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My $200 Laptop Can Beat Your $500 Tablet
Roblimo writes "Yes, we know tablets like the iPad are the wave of the future and that PCs and laptops are dead. But some of us see tablets as laptops with their keyboards missing and a few hundred bucks tacked onto the price."
> My $200 Laptop Can Beat Your $500 Table
But my table is good for holding food at dinners. Can your laptop do that?
Lets see you rest your feet or eat your dinner on my laptop!
You'd think it would take Moses coming down from the mountain to get them to spell this correctly!
I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank.
Slashdot is running low on Ts.
Yes, but I can't rest my feet on a laptop, like I can my table.
Anyway, the cost of the device is hardly relevant. Aside from portability, the real differences are consuming versus creating. So far, tablets are basically giant consumption devices. Listen to music, read books, watch videos, visit other people's websites. Not so much made for creating (unless the limit of creating, your case, is writing blog updates).
It's kind of like comparing a television with a video camera.
I'll keep my $500 table, thank you very much.
I don't know about everyone else but I try not to use my laptop as a table. It's too sensitive to water and tends to not sit far off the ground making sitting at my laptop for dinner more difficult.
do you even proofread your articles, Taco?
My $200 Laptop Can Beat Your $500 Table? Of course the average laptop has more computing power than the average table. Have you even read the article yourself, CmdrTaco, or did you just look at the title like us Slashdotters?
My greasy fingerprints all over the goddamn screen.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
At least on my $500 Tablet I can hit the character 't' on the keyboard successfully ;-)
but can you keep three week's worth of laundry and leftovers on your 200$ laptop?
Whats the average crumb-per-key of your table?
Just like go to the Goodwill store or something, there are plenty of $20 tables there.
You want to table the tablet discussion? Fine.
Say hello to my little sig.
Well, your laptop may be able to surf the web, but I can eat off my table, plus I'm pretty sure my table could crush your laptop!
But really, tablets *ARE* like laptops, but in a form factor that makes them really pruned down. Laptops are chunks of plastic that fit together - sort of. Tablets are sleek and minimalist and have touch screens. Two different markets. I wouldn't want to write a paper on a tablet, and conversely, there are points where having a tablet is just easier than pulling out a laptop (and finding some place to type correctly on it). Each has their own merits, and like any tool, you have to use it properly for it to be effective.
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
Given that the tablet models have the features normally seen on older laptops(Flexview/AFFS/IPS being a tablet/ultraportable only item), I'd beg to differ.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Be a shame if anything unfortunate happened to it - oh, wait, too late.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Who thinks a tablet could replace a laptop? Tech journalists who don't know shit about tech, and various Starbucks-dwelling types (who also don't know shit about tech), that's who. Tablets are doomed just like PDAs without cell modems were doomed. The future is convertible laptops. Mark my words.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
As tablets become more popular, firms will be adding more production capacity for touch screen and other components and eventually, tablet prices will plummet, overall - not sure about Apple.
Of course, they'll be firms that will create a tablet that's basically a keyboardless laptop or as in the case of Lenovo, a hybrid.
I think a better comparison would be with Laptops and not tables.
some of us desktop owners see... well, you get the point.
...would pay $500 for a table?
Even my long-dead HTC Tornado(Windows Mobile 5) did multi-tasking so that I can listen to my music while browsing the web. iPad fails utterly in that sense alone.
FTA:
Everywhere I go these days, my friends slam laptops. They tell me my PC of choice is a dying breed and sing the praises of their new, "post-PC" Apple iPad.
Is it me or does it sound like the writer's friends are just trend-happy followers? I'm around a lot of tech people and I don't know of anyone who crow about how much tablets are going to completely displace PCs or laptops or desktops. I think for most people, the tablet is a nice toy with interesting specific applications, but it's not a replacement for anything. Same thing with all the people who said netbooks were going to displace laptops a few years ago, and the people who said laptops will destroy desktops a few years before that. Didn't happen then, won't happen now.
Maybe the writer should find less trend-whorey friends.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
... how a typo made a pointless history something funny.
Oblivion Awaits
Repeat after me:
The iPad is a tablet, but not all tablets are iPads.
I own an Android tablet with USB host functionality (2 ports, weep old macbook air users!), which is sold for $99, has multitasking, can use a keyboard, does not use iTunes and supports SD cards.
Granted, I would never write an essay on it, but tablets are not meant to be user as PC replacements: They are information retrieval devices, not data entry ones.
Tablets (the separate species from TabletPCs) are meant to be take-anywhere devices. That iPod or Android phone in your pocket? That's a tablet.
It isn't meant to be the device that you rely on to do your heavy work. It is a portal device, to get you to important data immediately, wherever you are.
Spock doesn't use a tricorder tablet because it has a million features and CPU to spare. He uses it because it is handy and can connect to the Millenium Falcon when it needs to perform more CPU-intensive calculations.
If you think your laptop is better, then that's great for you. But the fact of the matter is that you have simply been left behind technologically. You are a relic.
IT makes a good serving tray.
(I was going to correct that capitalisation error then figured it still works)
yeah, i'm sure your laptop can beat my ipad jn terms of speed, ports, keyboard, etc., as sure as my ipad can beat your laptop senseless with it's touchscreen, it's ips-display, it's battery-life, etc.
btw, my car definitely beats my bicycle when it comes to speed, comfort, heating, ond so on, but, oh, is my bike silent and light.
what a stupid comparison.
I see laptops as desktops with the expansion slots and mouse missing. So why are similarly specced laptops more expensive than desktops?
Why, it's almost as if, sometimes, less is more!
Which tablet are you using? Did you root one of the Android e-readers like the Literati?
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
Good sense that most people are missing. I really wanted a new tablet, I was looking at the Xoom, and while waiting for it to be released in WiFi only I looked around and noticed that I could get a laptop that had enough power to play full PC games, movies, and do everything anywhere on the web (flash, silverlight, whatever is out there is probably works on a PC) and all for the same price. The only advantage I see for tablets right now is size/weight, longer battery life and quick web browsing. They cost too much for that, maybe if I traveled all the time or spent a long time commuting on public transportation then I could find a use but for the most part they are just less capable than anything you could get for the same price elsewhere.
You can't have sex on a laptop... my $500 table wins!!! You can't play beer pong on a laptop.... again, table wins!!! You can't put 10 laptops on your laptop... Another win for the table!!! You can't have sex, while playing beer pong and using your laptop on a laptop... Tables rule!!!
some of us see tablets as laptops with their keyboards missing and a few hundred bucks tacked onto the price."
It is really very simple, if you do not want or need the extra features that a tablet brings to the table, then don't buy one. What is so difficult about that?
.
Keep in mind that notebooks used to cost hundreds if not a thousand dollars more than a desktop, and the notebook was far less powerful than that desktop. Yet, over time, the notebook pulled ahead.
Actually as I look down at the keyboard, my laptop has a surprising amount of food on it. I see crumbs from my bagle yesterday morning. I see a little shmear of dried egg on the shift key. And I think that may be some hardened mozzarella cheese on the corner of the trackpad.
You are welcome on my lawn.
My $200 Laptop Can Beat Your $500 Tablet
Laptops boot faster than tablets? Laptops wake up from sleep mode faster than tablets? Laptops have longer battery life than tablets? Laptops have faster virus scanning etc than tablets? I wanna see this $200 laptop.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
One positive impact of the tablet market is the potential for better screen options for netbooks and low-end devices. Netbooks almost universally have cheap, low-quality screens, but tablet do not, largely because they require support for the high viewing angles that IPS screens can offer. With any luck the millions of IPS-or-higher quality screens on these tablets will drive down prices for IPS panels, and we'll see options for decent netbook screens filtering into the low- to midrange netbook market.
Article makes several good points, but a lot of the problems it mentions are leveled at the iPad specifically and not tablets in general. Non-apple tablets could easily not have these problems.
Personally, I'd like something where you can just plug the tablet into a docking station that has a keyboard and mouse setup, maybe even a larger monitor, and just pull it out when you need to go portable. Although that doesn't take care of the problem where tablets will be forever less powerful than desktops.
Technoli
Please tag this story as flamebait because that's what the TFA is.
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
My RSS post says the same "My $200 laptop can beat your table"
"holding food at dinners. Can your laptop do that?"
Of course. What's a keyboard for, if not holding bits of food?
If it's closed, of course! It'll even heat the food for you!
i can't use a smart phone without a physical keyboard, and i sure as heck won't ever buy a tablet when i can get the same features, with a keyboard, for less money
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I,m not agree with the statement thats pc and laptops are dead on the market hit by Tablets. the tablet's Pc is different device with PC and Laptop's. custom spec is the one's selling point for laptop's and PC.we can upgrade or downgrade the hardware.can we do thats for Tablet's ? i dont think so. believe me, tablets will slowly dead in the market.just like Kindle. ------ Asus released a very powerfull spec tablets
And my $10 hammer can beat your $200 laptop.
