I have and iPhone and and iPad. I am considering getting tethering for the iPhone, which would allow me to cancel the 3G plan I have for the iPad. I was thinking that if I have tethering maybe I could purchase an android device to use for accessing KGS. I obviously don't want a phone because I don't want another data plan. I just want something I can purchase as a wifi device and tether to the phone.

What would you all recommend? Since I already have the iPad I was thinking a seven inch form factor might be nice.

Terri

Woah, you have an iPhone and an iPad already, yet you want to buy more expensive luxury electronics? My recommendation would be to save your money for when you really need it.

Of course, I am a first class scrooge, so whether you listen to me or not is completely up to you

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My name is Gijs, from Utrecht, NL.

When in doubt, play the most aggressive move

I would get the asus eee transfomer but it's 10" form factor.

There are some 7" form factor Android 3.0 tablets, but I haven't seen one that really interested me yet.

Thanks Oren. I will take a look at it.

Terri

KGS games are more fun on an Ipad than a MAC or PC. While an android tablet would afford the luxury of a native app, KGS plays as a near native app on an Ipad using remote desktop software. I have tried several remote desktop client/servers and my favorite is Splashtop for 1.99. So given you already own an IPAD, 1.99 might be enticing. There are some technical hurdles (upload/download bandwidth, port forwarding, routers), but none that are menacing. Also, I prefer adding a stylus, rather than aiming fat fingers.

I have used remote desktop software on the iPad to play go on KGS. I have Logmein Ignition. It's okay to play go with remote desktop software, but it isn't ideal. It doesn't feel like using an iPad. It feels like accessing a desktop in a less than ideal manner. So I guess we'll have to disagree about the desirability of this method. Plus I don't feel like having to leave my desktop on all the time, and it is not easy navigating a 24 inch screen with an iPad.

Terri

I have the eee transformer. It is the cheapest "good" pad that I could find ($400). It is 10", so it isn't the size you want, but I've been very happy with it.

At this time the android client is still missing a lot of features that the main client has. I'm working on improving the pad UI to make better use of the bigger size, once that is done I will go back to adding more features to catch it up to the main client. Some features will probably never be on phones, only pads, because it is just too hard to fit them onto a 4" screen.

wms,

I am glad you weighed in on this. Since I am considering a tablet exclusively to run KGS I want to be sure the tablet I get is one that runs it well. It is nice to know that you plan to differentiate the pad client from the phone client. It would be a shame for all of that space to go to waste.

I will go look up the eee transformer. I am not 100% against the 10 inch tablet.

Terri

I use The Acer Iconia A500 and is very good for KGS

7" seems kind of small to me, but I guess some people can even play on a phone. Playing on Tygem on my iPad, I find that the absolute smallest limit for touching the screen and not making too many misclicks (I do have fat fingers though). I think that if you were to go for a 7" screen, I'd look for one that can work with a stylus.

Interestingly, one Android manufacturer that was all gung-ho for a 7" tablet recently changed their mind and said they'd go for 10" instead. I don't think the 7" form factor is a good compromise. 10" - iPad size - isn't that big or that heavy, and you really don't gain much with the smaller size. (Though for just reading books, it could be practical, like the small Kindle.)

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

I think you are right about playing on the 7 inch screen.

When and if I get the android tablet I will probably go with the 10 inch screen.

That purchase is likely to be delayed because today I brought home a new 27 inch iMac. I haven't opened the box yet because I have to migrate data and I am nervous. It is my first Mac to Mac migration.

Terri

Easy-peasy. I got a new 27" a week ago. If you have any problems, e-mail me or DM me on Twitter...

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

iMac seems to be properly migrated from Time Machine backup. Thanks for your help via email.

Terri

Great, enjoy!

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

Could you expand on this please?

My general usage of KGS is as follows:

* Use auto-match to find and play a rated game.
* Attend (as a student, not a teacher) private / group classes.
* View archived lectures in KGS+.

Will I be missing any of these with the Android app?

Voice is not in Android. I use a codec that isn't available on Android phones, and older phones are too slow to decode it. So if your private/group classes include live audo, it won't work, and the archived lectures won't either.

Probably the right thing to do is switch to a standard VoIP solution for the whole server; SIP would be the right thing to use today, but back when I did the live audio there wasn't any off the shelf option that worked for me. So eventually phones will support it, but I still haven't settled on how I will do that.

Other than the live audio, all the things you do will work fine on Android devices.

You may try to look at AlwaysOnPc app if you want to play on KGS on iPad. It is NOT like LogMeIn or TeamViewer because it is not linking to your desktop. Try it for free, on their website there is all info needed - easy to find. It is not the best solution, but it is at least 10 times cheaper than any tablet with Android.

Those performance problems are a bit surprising to me. Is JSpeex that slow compared to the normal speex, or are are the mobile processors that bad? I remember using teamspeak which uses the normal speex on quite old computers without too much CPU load.

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Sanity is for the weak.

It's not that speex is bad, it's that pre-2.3 Android would use an interpreter to run your program. Plus some of them had slowish (600MHz) CPUs. So a slow CPU + interpereted java = too slow to do real time decoding of an audio stream.

I could use a native Speex implementation but that has its own issues with compatibility if or when people use something other than an ARM. Another option would be to use a Java-based speex implementation, but only use it when I could see that the phone was powerful enough to keep up. But that of course needs a lot of testing to determine, and if I'm going to switch out speex with my custom encapsulation for something more standard, then maybe it would be best to just go straight to that and not mess around with fitting speex in. I'm not sure yet.

Can these tablets (like the eee transformer) handle Guo Juan's audio go lessons, do you know?

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].