Buying a new device? Buy from the owner of a store.

If you are going to buy a new Windows 8 machine get it from Microsoft. If you’re getting an Android tablet get it from Google. Of course you can only get iOS and OSX from an Apple product. Kindle and Nooks also fall into the category of owners of the store. 

There are so many devices, with so many choices. So why am I advocating buying devices from the people who own the stores on their machines? You can get the Kindle store on just about anything, and you will be able to have Microsoft’s store on any Windows 8 machine. The answer is that the store is where the money is. But there is another reason that I will share with you in a moment.

Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Barns and Noble, and Google don’t have to make a cent off of their hardware. What this means is that other companies who are producing computers or tablets have to make all of their money from the slim profit margins that they get from selling their hardware. The aforementioned companies don’t have to make any money at all from selling their products. It’s similar to Microsoft making their money off of games and services for the Xbox or Nintendo making their money from selling copies of Mario Cart. Bottom line you are going to get more hardware for your buck if you buy from the store owners.

The other reason for buying from the maker of the store is that they are also the makers of their Operating System. If you make the OS and the hardware it runs on then it’s most likely going to run better. Yes the Kindle and the Nook are based on Android but they have highly customized it to run on their devices. It’s the same as Mac OSX being based on Free BSD then massively customized to work only on Apple hardware.

All that being said it may explain why most Android phones seem clumsy compared to an iPhone. Yes Samsung has done a good job with Android but most really haven’t. I would have no qualms at all about getting a Google phone with Android installed; I would bet it would run great.

Touch Pad Madness

With the announcement today that Lenovo is going to be selling a $199 7 inch touchpad called the IdeaPad A1, the $279 Galaxy Pad, and the soon to be released under $300 Amazon Android based touchpad, I think we will soon start to see all of this touchpad madness start to settle down.

I was a bit annoyed at HP for it's $99 fire sale after only trying a month, and then proclaiming it's getting out of the Laptop business. I have a room full of HP products, and sort of feel they pulled the rug out from under me; not to mention that they didn't create Vista or Win 7 drivers for my very dependable LaserJet 1000. But I think the fire sale was a helpful event that helped many of the touchpad manufacturers see the real sweet spot for selling their products.

I'm still happy with my fourth generation iPod Touch, and don't intend on getting another touch device anytime soon, but I think after the dust settles I might have to think about a larger screen. I think the non-cell connected touchscreens are really what people want especially with cell phone companies dialing back on their unlimited internet use contracts. With so much WiFi available everywhere, most of us are happy with that sort of connectivity.