Why is it a dumbass point to bring up the battery swap? I just replaced my battery in my 7 year old Dell laptop yesterday. Still runs fine, still plays CSS, EVE, Rome: TW, and BF2 fine(which is more than any tablet in existence can say), but batteries cease to function over time/use. Instead of completely replacing it, a 50 dollar battery makes it portable again.
Another obsolete geek chimes in. Your days are numbered, nerd. History and actual technology are leaving all you "tech experts" behind.
Sure - if I push a button on it, a cup holder even pops out!
Your $200 laptop doesn't compare to tablets in those areas.
My iPad2 can do all of that and more.
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> My $200 Laptop Can Beat Your $500 Table
But my table is good for holding food at dinners. Can your laptop do that?
Why, yes, it can.
mmmm..... lap-tray.
Clearly this was written by someone who is trying to force the tablet into doing things like a laptop, as if it's a complete replacement, instead of treating it as a new class of interface. I could go on and on about how my 500$ tablet can do things my 2000$ laptop can't. It'd be stupid, though, because they're meant for different uses. Either that or they haven't used one at all and are just jealous.
"You can't plug a mouse into a tablet." Who the hell wants to plug a mouse into a tablet?!
Printing is now possible over the air, more or less, though that's becoming less and less necessary anyway.
Some tablets have SD slots, and the ones with adapters, well how often do you need to connect the camera?
I barely remember the last time I had to use a physical disc, or even a flash drive. And burning optical discs are hardly a sensible permanent archive solution.
I am typing this on an iPad, inside the Twitter app, while listening to Pandora, so yeah.
The iPad being heavily connected to iTunes is a valid issue, but there are tools to work around it: Dropbox, DropCopy, Files HD, just to name a few But, can I just flip my laptop around to show someone something? Even smaller laptops are hard to manipulate and pass around. Can I lie down on the couch and read a book comfortably with my laptop? Not really, I've tried.
This is just an article written by a either a curmudgeonly nincompoop, or someone trying to get page views with a little "controversy".
Why is this on the front page? Seriously.
No it can't.
I think you just made the point of why tablets are superior than laptops.
no keys to have food get stuck between meaning you can clean it with a damp towel, instead of expensive canned air(it's even more expensive than bottled water).
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Given that we're on /. here, it is probably not mozzarella, but a case of Too Much Information ;)
because i'm not poor and i dont have to wait over 7 years to replace a laptop? by the time I need to replace a battery in a laptop it will be in a landfill somewhere.
A. A Laptop's CD and DVD Player/Burner: If you're into permanently saving photos, music, or movies
Wireless connectivity allows me to store my music, photos and such, on a machine which I won't lose. The chance that I will need all my music, those movies, or that photo, are to be considered, but many of us know what we reference daily. I would rather have a home full of things I need now than a home full of clutter I think I might need and never access. Tell me this, how many have look at last used dates on many items on your notebook? It might surprise you.
B. A Laptop's Keyboard: Most iPad users readily admit it's difficult to type anything that is data intensive on the touch keyboard that appears on the screen.
OK, but given time you learn to adapt. I find just as many people complain "you will never be happy with a notebooks keyboard" as I see with tablets. Well I can get a nice clamshell case with a bluetooth keyboard built it. Tablets are not meant to replace home computers for development and large work, the Apps just are not there. However they are great for taking what you need in a small footprint.
C) The Storage Available on a Laptop:If you want to download and store tons of decent-quality movies,
Which in point A I stated, go check when you last viewed/listened to the majority of it. Then scroll back to see what you used in the last year. You will be surprised. I have over 20g in music and guess how much I listen too. I have the 32g iPad of which I haven't used half. Why? Because its like packing a car. I am taking what I know I will use and then tossing in small things here and there. I guess for some being lazy and taking it all is a great method but you never rid yourself of the clutter if you do. Fact is, we keep to much crap on our computers because its easier than cleaning it up
D) A Laptop's Ports: No USB port on an iPad? Sure there are pricey adapters, but what if you want to plug in a mouse, digital camera, and/or printer?
My printer is wireless. I have an adapter for HDMI, SD cards, and USB cables, which btw I haven't used every day. I don't need a mouse with a touch screen and wireless eliminates most ports anyway
E)Apple iPad 2Apple iPad 2The iPad Doesn't Have Multitasking: So I can't listen to sports talk radio online, check to see if little Charlie has bitten anyone else's finger, and type my blog, all at the same time? This versatility is why we love mobile computers. This fact alone will always keep me using a laptop.
False. I load a VPN connection and close the app to load something else and yet my VPN is still running. How is that? Is that not multitasking? I have loaded a work app and bounced between it and my webbrowser which by the way was showing the weather an it updated in the background. I guess by multitasking you meanm you cannot have a bunch of windows open all at once of which your are using ONE AND ONLY ONE AT THIS EXACT MOMENT. Many Apps that you invoke keep background services running, that is multitasking. Don't confuse that with having many windows open.
F) The IPad Is Confined by the Limits of iTunes: Jared Newman, a PCWorld blogger, summed it up: "
And it gets updated all the time. We don't know what new features we will get. As it stands now, after I first setup my iPad with iTunes I have never used iTunes since as I have never connected my iPad back to my Mac. I get documents, Apps, and the like, all over the wireless connection. I could care less what iTunes is not doing. As long as I have the Apps I need to do the work I want to do I could care less about your perceived limitations because they aren't mine.
G) The iPad's Battery Isn't Replacable: I know the iPad has respectable battery life, but if you need to work on a long plane ride and in a café with no available power outlets, I feel you'll need excellent battery life and a back-up cell that installs easily.
This one is even more laughable. Sorry, but spending 10 hours at the cafe ain't exactly what I call a winning strategy ever
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
My stove can totally pwn my toaster oven, but I use the toaster oven a lot more.
There. Let *that* analogy fester next to the car based ones, and shudder in fear at a future filled with major home appliance analogies.
Let's see how that 8 year old Pentium M based laptop does playing back a bunch of 720p H.264-encoded movies on that 'long flight' the author talks about as reason why his ancient laptop and it's replaceable battery is better. No wonder he thinks the iPad will need a second battery, despite being capable of 10+ hours of typical web+music+email usage and 13 hours of continuous 720p playback. You'd be lucky to get 90 minutes out H.264 of his laptop, and it probably wouldn't decode 720p at all.
Laptop is versatile. Tablet does few things outside of content consumption but does them well and efficiency. How are we still seeing articles like this a year after the tech world scoffed at the iPad? It's not a product for them, and they still don't get it.
I don't see why everyone keeps comparing the two. A laptop and tablets like the iPad are simply not in the same market. Yes there is some overlap in use, but there's overlap between a laptop and my cell phone these days. If you want to get pedantic about it there's overlap between my laptop and the dvd player sitting on the shelf across the room. It doesn't put them into the same market at all. Why is it that everyone is still trying to make it as if it's exclusive, you can have one, or the other?
You carry a laptop because your desktop is too big to haul around. To get portability, you compromise power & capacity to achieve size and weight.
The iPad-style tablet is a recognition that something like 80% of what you do with a computer doesn't need the capacity, power, and I/O of a desktop, so leave that stuff on your desk and take the screen, connectivity, and not much else with you instead.
A laptop computer is a compromise. A tablet is meant to complement a desktop.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
When netbooks first came out, people loved them because they were ultraportable, inexpensive computing devices. Computer manufacturers immediately tried to create slightly more powerful, and much more expensive, netbooks so that they could maintain their margins. This was only mildly successful, because the key factor driving netbook sales was the inexpensive part. Apple comes out with the Ipad, which has less computing power and is even more expensive than the high end netbooks and it is a great success. There are several aspects of the Ipad that allow it to succeed at that high price point, but the biggest factor is marketing (every Ipad owner that I personally know, owns one because it is the latest "nifty, neat" device).
The point is that the market that netbooks first tapped into is still out there and nobody (as far as I can tell) is really trying to tap into it. Somebody should build a netbook that is as cheap as possible. Do not upgrade it (unless the upgrade parts are cheaper than the original ones at that point) until they can sell it for $100 and make the kind of margin they want. At that point there are two strategies that could be followed. One, gradually upgrade the device while maintaining the $100 price point and the desired margin. Or two, introduce an upgraded model at the original price point of this device and continue to sell the original for $100 until the new model comes down to that point.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
[Darn thing ate my > character in the title.]
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
So what can your $200 laptop beat my $500 tablet at?
Web surfing? I don't know, the tablet interface with it's ability to just click, rescale, scroll and everything without having to use a mouse is quite an upgrade personally.
Gaming? You mean, you have a $200 laptop with a good graphics card in it? I'm pretty sure an iPad 2 or Tegra 2 powered tablet could blow the socks off your $200 intel integrated graphics card.
