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A friend of mine is looking for a reliable tablet that covers the basics and is
cheaper than the ipad. I am also curious of anyone's expereince successfully intergrating one of the newer models into a the chain of a nice headphone rig. So far he is looking at this one because of the alluring price:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834322001
Depending on how OC he is, Samsung and Apple (you can probably get used or NOS iPad1 or iPad2 for a lot less now, the only problem is %$^*%^&$*$#^! iTunes not having drag and drop) have the best solution for a desktop music system : they have docks where you can hook up the proper adapter to send out USB audio (USB OTG or Camera Connection Kit-USB), although others may have this as well by now. I was looking into getting a Samsung (or Asus Android) last year once USB audio is confirmed working, plus some of them have the dock port on the wide side so my music player will be more like a desktop computer interface (album art on one side, track list on the other half), plus the obvious - a microSD slot.
That was the plan until my family gave me an iPad2 because I was the only one who didn't have one. Aside from not wanting to disappoint well-meaning people for their choice, given my brother thought far enough ahead to include the dock and CCK knowing what I'm likely to do with it, one reason why I didn't sell it is because it looked neat on the stand, save for 1) them giving me the black tablet knowing I like black, but 2) Apple's docks only come in white. Anyways when my car comes in for a paint job I'm leaving a spare dock with the body shop so they can hit it with spare PPG Nero and polish it as well.
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It doesn't appear to have a dedicated USB slot which might nix it as a good transport. Any other options anyone can recommend?
Actually, you're better off with some tablets without a dedicated USB slot, save maybe for the ones that run on Windows 8 (I think). The older Androids that have separate integrated dock ports plus auxilliary USB and power ports, like an Acer 7" I got to try, had older Android versions that don't run with the conventional USB host mode. That is, it doesn't 'control' the device, but gets controlled by it, essentially running like the Android device is just a storage medium as opposed to a real music stream via USB (just like how Android-compatible car audio systems work). A similar implementation was done by NuForce, in that the iDo isn't compatible with music formats not recognized by iTunes, as it essentially takes over all audio processing with the iPad basically just a storage and interface device. The only exception I can think of is the Archos 5, and maybe the Windows tablets.
On the other hand, you have tablets (or phones) with only an integrated dock/USB port and, as mentioned above, will stream USB audio if used with the appropriate adapter. It's the CCK for the dock-era iPads, but there are some compatibility issues I think with the Lightning models; but there's a lot of good news about more convenient USB OTG cables for Android so you won't have to deal with teh more cumbersome miniUSB OTG to female USB-A adapter (I think the Samsungs have a 30pin dock plug on the dock stand and then have a miniUSB on the rear of the dock).
BTW whatever tablet you plan on using as a music server find reviews on how its battery fares for that purpose, since it can determine how many years you can use it as such given a tablet with a weak battery usually can't charge and send USB audio simultaneously due to integrated dock ports; the iPad has the HRT iStreamer though which sends up some current from the power supply. My iPad2 can go three weeks without charging, with about 1hr+ of listening and some eMagazine download/reading in between. Some iOS5.x.xx update screwed it up though, draining the battery too fast whenever the WiFi is running, but the latest iOS6 update fixed it.
Also look at the links below.
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As hard as it is to believe, I don't think there's any tablet with a dedicated optical nor coaxial SPDIF connection yet...
In that case an USB/HDMI to SPDIF converter would have to be used to a DAC with SPDIF input....
Archos 5 (also has USB audio host mode with some DACs),
Cowon D3 (OK so it's more the size of an iPod Touch, but close enough)
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Here's another option for a home system though - the
Minix Neo, a mini Android PC (ie, MacMini size). I think it can be set-up as a media player and an Android phone/tablet with the accompanying remote app, but of course you'd still need a conventional monitor for setting this up and for troubleshooting. It can use an external HDD so you can basically go nuts with how much music you don't have to swap microSDHCs for. So basically he can spend around $120 on this, integrate it into his home network to access his media NAS (or get a separate external HDD for it about $100), and then get a tablet if he actually needs a tablet for other uses and then set up the remote app. Otherwise an Android smartphone will do (if he doesn't have one, personally that might be something to upgrade to rather than getting a tablet, depending on his needs).
