For the last few months, I figured that #1 on my Christmas list would be an Android table like the Samsung Galaxy. I walked past them at Costco a week or so back and took a long look at them.
Meh.
I've got a killer laptop that's got the performance (and size and weight) of a Lamborghini. It's got a 17" screen, a 1 TB hard drive and an i7 processor with full Adobe Creative Suite 5 installed. The tablets have a 10" screen. That means as long as I'm willing to stay seated with my laptop and not prance around the house, I can browse over to foxsoccer.tv and watch Newcastle thump Wigan on a screen almost 3x the size of the tablet.
It's all about mobility vs raw power. Is the ability to pick up your Internet device and wander around like a gypsy more important than the ability to pick out the greenery in the teeth of the Wigan keeper as he grimaces, download the video and play with it in Adobe Premiere? Mind you, I'd have to pay $450 for the privilege of gypsification. In the end I had to say no. I could think of lots more interesting things to do with my $450.
I Can understand that. But I also have a killer machine and also use my iPad constantly.
ReplyDeleteI have had an iPad since the day it came out and it is the perfect consumption device that I can take anywhere and also use at work. The use case for a tablet seems nonexistent, but once you have one you wonder how you did without.
Jeff, I've got a couple of friends that say the same thing, but after my recent trial of Internet celibacy, I'm growing more and more certain that constant access to the web is more of a curse than a blessing.
ReplyDeleteSomeday, tablets will cost around $100, and when that day comes, I'll probably get one. Not until then, though.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty much what I said about ebook readers. And when the Kindle got down to within shouting distance of $100, I got one. And it has turned out to be very nice and convenient for my needs - but I'm just as happy not to have spent several hundred dollars on it to get it a year or two earlier.
You made the right choice. In our business, we see a lot of people embracing tablets, but then showing up to meetings with their iPad propped up with some kind of stand, and attached to a keyboard. It's kind of funny. Also smirk inducing - the people who bring both their iPad and their Mac Book to meetings.
ReplyDeleteBasically tablets are nice media/web consumption devices. Anyone who says their iPad makes them more productive should be fired. I will brook no contradiction on this point.
Jeff, that's where I am, too. My perusal of the web is focused on content creation. Without a keyboard, any device has limited value. I know you can get keyboards for these things, but as you said, a tablet plus a keyboard is a clumsy laptop. Meh.
ReplyDeleteMy dear husband has a tablet-- Galaxy something or other. He and Kit love the thing; it really is very cool, too, got it for a bit over $200.
ReplyDeleteComes with an on-screen keyboard, although I wouldn't want to blog with it. Be nice if you could get one of those pens that transmits what you write onto the screen and it's then recognized and turns into text, or if you can get Dragon on it. (he doesn't do blogging yet, so we don't know if those are options)
He uses it at work, too-- has cut way down on the amount of papers he has to print since he can email them to himself, take notes, access the tech manuals without logging into a system computer, etc; ogoing off of the number of tickets filled, it has raised his productivity. (really nice when he's there because the system is down, no fighting to find a printer that's talking to his computer so he can print out any needed information.)
It's not magic, though; strengths and weaknesses are similar to that of any other computer for raising productivity, and in most cases a system where you can log in to your profile would work better. That our daughter can now play Angry Birds is a nice bonus. ^.^
Me, I prefer a "luggable" laptop since I have to set down to use them, anyways. (I'm too much a butterfingers to dare the hold-with-one-hand-and-play trick.)
I have a 15in laptop for my computing. It broke a few weeks ago, and fixing looked cost prohibitive. Our money tree has been over harvested lately, school, car, etc. So a new laptop wasn't going to happen. I wondered if I could get away with an iPad for email, web, and the occasionally spreadsheet. Which is mostly what I do away from work. I don't have a work laptop, as I just vpn in and use remote desktop. But if work would have given me a work laptop for oncall, that would have been fine.
ReplyDeleteMy Macbook Pro ended up getting fixed for free, I guess just loose connections inside, and it's good again. It's a 15in, and I couldn't imagine going bigger and being portable. On the other hand 10in is really small, but again, just email and web browsing, fine 95%.
As a backup, when I'm not heading straight home, and my laptop would remain in my car; I take my old ASUS netbook, with 9in screen. Runs Linux, and I plug it into a monitor at work. If I just use Chromium, I'm good. Trying to run more than just the web browser, it will just thrash the swap space. Probably IMAP issues trying to download too many emails I rarely care about. More memory might help, not much point.
If I went with a tablet, I would get it with 4G (or 3G) and get rid of my smart phone. The phone is just too big in my pocket. I really like the android phone, but until the ICS android version comes out (4.x), it's not really useful to me. It all comes down to the VPN for me.