Size? I think the tablet's gonna win, unless you attached a brick to the back of it. 1/4"-1/2" thick tablet wins every time. Especially when I'm in a cramped coach seat flying for 6 hours and can't open the laptop up all the way because the screen hits the seat in front of me.
Battery Life? We're talking about a $200 laptop here... not a netbook. And even then try getting 10 hours of good use out of a netbook or laptop.
And who makes a New, powerful $200 laptop in the first place?
Face it, There are cases for each item. They're not meant for the same tasks. We're trying to compare apples and oranges here and I'm starting to get tired of it. Although, I will say that I got a tablet because I don't want to have to take care of another laptop. the tablet just works for what I need, I have a perfectly powerful PC in my home office I can use if I want to do anything I need it for... and if I'm just doing simple things like web browsing, facebooking, some gaming, youtubing, etc the tablet works perfectly. (and if I felt like it, I could sync my keyboard to it or use a stylus to do text input.)
-=JML=-
> My $200 Laptop Can Beat Your $500 Table
I read it that way at first and was expecting some sort of video when the heat from a laptop totally destroys a table.
*Sigh*
loose: not fitting closely or tightly != lose: to suffer the deprivation of
It more or less mirrors my sentiments on iPad devices from the beginning. The number of people I see carrying iPad these days is about half or less than it once was when iPad was new. I still see a lot of eBook readers though, and they are smaller and lighter.
(I am seriously considering getting one of those...anyone with a recommendations? I am thinking of getting the one from Borders books...Kobo I think... I don't intend to BUY a lot of books, so it needs to be open to many formats unrestricted... I hope to create a program to download web pages for viewing on such an ebook reader... seems like ePub format is essentially a packaged HTML/CSS zip file anyway. So, Recommendations?)
But where computing and entertainment is concerned, I like keyboards and mice! I can barely tolerate my Galaxy S phone with a touchscreen only interface. (My wife got a MyTouch slide... works better for her than any touch screen saving a lot of real estate on the screen) Laptops ARE cheaper than iPads. An android tablet would leave me wanting a keyboard as well though the Galaxy tablet is calling my name... still would rather use a laptop like my M11xR2... DVD drives available through USB as needed and runs Linux great! (I know, M11xR2 is not cheaper than an iPad... but its paid for! Also netbooks run Linux sweetly anyway... I still have my Dell Mini 9... no complaints)
All in all, I still see tablets as a limited use fad that doesn't fully answer my needs for a keyboard, capacity, compatibility and versatility. Perhaps it IS good enough for many people... just not for me. (We asked the same question when it was proposed to remove or omit the floppy drive didn't we?)
I can't understand why tablets are so much more expensive than netbooks, while at the same time so devoid of most of their features: no keyboard, HD, fewer ports, cheaper CPU and GPU... Even if lacking these things is normal for a tablet, these are all parts that a netbook has, and a tablet lacks.
Their one more expensive feature is the screen, and it can't be that much more expensive to justify the x2-x3 in price.
How can they be more expensive than a netbook ? I'm holding out until sanity returns.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Two words: The Cloud.
you will never get it ... I feel sorry for you
Perhaps you need one of these?
Another person who thinks Apple invented tables.
I really hate these posts. It's a self importance thread and I would respond to all of his asinine reasons, except he starts with:
"My Reasons:"
Right there he should have stopped writing. He just garnered that his whole article is based on opinions and his situation, completely eliminating ANY valuable contribution to society.
Congratulations, PCWorld wins by drawing people to their site with this crap. Thankfully Adblock will be eliminating most of the income they would be making off of me visiting their poor excuse for an article.
Not to mention most of what he does go on to say is more regurgitated crap that's said over and over and really doesn't matter. I wish people understood the fact that the iPad and a true slate or tablet is not meant to replace a laptop or PC, but supplement. Apple has done a wonderful job of making it work with your desktop, your laptop or the multimedia machine you have connected to your TV, they get it.
Why do people still think tablets were designed to entirely replace laptops? It's like saying trucks will replace sedans. Different tools for different people for different tasks.
Yes. You are rich and indulgent. Never mind that last years tablet is perfectly fine and this years tablet isn't really a significant upgrade.
We're going to suck the life out of the planet, make sure our carbon footprint is as large as possible and fill the local landfill as quickly as possible.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
because i'm not poor and i dont have to wait over 7 years to replace a laptop? by the time I need to replace a battery in a laptop it will be in a landfill somewhere.
Why most of Slashdot loathes the Apple crowd, in a nutshell, boys and girls.
Tablets are less versatile than laptops but seem to work nicely for a lot of people in a lot of cases. Don't get one if what you actually want is a laptop.
Dude, that's NOT cheese...
Yeah, and your $99 android tablet is probably one of those cheap Chinese junkers that has a sluggish UI and shitty apps. But hey, keep crowing that you bought a piece of crap. I'm sure someday someone will be impressed.
Apple sold 15 million of the damn things--about EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS worth--in 9 months and they DO NOT GIVE A SHIT that some geek feels the need to smugly point out what it can't do. You know who knows it's a limited device? Steve Jobs. You know who wants a limited device? Fifteen million people and counting.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Who cares? Why is this a pissing contest? My tablet does things your laptop can't, your $200 laptop has a keyboard and runs windows. Who gives a flying fuck? Why do you care about my tablet and why should I care about your laptop?
Sound familiar? I don't own a tablet fwiw
This is like saying your Prius is better than my cargo van. So what. They do different things. My extended body cargo van gets better pound mileage than your Prius. That is to say I can transport more pounds of cargo for less cost and fuel than your Prius can. Not only that but I can actually stick your little Prius inside my cargo van and take it along. Carrying a full load in my cargo van makes virtually no difference in its fuel efficiency. I manage my trips carefully to take advantage of this. Your laptop does one thing. A tablet does another. Big deal. It's nice to have both a hammer and a screwdriver.
BTW, I have a laptop too. I also have an iPodTouch, my equivelant of the tablet but even smaller. I would love a tablet for some tasks. Someday.
Sure, just use an external keyboard and presto! Your tablet is a convertible laptop.
Who would want a clunky (and small) detachable keyboard when you can have a nice full sized external one?
Both of us charge our device. your $200.00 laptop and my 1 year old ipad.
now let's both use the devices during the day and see who runs out of power first......
Oh look that $200.00 laptop loses big time. sorry... but battery life is king, your $200.00 laptop is crap when constant power is not around.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
About once a year I just take my Model M, hold it upside-down, and give it a vigorous shaking. Of course, I have to vacuum afterwards, but still... canned air is a waste.
Yeah, the keys still have more dried food stuck to them than the floor at Burger King, but that just adds more tactile response for my fingers, not to mention added security from people not wanting to touch it. It's a feature.
I don't agree with the article for mainly one reason. To me, and as far as I can tell Apple, they intend for tablets to be more like appliances. This in opposition to the common laptop which inherits the philosophy of - how can we make a desktop computer portable. In the philosophy of appliance vs. general computing device, Apple has stripped away all the "unnecessary" parts of the A4/5 chipset (for energy saving and maybe speed). Leaving a unitasker, or sorts. Whether I agree or not, it is what it is, take it or leave it.
Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
If it's closed, of course! It'll even heat the food for you!
I suddenly had the idea of a waffled food....
A 2003 ultra portable (12.1" was ultra portable when the X30 was new in 2003) does have some deficiencies that the author neglects to mention:
With a 2003 laptop you really struggle with modern video codecs such as h.264. HD, even 720p, is quite literally a non starter. The X30 has Intel integrated 830 GPU. This was fairly modest in 2003 and now it's a distinct problem unless you never watch anything except DVDs and cruddy old low resolution divx/xvid and similar. Visiting youtube or iplayer or similar will see your battery drained in short order.
Next problem: yes the Compact Flash slot was great to have integrated but outside of professional SLRs how many cameras still use CF? Most of us these days have devices which use SD, microSD and SDHC and microSDHC. And what's the speed like on that PCMCIA slot if you add a card reader? Glacial.
USB: yes the X30 has USB. But it's USB 1.1! It's so slow it will make you groan.
The display: probably the X30 had a great display in 2003 but please don't try to convince me it ever had the brightness or contrast of a modern display, because it didn't. I have a similar 12.1" Asus from 2004. After 7 years the display is distinctly tired. This is inevitable.
The touchpad: things have really moved on! Modern touch pads have fantastic multi touch features, with single, two and three finger gestures. They are actually pleasant to use, preferable even to a mouse, whereas touchpads of X30 vintage were always something you only used because you forgot to pack your USB mouse....
