BWW Tablet Report (with pictures)

BUD · **Posted:** Fri Mar 13, 2015 2:51 pm

mudee wrote:

Not a BWW, But RT O'Sullivans has had 10 of the 2.0 tablets for about 4 months now. No breakage or any other problems yet. I do get a tablet with kid prints on it from time to time though.

None broken in 4 months? As I thought, it's the high volume of kids that come through our BWW that is probably causing the high breakage rate here.

mudee · **Posted:** Fri Mar 13, 2015 6:39 pm

That sounds about right. RTO's doesn't get the kid traffic a BWW does.

THE ICEMAN · **Posted:** Fri Mar 13, 2015 7:12 pm

mudee wrote:

That sounds about right. RTO's doesn't get the kid traffic a BWW does.

Thank God!!!

liljol · **Joined:** Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:41 pm **Posts:** 2497

Well, hell. After more than a few weeks with the ten 2.0 tablets at JT's Pub & Grill, and limited time with the 2.0 tablets at a couple of the BWWs in The Site-Poor Backyard... :roll:

A few of the tablets at JTs have sometimes logged out and/or had batteries run so low as to have them show the battery on the screen instead of "Ooh, look a button!"

So far, no breakage issues. 8-)

Also, it appears that the battery life of the 2.0 tablets is not as long as those of the 1.0 tablets. The 1.0 tablets seem to have enough to last until Playback or thereabouts (8 hours or so). The 2.0 tablets often start showing red around 5:30 (6.5 hours) :cry:

mudee · **Posted:** Sat Mar 14, 2015 11:46 am

LILJOL - The official NTN battery tester. :mrgreen:

ranger · **Joined:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 12:27 am **Posts:** 630

I don't know of breakage problems.

But some of the other games seem hard to log out of. Certainly a nonintuitive process. And sometimes I pick up a tablet which doesn't have trivia as a screen option.

I'd say the tablets are an improvement over the older, heavier blue boxes. But the newer, lighter blue boxes (with number on top, as well as on the keypad) are as much better than the tablets.

mudee · **Posted:** Wed Mar 18, 2015 1:48 am

We were playing at Nacho Mamas tonight, and we had several of the tablets freeze up on us. Has anyone else had this happen? The owner is calling BT tomorrow to see what the scoop is. The system and 2.0 tablets are barely a month old.

mrgray · **Joined:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 2:14 am **Posts:** 348

I had my tablet freeze up during Lexitopia but it was temporary enough for me to get 984 points on the question. The answers showed up but not the numbers, and I couldn't press it.

warzne · **Joined:** Sat Jan 11, 2014 8:28 pm **Posts:** 28

Those are awesome! Thanks for the lowdown Bo!

Akbar71 · **Posted:** Tue Jun 09, 2015 9:11 pm

Played with the tablet for the first time tonight. Stewart's is closed for renovations, so the team went to a local BWW's. Hated the tablet. Really didn't like not being able to play by feel. Found it much more difficult to zoom in on the correct answers based on the clues, as well. (I know; if you just know the answer to begin with, you don't have to worry about the clues...) Also, the battery died mid-game for two of our players. The servers had a difficult time finding a charged tablet to replace the second one.

As happens whenever I go to a BWW's, every two years or so, I also question why the place is so damned popular. The food is crap, even the couple of items that taste okay. It's way too loud. The service is lackluster. (I know that last one is location-specific.) I just don't really find the place conducive to a fun time.

mrgray · **Joined:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 2:14 am **Posts:** 348

While you can't play by feel, take it from me that it does get better. If you use the tablets for long enough you get better at feeling where your fingers are in the air, as well as their relation to where say #2 would be. Or #4, etc. I get north of 250 on last clue answers quite frequently. Your brain just sort of knows where to go with it, though sometimes I am looking. I take it you were looking just at the tablet, and that threw off your clue game? I recommend looking at a TV anyway, as the answers come up faster there.

As for batteries, I rarely have issues with that since I gauge before I play. What happens more frequently for me is the software glitches out. Recently I had to reset a tablet that went batshit crazy on the log in screen. The old blue playmakers are what gave me my night from hell, though, having to go through 3 of them in a single premium game session.

Akbar71 · **Posted:** Tue Jun 09, 2015 11:29 pm

mrgray wrote:

While you can't play by feel, take it from me that it does get better. If you use the tablets for long enough you get better at feeling where your fingers are in the air, as well as their relation to where say #2 would be. Or #4, etc. I get north of 250 on last clue answers quite frequently. Your brain just sort of knows where to go with it, though sometimes I am looking. I take it you were looking just at the tablet, and that threw off your clue game? I recommend looking at a TV anyway, as the answers come up faster there.

As for batteries, I rarely have issues with that since I gauge before I play. What happens more frequently for me is the software glitches out. Recently I had to reset a tablet that went batshit crazy on the log in screen. The old blue playmakers are what gave me my night from hell, though, having to go through 3 of them in a single premium game session.

