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Question

Seeking recommendation on basic simple tablet options

Sep 6, 2012 3:14PM PDT

I'm relying on the expertise of more experienced tablet users to help me make a decision for my non-profit employer. We are seeking to go "greener" in our many meetings of a 50-member board of trustees. Many of the trustees are older and not necessarily tech-savvy, but many are also younger and ready to embrace the change. Instead of having stacks of papers (thousands of pages per meeting) that are cumbersome and end up getting shredded the day after the meeting, we are considering the options for transitioning to an electronic device where all the relevant documents for a particular meeting can be loaded onto the device for easy access. There doesn't need to be a ton of memory or many, if any, apps. Don't even need all the bells and whistles of a camera, etc. Having WiFi is an option, but may not always work because the location of the meetings generally do not have reliable WiFi connection. We are also developing a trustee-only website, where the documents could be posted for viewing prior to the meeting. Does anyone have a recommendation for an inexpensive, simple, easy-to-use, device that might work for such a purpose? Appreciate any suggestions or advice. Thank you.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
My first thought? Kindle's
Sep 7, 2012 2:07AM PDT

There are a variety of them and most can handle PDF so that makes for an easy standard and the black/white units are better in my opinion since they run for weeks on a charge and would not be as big a problem when we talk about folks walking off with them.

That is, any android tablet would be something folk would want to keep since they could install games and more. The Kindle black and white units would not be such a target.

Bob

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Kindle
Sep 7, 2012 6:10AM PDT

Hi R. Proffitt - thank you for the input. For sure the B&W version would work fine, since documents invovled are primarily text. Not so worried about people walking off with them, as the users are mostly multi-millionaires, and they would be provided with these tablets as a tool for use in their board duties. My concern with Kindle is that I've heard docs (including pdfs) can indeed be loaded on but they have to be uploaded and go through Amazon/Kindle to do so. Since we are dealing with confidential and sensitive materials, not sure the board members would be open to that option.

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Sorry but you can always side load them.
Sep 7, 2012 6:21AM PDT