Imo a 7 year old laptop make for a lousy comparison to a new high end tablet. The keyboard is great, everything else looks less good. A better comparison is a 2010 or 2011 netbook. These are super cheap now. I just bought a refurbished (factory sealed, as new, guaranteed) Asus 1001P. Its screen is superb, it has a nice keyboard, a multi touch touchpad, superb sound, it can play 720p, is so efficient that stock battery lasts a full working day, it has 3xUSB 2 (no USB 1.1 here!), reads SDHC cards, runs very quietly, doesn't get hot etc etc etc. It doesn't have an optical drive, something I considered essential in 2004 when I bought my old 12.1" Asus but now it's become superfluous to the point of being redundant; I'm about as interested in carrying around DVDs and CDs as I am in keeping pockets full of cassettes or minidiscs. Best of all is that the netbook cost $20 less than that tired old X30 :-)
The story is full of fud. 1: DVD-burner? Who needs that now - really - come on. 2: Get a bluetooth keyboard won't you 3: Start streaming from your NAS-box or from the Web - use home sharing to play your music from the computer 4: Ports for what? AirPrint or what it's called - mouse on a touch screen? My mother syncs here DSLR with the iPad so I guess that can be done 5: It does multitask 6: The "limits" of the iTunes is backup, restore and update - he can have his 200$ laptop for that and be happy. 7: The battery is so much better on the iPad compared to the run of the mill laptop's that replacing it isn't really going to happen.
I've never heard anyone say laptops are dead, although I think *I* may not need one any longer. I'm not an Apple fanboy, but it's safe to say I'm a serious convert to the iPad.
Author misses the point or deliberately ignored it. The iPad is defined entirely by its physical simplicity. Why would I want a slot for disks when anything I want to watch or listen to can be streamed from my PC at home or from the cloud? Why would I need a terabyte of storage when I have a fast network connection back to my stockpile of data at all times? Why in the hell would I want to watch video while typing (though YES you can listen to music or internet radio while you do other things)? Why do I want to carry around 5+ lbs of machine that does everything a little bit worse than my desktop when I can carry a 1.3lb featherweight that focuses on doing what it does better than anything else while still letting you do a bit of standard computer work on the go?
If I need more battery life I'll get an external battery pack. If I need to connect a camera I'll get a $30 dongle or two. If I need output to a monitor I'll buy that dongle, too. But most people don't need any of those things. Sure it doesn't have a real keyboard, but I can still type at about 75% keyboard speed. Certainly well enough to take the notes I'll need to do my real work when I'm back in front of a desktop.
It is what it is. Whether you like the iPad or want to hold off for a decent Android tablet, the tech gods should bless Apple for what they've done. It's not a laptop, doesn't need to be and doesn't want to be. Comparing it to a laptop is missing the point BIG TIME, but that's what I'd expect from an author who doesn't own one! Laptops always have and always will feel like cramped desktops. Mine is connected to a 27" LCD 95% of the time because a 13" or 15" screen is just too damn small for the multi-windowed interface. The iPad gets around that by doing away with the desktop OS and input devices. It's tactile, paper-like experience that doesn't try to emulate a "real" computer. It can be whipped out and used while you're walking, held over your head while you're in bed, put between you and a coworker on a table to share documents or put on a table in a restaurant and used as a checker board with your kids. When you're using it for what it does well, the experience is entirely transparent and the device disappears.
Finally, hell yeah it's expensive. The thing is a little over a pound, goes 10 hours on a charge and benchmarks almost as fast as a G5 processor from a few years back. It's beautifully designed in a way few other consumer products are. It has a fancy capacitive multutouch IPS display you can see from any angle rather than a turd TN monitor. The funny thing about the iPad compared to other Apple products is that it's a steal. No one who buys an iPad 2 is going to get it home, use it for a week, and thing that they got anything other than an absolutely amazing value for their money.
I keep my Newton Message Pad mostly for nostalgia. It served well in college for taking notes. Even with the lights out during a video presentation I was able to take readable notes (both with and without the Newton backlight on). When tablets offer handwriting recognition they will be much more useful to me and, I suspect, a few million others.
...omphaloskepsis often...
And my $700 desktop will crush a $3000 laptop in performance. So what? Increase the form factor you decrease the price. The cost and expense of a tablet is making it small and light. Besides a comparison of a $200 laptop bought from Craigslist and a $550 tablet brought brand new with warranty seems to also shaving a bit. I will admit that at around $400 you can start to get laptops these days that are substantially better at processing data, have keyboards and have CD/DVD burners, more storage....
Mainly this article is a list of reasons he wants a large form factor device: he wants a keyboard, he wants lots of ports, he wants a big cheap drive... OK if you want a large form factor device don't buy a small form factor device. Why is that worth mentioning? The much more interesting comparison would be someone who desperately wants the small form factor but has other concerns that push them towards a laptop. Heck I might fall into that category.
...except the "consumption" stuff that I would do with a Tablet actually represents the most computationally intensive thing I would likely do with a desktop.
It's a nice little paradox.
It's also a side effect of using the single most computationally intensive video codec available.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"My used car is better than your new motorbike!"
Yes, your bike may look impressive and be good for pulling the ladies, but can it pull a caravan? No! Can you put fourteen crates of beer in the back? No!
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Not even close.
Try again when you can install Linux on your iPad or even any apps you want from anywhere you want, including ones you write yourself.
IT also needs to be capable of typing 100+ WPM on it. A miniature tactile-less graphic on a touch screen isn't gonna cut it.
Also it needs to be able to play 3D hardware-intensive games like crysis 2 or Unreal tournament with all the eye-candy, fast enough to be able to win against someone using a desktop with a keyboard and mouse.
Until then, for me at least, tablets are a useless overpriced gimmick. I predict it will stay that way for a very long time.
I have a hammer and a cordless drill. The hammer cost 1/10th of the drill, can be used to pound nails, break sheetrock, tap things into place, pull nails, strike a chisel, and much much more. My drill basically has two uses. So is the hammer a lot better because it is cheaper and can do more? No, because it sucks at drilling holes and screwing fasteners.
Now, I have a desktop, laptop, and tablet. You know what? I like all three. Depending on what I'm doing, I pick the right tool. A desktop with a couple 24" monitors and full size keyboard/mouse is great for editing/managing photo and music libraries, writing code, etc. The laptop is great for banging out some emails while I'm on the couch. The tablet is great when I just want to read, watch a show in bed, or share pictures at a family gathering.
Making these tablet vs laptop comparisons is beyond juvenile. Do we really need this on /.?
Its not a new laptop but at least a 5 year old laptop the ThinkPad X30 it looks like http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-44111 Really its a weird comparison and he's arguing with things like a dvd/cd burner that I've not even used on my desktop computer in over 2 years at this point.
Poor? What does it have to do with poor? What does my laptop fail to do that a brand new tablet will do?
"Yes, we know laptops like the iBook are the wave of the future and that PCs and desktops are dead. But some of us see laptops as desktops with more fragile components and a few hundred bucks tacked onto the price."
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
With a menu you can make easy things simple.
But you make hard things imposable!
The only way to do the hard things is to write the app. yourself. I understand that not all of us want to write apps. But I my self will not be getting a Pad or a Pod that can not support at least some good 4th gen tools. Oh, and lets stay with open source while we are at it. As an example Tcl/tk with a good gui builder is a much higher level programing tool then some system programing language like Java.
So where is my dollar prompt? Not to be confused with the Dollar you spend at the App store.
darn I was too late to see the typo.
If there were a laptop with a touchscreen as well as a keyboard for $200, I'd be all over that gizmo!
Until such time, an iPad plus a bluetooth keyboard pretty much does the trick.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
The iPad is the only device I've ever had that outlived its specified battery life, and by over 50%. Haters gonna hate, but I know what I want on an international flight.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
i can tell you why my apple can beat your orange...
So make a laptop with a touch screen keyboard instead of a typing keyboard?
As others have already pointed out, a 10 year old PC will trounce a tablet for some things, while others will be more convenient on the tablet. For instance, I am a network engineer, and in my laptop bag I have a laptop along with 4 or 5 different types of console cables to connect to network equipment. A tablet is totally useless for initially setting up these devices, because it does not have a serial port. It could be used in a pinch to work with devices that are already networked via an SSH app, but it's still not very ideal because it has no ethernet port so it can't connect to a network via any means other than wireless, can't do packet captures, etc. But, none of those things are really what tablets were designed to do. So, on the other hand, my wife has an iPad and she loves using it to Facebook, look up recipes, read Perez, etc. It's perfectly suited to those applications. So really, each has its place. I know other network guys that have iPads they only use for e-mail because it's a lot faster and easier for them to pull out an iPad than a laptop when they have 5 minutes of downtime to answer a few emails.
Some people see cheap laptops as bicycles with their wheels and seat removed and a higher price. Makes about as much sense as the OP.
