the same corresponding colour. Like a game of Simon set in your back garden, Zen Training relies on pattern recognition and quick reflexes to keep up with its gameplay.

Price: 99c/69p
App Store: Zen Training

Might Magic Clash of Heroes

Equal parts RPG and match-3 puzzler, Clash of Heroes will test your reflexes to as you try to line up falling friends into fearsome phalanxes. Similar in gameplay to Bejeweled, this excellent puzzle game features a surprisingly deep battle system that makes Tetris Attack look like mere child’s play. With a 20-hour campaign and asynchronous multiplayer modes as well, there’s a lot in this game to keep you busy!

Price: $4.99 / £2.99
App Store: Might Magic Clash of Heroes

Kairo

Those who loved the classic and moody exploration adventure Myst would do well to set foot in the brooding and atmospheric world of Kairo. With plenty of puzzles to solve and lore to uncover, Kairo can easily suck you into its minimalist world for hours at a clip.

Price: $4.99 / £2.99
App Store: Kairo

Article source: http://www.padvance.com/headline-best-new-games-for-your-ipad-this-week-january-25th/

It’s that time of year when the rumour mill likes to go into overdrive, spinning out concepts, sources, and suggestions faster than you can hope to read them. Fear not though, because Padvance is here to make sure you’ve got your finger somewhere close to the pulse of the comings and goings in tablet town

Apple

It seems a week doesn’t go by without a new Apple rumour springing up. Right now, the cash on the table is pointing to an iPad refresh in the first half of the year, with an overhaul of the larger device bringing it more in line with the iPad mini. If those rumours, courtesy of TabTimes, are true, then expect thinner bezels and a chamfered edge for the iPad 5.

Imagine this, only bigger.

Meanwhile the romanticists over at KitGuru think that the next iPad will be released to coincide with the cinematic release of the Ashton Kutcher-starring Steve Jobs biopic, Jobs. Sort of like the most expensive bit of movie merchandising ever. They also reckon iOS 7 will launch at the same time on 4G iPads.

There are also whispering about a cheaper entry level iPad that will try and steal back some of the thunder from the cheap and cheerful Android tablets we saw last year. We’d suggest taking that one with a massive pinch of sea salt.

Android

The big news comes from UK paper The Daily Mail, which is suggesting that Google are using Motorola to build a new generation of tablets under the mysterious moniker Project X. Apparently the tablet will be unbreakable, bendable, and made of ceramics. Some of that certainly sounds plausible, some of it sounds like gibbering madness. We’ll let you choose which bits are which for yourself.

Windows

In Windows world, PocketLint reckons that the next Xbox will be fully compatible with the oft rumoured 7 inch Xbox tablet, coupling up with it in the same way the WiiU couples up with its gamepad. Perhaps most interestingly though, a source close to the project has said that the Xbox Tablet won’t be powered by either Windows RT or Windows 8. Er… [Update - this story is baloney, as we expected]

And that’s you caught up with all the information you need. Join us next week for another dig around in the rumour basket.

Article source: http://www.padvance.com/new-tablet-rumour-round-up/

Chances are good that if you’re reading this site, you’re probably well aware of how convenient and powerful tablet computing is. Now it seems like more people are coming to this realization, as a recent survey revealed that iPad owners prefer to email from their tablets than their computers.

The survey was conducted by IncrediMail developer Perion on 4,400 iPad owners in the United States, 90 per cent of whom said that using email on their iPad was either “very important” or “extremely important” to them. 31 per cent of the total respondents, meanwhile, said that they send and read all of their emails from their iPad.

A further 55 per cent of iPad owners in the survey responded that they prefer to read emails on their tablets while 32 per cent responded that they preferred to read emails on their computers. A humble 10 per cent named their smartphones as their preferred device for email reading.

 They have email on computers now?

The implications of the survey are rather profound.  The iPad has been on the market for less than three years, and in that time it’s managed to change the way that individuals communicate and do business: 38 per cent of those who responded to Perion’s survey responded that they used their iPads for both personal and professional emailing.

Perhaps most telling, however, is the fact that only 41 per cent of respondents claimed that they were “extremely satisfied” with the email apps that they are currently using.

Perion noted that this was “uncharacteristically low for iPad users who are usually passionate about their devices”, and it could imply that more users will abandon their PCs for tablets once more robust, and tablet-friendly, email clients come about.

Article source: http://www.padvance.com/the-ipad-is-changing-the-way-that-we-email/

Although orangutans are our most distant great ape relation, we still have a great deal in common with our larger, hairy, orange kin. Nowhere is this more evident than in an orangutan’s rudimentary tool usage or in their love of tablets. Yes, you read that correctly: orangutans enjoy iPads.

This discovery came about when great ape keepers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington D.C. were searching for a way to provide variety and enrichment to the daily lives of their six orangutan charges. After turning to Orangutan Outreach and the aptly named Apps for Apes program, they decided to give iPads a go.

The reaction of the six orangutans was immensely positive. A blog post on the National Zoo’s website noted that Bonnie (a 36-year-old orangutan) liked playing on a virtual drumpad while Kyle (16-years-old) preferred a piano App. The pensive Iris (25-years old), by contrast, enjoyed watching animated fish splash about in a koi pond.

  Koko’s Kitten isn’t so impressive now, is she?

They’re still a long way from three-starring levels on Angry Birds, but the zoo’s orangutans are old hands at touchscreen interfacing. Since 1994, the National Zoo has used touchscreen monitors as part of a cognitive study that tests their memory, tool usage, and social learning.

If you have an old iPad lying around and fancy donating it to science, the orangutans (and their keepers) at the National Zoo will gladly put your slate to a happy, hairy, new home.

Article source: http://www.padvance.com/help-orangutans-ace-angry-birds-by-donating-your-old-ipad/