What you say makes some sense; if I had to deal with them for a longer period of time, I'd likely get better with them. As it stands, though; I vastly prefer the blue Playmaker. Thanks for the input, though.

mrgray · **Joined:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 2:14 am **Posts:** 348

Yeah I mean I was totally where you are my first time playing with the tablets. In fact I had a bad experience because I thought I could clean the filthy screen with a tiny bit of water. Totally messed up the inputs. But even after learning from that I hated the things. Left this long scathing review of the tablets on my home site's review section haha. But I didn't have any other options so got used to it. To be honest I would prefer the blue playmakers (some perfect, new model that has a hell of a battery life, say) but it's not really an option for me unless I want to go out of my way for food that is actually worse than BWW's. :p

-BO- · **Joined:** Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:20 pm **Posts:** 2291

mrgray wrote:

While you can't play by feel, take it from me that it does get better. If you use the tablets for long enough you get better at feeling where your fingers are in the air, as well as their relation to where say #2 would be. Or #4, etc. I get north of 250 on last clue answers quite frequently. Your brain just sort of knows where to go with it, though sometimes I am looking. I take it you were looking just at the tablet, and that threw off your clue game? I recommend looking at a TV anyway, as the answers come up faster there.

The question and choices show up ~1 second faster on the monitor but the clues appear at the same time. So the ideal was to play is to look at the monitor until the choices appear and then never take your eyes off the tablet.

But regardless of getting used to it, you can never play by feel. And that sucks for most top players.

mrgray · **Joined:** Fri Oct 19, 2012 2:14 am **Posts:** 348

It sucks for us shitty players as well. In fact if anything, shitty players benefit more from playing by feel because we need to switch answers more.

After playing by feel for years like you guys I had to make the switch. If it's true that they quit producing blue playmakers they might eventually stop repairing them as well. Or maybe all the locations around you will make the switch. I'd recommend playing with the tablets semi-regularly just to lessen the blow if things change and you are forced to use them. Just my two cents.

Quote:

The question and choices show up ~1 second faster on the monitor but the clues appear at the same time. So the ideal way to play is to look at the monitor until the choices appear and then never take your eyes off the tablet.

Yeah I know that but Akbar said he was having trouble with the clues. Since it was his first time using the tablet I figured something about processing the clues on the tablet was throwing him off.* So I was telling him to just look at the TV like he was used to (especially since some things do show up there first anyway). It would take him being able to punch accurately without feel (or minimize time lost looking down), which is possible if you use them enough. He could ease into whichever play style he likes from there.

* It was probably distance of the answers from his eyes. When they are farther away he can eyeball them as a block, whereas on a tablet he might have to scan individually and compare back to the clue. That's my guess.

scar · **Joined:** Sun Jan 10, 2010 6:57 pm **Posts:** 2218

mrgray wrote:

It sucks for us shitty players as well.

Damn well said.

Brutus · **Posted:** Fri Jun 12, 2015 2:11 pm

I'll chime in and be in the minority here and I prefer the tablets. I would consider myself an average player, have gotten better over time and recognizing repeat questions obviously helps but still plenty of room to improve. I can still switch back to playing by feel on the blue tablets but with the tablets my gaze is typically on the TV when the question and answers come up initially until I make my choice and then switch my gaze to the tablet for the clues. The tablets also seem to use a continuous countdown timer for changing answers and the blue boxes seem to have set numbers that decrease several points at a time to set increments so when playing alone, am able to get those few extra points with the tablets usually on questions I don't know (or guess right at). But having tablets vs. blue boxes really doesn't matter to me...I tend to frequent the BWW I do as they are so close to home for me and have become a regular in there over the last year.

mudee · **Posted:** Fri Jun 12, 2015 10:46 pm

Last Tuesday our team went to a watering hole in Tempe AZ called Bostons due to Nacho Mamas doing some remodeling that wasn't finished on time, and they had blue boxes. I have not played with them in quite a while due to my usual hangouts having tablets now, And I REALLY miss the blue boxes.

liljol · **Joined:** Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:41 pm **Posts:** 2497

Well, hell. One other issue that seems to have crapped up with tablets is the apparent requirement to order Playmakers in multiples of ten. :roll:

At the independent site in NTN Buzztime's Site-Poor Backyard where I bang away the most (JT's Pub & Grill), this resulted in them reducing their subscription to ten from the former fifteen. Fifteen was an ideal amount, allowing for both trivia and the occasional rush for poker to be accommodated, not to mention the infrequent visitor or two. Twenty would have been way more than a lil too much.

IDJIT5500 · **Joined:** Mon Jan 11, 2010 6:02 pm **Posts:** 404

fifteen is a good number at west park station as well. management there has said they would go to the new boxes if we want, but as yet we haven't had a need for it. although we could have used it during the cavaliers run in the nba playoffs. we were down to one screen for the games and getting pressure from those around us to give that up. i really don't want to put west park station to the expense of the new system when we are fairly content with what we have.

BUD · **Posted:** Tue Sep 22, 2015 2:43 pm

This post is for Cloudy to bump it back to the top of the "view active topics" list. I don't think Cloudy knows about that small link found near the top left of all pages. The length since thread was active can be changed to longer than 7 days, like a month or 2. It's the best way to avoid duplicate threads. Baaaaaaa!

-BO- · **Joined:** Wed Mar 10, 2010 3:20 pm **Posts:** 2291

BUD wrote:

This post is for Cloudy to bump it back to the top of the "view active topics" list. I don't think Cloudy knows about that small link found near the top left of all pages. The length since thread was active can be changed to longer than 7 days, like a month or 2. It's the best way to avoid duplicate threads. Baaaaaaa!

CLOUDY has been advised of this many times. Don't think he's ever parsed the board that way however.

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