No one thinks tablets will replace laptops for things that laptops do well. Especially not quality laptops. However, cheap, tiny laptops -- many of which were purchased to essentially do tablet activities -- will be replaced. The laptop form facto is essentially a clever way to attach the traditional desktop keyboard to the monitor, making it nicely portable. You get a larger screen, more CPU power, and a physical keyboard, but trade off battery life, form factor, and a free-form interface that allows you to interact and share it more like paper or a book. Tablets (so far) are the reverse, and for many people they are superior.
If you are comparing the iPad (or most ANY tablet) against a laptop with the idea that one will replace the other then he has the right ideas in his blog. But a tablet will NEVER replace a conventional computer for ALL applications, only those that are purely presentation, game, or media consumption based. Creation of NEW content or data ISN'T what a tablet is good at. Also tablets can be used for things that a laptop would be poor at such as remote control of other devices via it's wifi or bluetooth RF. Apple isn't about to discontinue their line of MAC books in favor of the iPad, they know that there is a market for both (and they want to sell you one of each!).
I remember similiar arguments around laptops about ten years ago. This is battle won't be won today, it will be won five to ten years from now.
The laptop in the article is a Thinkpad X30. For those of you who don't know, those are Pentium III systems with USB 1.1 support only, a PATA hard drive, a max of about a gig of RAM, and no external drive. Years ago, I found one on eBay for $75, and just recently installed Fedora and gave it to my dad instead of goodwill.
For $200, the author could have landed a much more recent dual-core X60 (max 3GB RAM) or X61 (max 8GB of RAM) which would put the iPad to shame. Much lighter than the X30 series (not much bigger than a netbook), up to 8 hours battery life (with the extended battery), and Windows 7 Aero support. I got the X60s for Christmas and always receive comments about how badass it is to have something so compact and powerful. It has an awesome keyboard, and probably 5 hours of battery life (I never carry the AC adapter around).
I spent $225 + shipping for the X60s on eBay.
The World is Yours.
That and if you really want to, you can remove the key caps and wash them just like you'd wash the dishes. The Model M: Introduced in 1984 and still the best fucking keyboard ever made by a such a wide margin that nothing else should be permitted to be called a keyboard. My Model M was born on May 3rd, 1990. It shows no sign of wearing out.
One place I worked at my wife would send me a bag of cookies every day in my lunch. She'd put the cookies on the icepack in my cooler, and they would be cold and nasty by the time coffee break came around. Then I figured out that the heat from the laptop exhaust made a nice cookie warmer. First thing I'd do every morning is prop the bag open so the warm air blows in. By the time coffee break rolled around, the shop would smell like freshly baked cookies.
Mmmmm... me want cookies...
I've lost count of how many people have told me throughout the years "Technology X has changed my life forever! You'll never need your Technology Y ever again!"
I always enjoy coming back to those people 5-10 years later going "Hey, what ever happened to that lovely Technology X you were crazy about? I still have my Technology Y!"
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Perhaps you should get a job?
My aunt bought low-end laptops instead of iPads for her kids because kids aren't allowed to have a job in her country.
Lenovo ThinkPad X30 - Cheapest Price online: 849 Dollars.
Your $200 laptop can go fuck a unicorn or fairy, back in magic make-believe land where it belongs.
Aw. I guess having a keyboard isn't *always* an advantage.
All of these idiotic comparisons are idiotic. A laptop is not a tablet and a tablet is not a laptop. Instead of thinking "one or the other" it's about having both. Think of it this way, "why sell 1 laptop for everything, when you can sell a laptop for work and a tablet for play?" All of these people making comparisons are "getting it". Shouting into blizzard doesn't really achieve anything other than frost bite and wishing you had a cup of hot choco.
That is what you fundamentally don't understand. Apple doesn't want your money--they want a million times more money by focusing on the "lot of people" who you smugly define as not doing "real work" with their desktops/laptops because your definition of real work is hacking at whatever Java/XML database somebody pays you $20 / hour to do.
The real world is much larger than your world.
There are many tablets in 100-200$ range.
Those that make much noise and sell in millions, like Samsung, sell for 400$+. Well, why not, if people are willing to pay.
Tablet OSes are heavily customized or fully developed in-house. On netbooks they just slap whatever OS is cheapest on it and call it a day.
... and my tables, tablet, laptop, desktop, and server working together kick the crap out of any one of them working alone.
If you're into permanently saving photos, music, or movies, or if you're serious about backing up your hard drive and programs, you probably need to burn the occasional disk.
Haven’t burnt a CD or DVD in over 5 years. HDDs work better for me. But the point is moot because I sync my iPad with my laptop and over MobileMe.
Flimsy, add-on keyboards don't cut it.
The keyboard for the iPad feels just like typing on my MacBook Pro, or one Apple’s stand-alone keyboards, and I’m very fond of those.
and I still like the old-school Trackpoint eraserhead cursor control.
I prefer the touchscreen.
The iPad Doesn't Have Multitasking: So I can't listen to sports talk radio online, check to see if little Charlie has bitten anyone else's finger, and type my blog, all at the same time? This versatility is why we love mobile computers. This fact alone will always keep me using a laptop.
I does do multitasking. At least a much multitasking as I want to do on a tablet computer. People often get confused between multitasking and seamless task switching.
The IPad Is Confined by the Limits of iTunes: Jared Newman, a PCWorld blogger, summed it up: "Even if you never sync a single piece of media from a computer to an iPad, you still need iTunes on a PC or Mac to keep the tablet's software up to date. This needs to change...
And you can bet Apple is working to remove that iTunes-on-Mac-OS-X dependancy.
Have you ever tried to use a laptop while standing up? It is kind of hard because you don't have a lap. One of the key things that tablets offer is a better form factor for using it one the go, but with enough screen real estate that it isn't a PITA to use. Why can't people grasp this?
Unless, of course, you mean creating gold on WoW. Tablets don't yet have the punch for games like that yet.
I have not played WOW but am pretty sure you are wrong about that. The iPad 2 graphics have advanced significantly.
And Tablets offer the simplicity of consoles in that there is no setup... even more simpler in that you don't have to hook it to a display (but then I guess Gameboy and PSP owners already know about that).
Although the iPad could seemingly handle WOW I have to say I fear a little for the world when such a mobile variant of WOW is possible... but perhaps the benefit of allowing people to leave desktops and play WOW in other environs will be more healthy than the enablement it provides for.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Thinkpads have spill-resistant keyboards. A cup of water can be poured onto the keyboard while running and it will drain out the bottom.
Video.
The World is Yours.
What is this $99 android tablet of which you speak? Pics or it doesn't exist.
As long as the screen hinges still work yes. It's even got rubber feet to prevent from slipping whereas your tablet has a curved back which will only encourage spilling.
That and if you really want to, you can remove the key caps and wash them just like you'd wash the dishes. The Model M: Introduced in 1984 and still the best fucking keyboard ever made by a such a wide margin that nothing else should be permitted to be called a keyboard. My Model M was born on May 3rd, 1990. It shows no sign of wearing out.
Yeah, freakin' awesome. Would you please remember to go on mute when you're on the phone?
The customers buying it, disagree!
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
And a crappy screen that's barely able to recognize taps unless you pound on it and a 3 hour battery life, no official updates, and a hack was required to even get the marketplace to work.half of them don't even charge over usb and have a proprietary ac plug. but in fairness IT HAS USB
The iPad 2 has a flat back.
Weight, size, form-factor, ease-of-use, time-to-boot, battery runtime, fully-integrated vertical zero-fuss end-to-end content and application delivery pipeline.
The iPad and the infrastructure it's integrated with is purpose built to deliver in all 7 of the above mentioned fields. Which is why it sold 15 Million units in the first 9 months since its release. 15 Million f*cking units. You may want to ponder that number for a minute and compare it to other sales in the industry. It's this sort of conceptual purity that has Apple kicking everybody else in the entire industry in the balls.
Mind you, I'm not buying, and for good reasons too, but compared to Apples 'Post-PC' Devices the rest of the industry appears to be 5 years behind. You have to hand it to Steve Jobs and his crew for contiuneing in pushing the envelope in the innovation department. And no, your 200$ Laptop can not beat a 500$ tabet. Not in the game the tabet was built for.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
i got blisters on me fingers!
First off, the columnist starts off with "Laptop beats Tablet", and then proceeds to list limitations of the iPad; one particular tablet. Some of those limitations (iTunes, replaceable battery, no multitasking) are not issues on other tablets. So, I think I consider these to be marginal arguments against tablets.
Next, the guy lists the advantages of a laptop (ports, storage, keyboard, DVD player/burner). Well, these are all things available (in even more abundance) on a desktop PC. So, I could make that same argument that my desktop beats his laptop. It all comes down to what problem you're trying to solve with your laptop. For me, it was portability. And a tablet gives me more of that than my laptop does.
