LENOVO TAB 3 710F ESSENTIAL (7" Tablet): PRODUCT REVIEW

I don't normally do product reviews. You see, I'm not the typical American consumer. I live quite simply. I wring the life out of everything that I buy and only replace when I can't repair. On top of that, I'm quite the dinosaur when it comes to electronics. That's not to say that I'm not adept. I'd call myself a moderately proficient user. Before I retired, I was the in-house IT first call at my agency. When a co-worker had a problem with their desktop, they called me in and I was the one who decided if more professional (and costly) assistance was required. 80% of the time, I could find the problem and get things up and running again. And I could do more than turn it off and turn it on again.

But I don't own a smart phone. Being connected everywhere, all of the time, is not my idea of a peaceful retirement. I'm not a gamer...not even the simple Facebook stuff. And I don't stream videos from my tablet except for the occasional bits and pieces that come up on news and sports sites. When I want to watch a movie or binge Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, I hook my laptop up to my TV.

I do make significant use of my tablet, though. In the morning with my coffee, I check my email, cruise Flipboard, and scroll through the headlines on Yahoo Sports! I respond to any comments on my Facebook page or my blog. When I go to a doctor's office or the vet or accompany The Southern Woman That I Married shopping, I bring my tablet and read from my Kindle library. And, of course, I take pictures. Seldom selfies. I know what I look like. But it is nice to have a camera handy in the south of France.

Don't worry. I'm getting to it.

My trusty Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 died recently. Yes, I'm an Android guy. And I decided to remain an Android guy. My wife's iPad is nice enough but I just don't think that it's worth the money. She'd still be using her Nexus 7 if our niece hadn't gifted her the iPad. I don't find the iPad to be intuitive to operate and I do find it to be as buggy as any other operating system if it decides to be. So when my Samsung died, I went up on the tech sites that published reviews, cruised Youtube box openings, and read buyer reviews on Amazon and elsewhere.

The object of the exercise? A simple, cost-effective internet cruiser for the purposes outlined above.

The result of my research? The Lenovo Tab 3 710F Essential. About two months ago, it was available on Amazon (.fr) for 69,99 euros plus 12,50 for a good cover with magnetic closure.

What do you get for pennies compared to the big names in tablets? In my view, a surprisingly useful device. Internet browsing is quick and efficient. 1 GB RAM and the quad core processor seem to be quite enough. I've gathered all of my email accounts into the Gmail app and never miss a missive. Flipboard loads and flips properly as do the pages of my Kindle books. The reviews give the tablet's display resolution poor marks but I find graphics crisp and clean enough. Bluetooth streaming from TuneIn to my stereo works as it should. And whether or not the cleaning program that I use regularly is helpful, after two months of several hours of daily usage I can detect no slowing.

And don't forget, although Lenovo is owned by the Chinese, it is IBMs former personal computer manufacturer, it partners with NEC to provide personal computers for the Japanese market, and is the world's most prolific unit vendor of personal computers.

There are flaws. At 69,99 you would expect there to be. It's plastic. Well put together but plastic all the same. You really need a good case to protect your investment, minimal as it is. The volume and on/off bars are not particularly well placed but are not inaccessible. The camera isn't very good and won't save directly to a micro SD card should you choose to install one to save space on your 8 GB hard disk. I did. I solved the problem by deleting the camera app and downloading one that had the features that I wanted. I carry a camera most of the time anyway. But that's about it as far as flaws are concerned...for me, anyway. In my estimation, the Lenovo works as well as my Galaxy Tab 2 did when it was new and the Lenovo costs about one-third as much. What's not to like?

Recommended.

RESTAURANT TEN, UZES: RESTAURANT REVIEW

Ten sits just off the market square in Uzes, one of the prettiest villages in southern France. The newly renovated space is airy and comfortable with tables of sufficient size and sufficiently spaced to provide for a pleasant dining experience. Service was cheerful, fully bilingual, and attentive without being overbearing. The food presented well to both eye and tongue. And the rate of approximately 30 € per person for a party of five included starters, mains, a dessert or two, two bottles of local wine, and coffees at the finish. Reasonable if not cheap eats. So why am I hesitant to give an unqualified thumbs up? It took me a while to figure it out. Uzes is a quintessentially French village in a quintessentially French region of southern France. There are those who will say that the Languedoc is just as beautiful but less crowded and less expensive than its eastern neighbors. I know. I'm one of those people. But the fact remains that for many people, villages like Uzes are t

Kreuz Market vs. Smitty’s Market: Texas Barbecue in Lockhart

I was born and raised in New Jersey. I didn’t taste Texas barbecue until I was twenty-two years old. What the hell do I know about barbecue? And what could I add to the millions of words that have been written on the subject? Well, I know a bit about food. I’ve managed to check out a few of the finer joints in Texas – Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse in Dallas, Joe Cotton’s in Robstown before the fire, the dear departed Williams Smokehouse in Houston, and the incomparable New Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville . So I can speak from a reasonably wide experience. This will not be a comprehensive discussion of the relative merits of Texas barbecue as opposed to the fare available in places like Memphis or the Carolinas. It’s simply a take on our recent visits to Lockhart and the relative merits of Smitty’s versus Kreuz from our point of view. I’ll get all over academic in a later post. On our way out to the ranch in Crystal City, we stopped at Smitty’s. You have to look

LE CHAT QUI PECHE (THE CAT THAT FISHES), ARGELIERS: RESTAURANT REVIEW

You would think that after over five years of searching for restaurants serving good food at reasonable prices, I would have made my way to Le Chat Qui Peche before now. After all, it's only about ten minutes from our house, in a beautiful spot along the Canal du Midi. But it took a friend to suggest that we would like the place. So we went. And we did. Port-Argeliers isn't much a port, just a spot along the Canal du Midi that boats use as a stopping place. Like a town that might be described as just a wide spot in the road, there hardly seems to be a reason for it to exist other than the fact that it does. So Le Chat Qui Peche, at the foot of a narrow but driveable bridge over the canal, commands a view of the canal that can't reasonably be described as bustling and scenery that might best be described as bucolic. We were among the first to arrive on a lazy summer day, breezy so we chose an outdoor table with less of a view but sheltered. Our server practiced his

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