Until a couple of weeks ago, my laptop was my primary weapon. It had, pretty much, stopped using my desktop, except for big computing chores (or when I needed my two-monitor setup). I also thought that the iPads were pretty pointless when they first came out. However, since then, I've noticed that, many times, I'll be laying in bed at night and I'll want to check my mail really quick, or go look up some website, etc. My two options were: 1) Do it on my iPhone, or 2) Walk across the room to get my heavy laptop and either wait for it to boot or come out of sleep mode, sit up so that I could use it while it was on my lap, etc. So, usually, I'd just do it on my iPhone.
So, I figured I'd get an iPad to see if it would "hit the spot" as far as what I was looking for: an always-handy, quick-on mail-reader, web-browser, media-player. And, as it turns out, it was. Since I bought my iPad, I've gone from only using my laptop to using a combination of my iPad and desktop. The desktop is used for coding, heavy web surfing, and preparing content for the iPad. For everything else, I just take my iPad with me. All of that stuff the columnist gripes that he needs (DVD burner, USB ports, etc), I use the ones on the desktop.
Now, one of the unexpected things about my iPad is that some of the apps (Facebook, Match.com, eBay, eTrade, and Weather Channel immediately come to mind) are actually better than on my PC! At first, I didn't understand how this could be. And then it dawned on my that, on my PC, the interface was always through a web browser. On my iPad, I had a custom app for each of these sites, so the UI was uniquely designed to give me a better user experience. I wasn't expecting that at all. In fact, I actually prefer to use the iPad app for some of these sites over using a PC.
So, all in all, I think the columnist is being a bit unfair (in that he's using limitations of the iPad as an indictment of tablets, in general, and also by not acknowledging that, in all of the ways that laptops beat tablets, desktops beat laptops). But, hey, nobody said that tablets (or laptops, for that matter) were for everybody. So, he's not one of the target market. So what?
The future is convertible laptops. Mark my words.
That's what Apple has been saying with the iPad, if you would listen.
The iPad in every way qualifies as a convertible laptop. You can add a keyboard to it. You can mirror the display to a larger screen, so essentially you could dock it and work with a full keyboard and screen if you liked.
Or you can go without either and use it directly.
It meets all the criteria I can possibly think of for "convertible laptop", so why can't you believe your own prediction?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You can pry my ThinkPad x40 from my cold dead hands. I weighs as much as a bag of Chick-fil-a and the battery lasts over 7 hours. Did I mention you can get them for less than $200?
I don't think I will be able to see the iPad other than a piece of "pop" technology, its use beyond games and Facebook is extremely limited.
The iPad is a tablet, but not all tablets are iPads!
Where is my cookie?
one bottle of canned air does not make up the couple hundred of dollars extra.
And you know, you can grab a screwdriver and clean it out, maybe even use a device called a vacuum cleaner?
my $200 laptop can beat your $20.000 car's onboard computer. Err, what?
My Windows is NOT slow, it's special!
My Orange tastes more Orangy than your Apple... ?
The Android tablets are even worst the than the iPad at the moment.
It doesn't matter what features the tablet has, but what you can do with it. The reason that the iPad is so successful is because it is supported by large number of developers who are able to make up for the fact that the device has limited functionality. Android still has some catching up to do before their devices can compete with Apple
I've used my laptop exhaust to melt chocolate before :).
Never gets hot enough to burn it - stays nice and gooey for the times when I feel like having gooey chocolate instead of the firmer sort (you can coat or dip the firmer choc with/into the gooey cho).
Everyones mom can use an Ipad ...and those who find pcs painful or scary..for most they just want surf the web , update facebook and send email...
Tablets, laptops, and desktops all serve different crowds: A desktop is for all computing needs where you don't need to be on the road---everything from checking email to graphics design or programming. They're cheapest and you get the most horsepower for your $. A laptop is for someone who needs most of the power of the desktop, but on the go. Laptops run similar OSs, have somewhat similar specs, interface, and try to cram it all into a portable box. The price tag is higher and you compromise some on graphics and processing power, but most people do not use laptops for intense processing. A tablet is for quick information gathering or posting on the go. It's great as a e-book reader, a GPS, an internet browser, or other applications when time, space, and location are limited. I give Apple a ton of credit as they took a market that had been failing over and over for years and made it into a success---maybe not everyone agrees with their business model or the devices they create, but you cannot deny that they are on a roll and have the market captivated with everything they do (if this wasn't the case, you wouldn't see multiple posts on /. every day about them).
... when he first claims that he's going to demonstrate superiority to tablets, but then halfway switches to hating on iPads, and with false facts. Last time I checked, iPads can multitask.
Take the same arguments and apply them to any android tablet such as the Motorola Xoom, then match them up against Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Any marginally-educated individual could tear this article apart, simply based on the notion that the idea of "better" is so loosely defined (and is surely not the same for everyone), especially in the context of computer usefulness. It's a wonder how this article got so much attention...
> But my table is good for holding food at dinners. Can your laptop do that?
Actually, my coworker uses his laptop for just that. Lunches actually, not dinners, but close enough. Granted, his laptop is a $3000 17" MacBook Pro that has plenty of space for his meal, so the $200 price point doesn't work here...
Why is it a dumbass point to bring up the battery swap? I just replaced my battery in my 7 year old Dell laptop yesterday.
Because Grandpa Dunlap isn't talking about replacing the battery at EOL, he's whining about not being able to swap it out as part of his daily routine. Perhaps next time, try READING TFA...
They are most definitely data entry devices. Just small amounts of data at a time. Taking quick notes, things like inventory, recording temperatures of coolers (I currently work at a grocery store where this sort of thing happens), attendance... Basically any sort of data entry that used to be done on a clipboard. Sure, you can do it on a laptop, and the registration tables out front of every conference I've ever been to are a testament to that, but the mobility a tablet provides can be extremely useful.
But yes, they are not just PC replacements. They have their purposes, which only occasionally overlap with those of a laptop...
No trespassing. Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
> My $200 Laptop Can Beat Your $500 Table
But my table is good for holding food at dinners. Can your laptop do that?
The aluminium chassis of my PowerBook G4 can conduct heat pretty well, so it would keep food pretty warm. However, there's just not enough space on the wrist rest area! Can't even fit a good proper coffee mug on it.
Oh, how I long back to the days of Commodore 64, when the 1541 floppy drive wasn't called a "toaster" for no reason. The fact that it took huge 5.25" floppies in, and had an internal power supply that required half of Chernobyl's output, meant that there was plenty of space for keeping the food warm!
no keys to have food get stuck between meaning you can clean it with a damp towel
Perhaps you haven't seen T-Pain inspired innovations for laptop keyboards.
My used $200 laptop can do more than your new $500 tablet. I stopped reading right there, lost all credibility.
I have an air compressor, you insensitive clod!
these ones can: http://www.dell.com/xfr
f%&k tablets. a dell XFR is my dream machine. seriously, ballistic armor ? gotta love a notebook that can take a bullet for you.
What ? Me, worry ?
My brother-in-law bought an ipad and gave me his old dual-core Atom Asus 10" Eee with 2GB RAM and 160GB disk. Claimed it was BSOD all the time.
I promptly wiped WinXP off it, loaded Ubuntu with XBMC and connected it to a TV. It is now a wifi connected media center playback device (with the addition of a $17 USB remote). All the media is stored elsewhere on the network. Only 800x600 to the TV, but the interface makes up for the crappy resolution and stereo-only sound.
It is 100% consumption. I own 2 other media playback devices too (MediaGate and WD TV Live HD), but they aren't tablets.
I also own a Nokia tablet from 2007 and still use it every day. It is great for travel, provided I bring a bluetooth keyboard with me. I'm looking for a sub-$200 Android tablet - 7", bluetooth, USB, WiFi - NO cellular data plan wanted.
When I travel for work on a plane, I take the Netbook. ... I take the Nokia + a BT keyboard and BT GPS.
When I travel for work in a car, I take a 15" Core i5 15" laptop.
When I travel for fun
I don't own a smart-phone. Too expensive, unless the company is paying. I own a company and have 20% share in 2 others, BTW. No smartphones even for our consultants.
If I had an ipad, I'd be afraid to lose it while traveling. Those cost more than an core i5 laptop or desktop. Crazy apple buying people. Completely brainwashed, they are.
I actually do own a small notebook (it seems "netbook" is TM) and am annoyed at carrying 1.2 Kg up and down (3 pounds, it seems).
So I wanted a tablet but I'm wary of being had again: the notebook has a Geode processor which can play flv quite easy with mplayer, but simly won't work with Flash. So a tablet is still some years away for me.
This and the fact I demand Linux -- not a specific distro, but I want to change OS and use any distro I care to test -- so I guess comparing "laptops" and tablets simply is not possible yet. But I want one, my case gets stuffed with a simple 10" laptop: it's still too fat!
Like this? http://shop.conics.net/libretto.html
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
Let's see you do that with a tablet computer!
Whoosh!
So basically this guy is saying exactly what I've been saying for over a year -- tablets are nice but they are nothing more than very expensive toys, especially the iPad, which despite its popularity within the Cult of Jobs is a severely limited device, even moreso than other tablets.
He probably thinks he's in a year where optical media stands the test of time longer than magnetic media.
Oh wait, that's *this year*.
hmm, perhaps a blogger for PCWorld is a bit biased on this subject.
My laptop has a touch screen (Dell Inspiron 1749). Of course, it was also more expensive than a tablet (but it's also running two hard drives, quad-core CPU, more RAM, better graphics, etc). I got the touch screen for some development projects I've got (it supports the Microsoft Surface SDK).
Hey, I never said that it was perfect. I was commenting on the article.
Yes, it is a Chinese tablet and HSG X5A-G to be exact. The UI is not sluggish (and it can be bloody fast if you overclock it to 1GHz) but the screen is resistive so it does need tapping. It does come with android market though, and the apps are fine.
I got it for a project which required cheap processing hardware, two USB ports to use for sensors and WiFi for data upload. The screen and battery are nice additions which means that I can see what is going on in something bigger than a two line LCD and that it will gracefully handle the odd power outage.
In addition, it plays back full HD perfectly on my plasma.
So yes, it is nowhere close to an iPad, or a Xoom or a Tab, but as cheap project hardware that is a nice home entertainment device, its fine for $99.
It also means that I saved myself a days of H/W development time, so in my books I am impressed as are my project mates and my boss since I saved the company quite a bit of project money.
I have a slightly used one, if you really want it.
Ouch! My legs!
Should have warned me that it was a food warming tray.
The actual reason is that Apple is providing a unified user experience.
The shiny-ness? The walled garden? The fact that there is a simple (as in my grandmother can use it) interface to interact with the phone? That is what Apple is selling. Anyone can buy an iPhone, install iTunes and get going within an hour. It will also patch your phone to the latest version the moment you pug it in.
On android?
You want to put music on it? - Figure out how your music player of choice does it.
You want to update it? - Figure out how your provider AND manufacturer does it (KIES/OTA/RUU/God knows).
You figured it out? - Good! now wait until your provided AND manufacturer tweak the official google update and push it to their distribution system (see above point).
You want to use your phone? - OK! now get used to the UI skin every manufacturer seems to be creating for their phones.
As we're on the inane comparisons, let's see how my free wife can beat your $200 hooker.
My Reasons
Here are the top reasons I think my wife--for which I paid nothing--crushes your hooker, which new, starts at $200 and can run more than $1000, depending on the configuration.
The wife's permanent presence: If you're into permanently available breasts and ass, or if you're serious about a clean house, you probably need the wife. Those relatives in Indiana need a copy of the video of cousin Paul's drum recital or they'd love to look at a CD with the pictures from your night trip to Alcatraz. You can't expect the hooker to put up with that shit.
The wife's rack: most hooker users readily admit it's difficult to do anything that is time intensive on a hooker. I'll go further: I detest spending extended time on a hooker. As my friend and PCWorld reviewer Jon Jacobi sarcastically puts it: "Overpriced hookers: wifes with a time limit. How innovative." Just a one-hour, one-off don't cut it. Give me a solid wife like mine. It's one of the best wives ever, and I still like the old-school lingerie that she sometimes wears. .... Et cetera.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Serious question: I would love to know the percentage of people (broken down by age and country) still eat at a dinner table at all. I don't even have one.
You laugh, but the iPad makes an excellent clean room computer... The touchscreen works fine through gloves, and there is no fan+heatsink to spew dust everywhere.
Yawn.
The article writer missed 2 points of the device he was criticizing - in principle a tablet proves that the limited feature set doesn't cripple usability, and practically the iPad 2 is $270 worth of components.
Put it this way: the iPad has audio input/output, optical input/output, physical input, network connectivity, and peripheral connectivity (bluetooth & dock). There is no physical limitation* preventing someone from using the device as a thin-client desktop, capable of everything the X20 can do. The only thing crippling the device, like all tablets, is the software.
*the X20 does have a high-speed data bus
Apple fanbois are so hilarious.
A 15 second rub with a dry cloth takes care of fingerprints on a tablet, why would I run it through a 20-30 minute wash cycle and inconvenience myself?
But since you brought it up, how does netflix perform on that keyboard? How's the wifi and 3g reception generally?
What we need is something akin to a Motorola Atrix but with a much bigger screen.
Take a convertible laptop with the power to run a full fledged OS like Linux (with a real desktop like Gnome or KDE), Windows 7, or OSX. Now, make the screen detachable. (I know, we've seen that before, but not on a full powered convertible laptop.) When the screen is detached, have it fire up a tablet OS like Android or iOS. Keep the "legacy" CPU, HDD, optical drive, and all that other "laptop-ish" stuff in the keyboard base. Just put the screen and a tablet-level processor in the screen part. Make sure to include a stylus digitizer beneath the screen as well as a capacitive touch in front of it like I have on my Fujitsu Lifebook T4310. Give the user the ability to switch to the tablet OS while the screen is still attached to the base for easy typing in tablet OS apps.
Now you've got the best of both worlds. You can carry around all the power and storage you might need for "real work" and you can also just hold the screen and do the kinds of things that people like to do while holding a screen in one hand. How many people really want to carry around the extra weight of two screens just so they can have the functionality of both types of devices?
I love the "Customer Images" that were posted on that of crazy car crashes. That's HILARIOUS!
SIG FAULT: Post index out of bounds.
Yes, lets compare a used laptop with a crap used up battery to a band new device...
OR... compare what a new laptop with comparable specs... $600...
The x30's I've bought for work came out at over $1,000...
The future is convertible laptops. Mark my words.
And so is the past.
Convertible tablets have been around for years, I have had 4 in the last 9 years of every size, from 14" Acer, to a 12" Toshiba, to a 5.7" Fujitsu to what I have now, a 12" Fujitsu. The last one is perfect as a convertible, and for me perfect as a laptop. But as a device that I would use continually as a tablet it is not as good. The UI is wrong (WIndows 7), and it is a tad to heavy at a little over 3 lbs. So I have an iPad and when my wife does not steal it I carry it and the Fujitsu. I sync all documents, email, and shortcuts across devices, so it does not matter a lot to me about which one I pick up for a short task; but for a long task it does.
no comment
My n810 runs Linux. I can, if I really needed too, compile stuff on it. At the time when it was somewhat new had Flash support.
These days I mostly run it as a way to remote desktop into my more powerful PCs. That way I get to have Firefox with all it's adblocking glory and whatnot. And really that is really good. If I'm out and about it's too big to lug around unless I'm out on some sort of trip. For that I use my smartphone and it works just fine.
I started off topic so let me close a bit more on topic: Tablets are not laptop replacements, they are not smart phone replacements, they are not desktop replacements, they are something you use in between all of that. More specifically they are something you use on the couch, in bed, or on the john.
And for that they do it quite well. For some reason some people want to think that tablets are laptop replacements. But they are not.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
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From this insightful article
Actually, there was a lot customers could ask. First, why in the world do you need yet another way to heat food? Kitchens already have an oven and range, plus perhaps a toaster, waffle iron, or a grill on the back porch. And the coffee pot can keep coffee hot anyhow. Do you really need another oven? Plus, surely it won’t work quite like an oven, or quite like a stove. It’s like something in the middle. How could we need that?
[...] But, wonder of all wonders, people started buying microwaves and using them regularly. In the store, a microwave didn’t seem like a must-have item to many, but once you incorporated it into your daily life, it was irreplaceable. How in the world did we used to heat up leftovers? Sure, people tried out the crazy, complicated recipes, but for the most part, they found new uses for microwaves. The microwave didn’t have to be a regular oven or stove; it was a wholely new category of cooking device that made cooking accessible to even the least talented guy on earth.
I'm not going to go into the specifics, but there are places you can use the iPad where a laptop would be very uncomfortable, and vice-versa. Does that mean one is better than the other? Is a microwave better than an oven? Even 20 years after the microwave's introduction, I bet anyone would think that question silly.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
The thousands upon thousands of people that use tablets everyday to input tracking information, inspection information, consumer information, etc... might disagree with you. I would even hazard that more are used for data entry than retrieval, at least in commercial circles. Consumers perhaps use it for browsing the web more...
Yes an iPad is handy at watching YouTube on the couch, however tablets in general have a much wider use.
If you think the keyboard is missing at a tablet, then dont buy one.
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Which one?
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Average people do NOT actually like anything called a "computer".
To them "a computer" is something that they have to use, and which occasionally "craps out" on them for baffling reasons. In those cases they have to plead for help from eye-rolling snarky family members or pay lots of money for a semi-autistic 'tech' who may or may not fix it.
This is why the iPad is not a called a "Mac" even though it is.
"Windows" is a toxic brand to most people, somewhere between health insurance companies and the IRS.
This is also why Steve Ballmer is an idiot to name its phone operating system "Windows" anything. Now was the right time to prove that Microsoft can move beyond Windows; people would be more willing to look at it.
Fortunately for them they weren't foolish enough to call their Xbox say "Windows FunToy".
For a moment, forget about how much it costs or whether it can do everything that a laptop can do.
Consider the following use cases:
None of these things would be comfortable, practical, or even possible with a laptop. And that's why I love both of my tablets (iPad and a Nook Color rooted w/ Android Gingerbread).
To blog is sublime
This is the same argument that was made when laptops were made affordable, people questioned why they really needed one when their desktops worked just fine. The same argument when cell phones started getting popular, who needs one of those I have a home phone and a pager. The same argument when smart phone started getting popular, I have a pda why would I need all that on my phone. Those who want one will get one, those that dont will find an excuse as to why they dont want one...same shit different technology. I find tablets useful myself, in fact my laptop has been gathering dust most of the time for the past 3 6 months or so since I have had one, for my usual daily activities it does everything I need to and when I come home its more convenient to sit in front of the desktop, but thats just my situation it doesn't work for everyone, it doesn't mean I cant see how a laptop is more useful for some jobs. Thats the beauty of technology these days, there are a multitude of choices and people can pick what does the job best for them, I really dont understand why some feel the need to disparage the choices of others though.
It's amusing that you think spellcheck would have helped.
I'm an Apple fanboi by pointing out that his $99 dollar Android tablet is a piece of shit yet there are all sorts of sites that will back me up with their reviews that say the same thing? Also, I've never bought or owned an Apple device in my entire life and I currently use a Galaxy S as my phone so applying the fanboi label to me seems odd. You Android zealots are quite cute though. Keep flailing, it's pretty funny.
I just connect the shop-vac hose to the outlet. Sure it doesn't have the instantaneous velocity of canned air, but the shear (pun intended) continuous volume is quite moving (play on words also intended).
Thats that.
"Post pc world" ? such a phrase is only for the fools who do not produce anything for others' consumption, but instead consume facebook posts, flickr images and spoon fed video/audio content.
let me tell you what's overrated :
sorting out your vacation pictures in an overpriced tablet.
Read radical news here
Luckily the cheese is hardened. This decreases the risk.
Great, where can I buy one for $99????
iPad useful? I think it's a matter of opinion.
I haven't traveled with my laptop since I bought my iPad. Since the laptop -- while traveling -- was used for replying to emails, surfing the 'net, and the occasional game, and the iPad could do all those things, I no longer felt it necessary to carry my 17 inch laptop in a big heavy bag when I could carry something the size of a notepad. The iPad gets used when I want to look something up on the internet while I'm watching TV. It gets used to stream films occasionally, though not often. When my son was in a book club, I took it with me and worked or browsed or whatever until the book club was over. It gets taken to meetings for notes, it housed the app that kept track of my hours for consultant work. It even produced the invoices for that work.
Useful? To me, certainly. Is it necessary? Of course not. It does nothing one of my desktops or my laptop couldn't do. On the other hand, my laptop wouldn't ever be taken to meetings, never sat on the couch beside me just so I could pick it up if I wanted to.
The iPad is more convenient, it goes more places, and what it does, it does extremely well.
I had a netbook. The keyboard was smaller than the keyboard on my iPad. It had less memory, less disk, and never got used. I sold it. Someday soon I'll upgrade to the iPad 2. My old iPad won't get sold -- my son has wanted one since he first saw mine. I'm considering getting my Mom one as well. She has a laptop, but for her needs -- mostly internet and email -- the security of not having to worry about bots and viruses on the machine is a very big plus, especially since I'm the one that gets to fix the problems. (No, while Linux would work, it's not a solution. Long explanation which I won't go into.)
So, just because you don't find a tablet useful doesn't mean it isn't useful or worthwhile to others.
Sean.
Neither of those screenshots are even close to looking like something with as much graphical complexity as WoW.
You got me curious. Had WOW had a sudden leap in quality since I last saw it?
Looks like NOT.
I don't see anything there that is not equalled by Epic Citadel.
Yes that was an engine demo but you could walk through it freely - and it looked great on the first iPad. Add in more characters and some animations and it seems like you could easily equal the quality of graphics WOW players enjoy today on the iPad2, scaled back a bit on the first iPad.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You post made my teeth hurt.
Man, can you believe this shit? 600+ comments for a completely braindead post by some idiot, who has no idea what he is writing about... I can't believe it is happening on /. here..... :(
If I had to choose an ultimate machine to use on the go, it would be a netbook with touchscreen. Then you have the keyboard, and you don't have to fiddle about on that microscopic touchpad those things usually have.
What is the one thing you can do on a tablet and not on a laptop?
You are drawing a meaningless distinction. Both are computers and it is possible to do the same tasks on each but not in the same way. They are used in different ways because the interface is different. A tablet is more comfortable for certain tasks and a laptop is more comfortable for others. It is not that you can't do something on one that the other can't do. The difference is in what is comfortable and efficient to do on each. I'd much rather read a book on a tablet and do a spreadsheet on a laptop but it's quite possible to do both on either device. Choose the best tool for the job at hand.
I was just saying that in my own humble opinion, they are too expensive for what they are.
Depends on your specific needs. Very well might be true for you. However the price will come down. Laptops have had far more time to develop economies of scale. This will happen to tablets in due time but it will not be immediate.
I can take a book on the subway and do the same thing.
Of course you can take a book however you cannot take a whole library with you. You can't play a game on your book. You can't read email on your book. You can't view a spreadsheet on your book. You can't surf the web on your book. You can't listen to music on your book. You can't watch a movie on your book.
There is nothing wrong with a book but let's not pretend you are comparing apples to apples here.
The biggest missing feature of any tablet is the ability to run a compiler. I frequently have to program on-the-go and a laptop is the only solution.
Maybe I should have clarified myself.
You cannot enter extensive information onto a tablet by typing (well you can, but I pity anyone stuck in that situation). They are not built for that.
But yes, as you pointed out you can use them to populate lists via checkboxes, comboboxes and the odd sentence here and there.
That's it! The solution for the soon to be extinct Easy Bake Oven... we just put old laptops inside of them instead of the 100 watt bulbs! Someone get a hold of FisherPrice pronto! We got a solution!
And now 602 - oh, bugger.
Well, G'ooh!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9XNfWNooz4
Did it cost more than 300$?
Apple products are generally for blonde's sipping on Caramel Frappachino's at starbucks. I agree that the portability and build quality of an iPad is nice, but its not a real computer nor is it nearly as practical as an eReader. $599 to tire your eyes trying to read on a LCD and watch youtube video's is pretty dumb. Netbooks are practical e-readers are practical iPad is dumb
I just don't see the point of tablets, we don't need them. Why do we need something that's not quite a smartphone and not quite a laptop? Would you buy a massive smartphone that can't make calls or fit in your pocket or a laptop without a keyboard or disk drive? When the Ipad came out people did what they always do when apple releases something: instantly buy into the hype, assume they'll be left in the stone age without one, and pay out the nose for the shiny thing. If Steve Jobs decides he wants to combine widescreen TV's and laptops then Apple and their astute marketing team will convince the average consumer their life depends on buying the iWall or they'll be shipped off to Africa.
It's like the mind going AWOL, it's there somewhere
If you don't like very sweet chocolate you should do what I do - buy the > 70% cocoa bars. There are 85% cocoa ones which are quite nice, some even go up to 99% but I've never tried those, not sure I'd enjoy those.
The answer? Nokia N900. Multitasking, the full web experience, a hardware keyboard, USB OTG for plugging in usb drives, fullsized keyboards and anything else you want*
It also doesn't need a computer for anything - You can do everything but a full OS reinstall right from the device, over wifi or 3G.
And all in a device that fits in the palm of your hand - No need to tote a case around everywhere.
*Requires extra community-created software.
Seriously, my N900's replaced my laptop almost entirely. In addition, I can check Slashdot at any time of the day or night without a second thought - just pull it out and hit the slashdot icon. No 1-2 minute boot sequence, no pulling out a large laptop or tablet. Just use it.
I'm an Apple fanboi by pointing out that his $99 dollar Android tablet is a piece of shit yet there are all sorts of sites that will back me up with their reviews that say the same thing?
Well, he seems happy with his purchase -- isn't that all that matters? He streams HD video, surfs the web, and seems perfectly satisfied with the speed and app selection.
For $99, it sounds like he made a good choice.
Way back in '99 or 2000 I picked up a Casio PV-400+ (Like a cheap-o Palm Pilot for under $100) It was the best buy I ever made. Sure, it was obviously inferior to Palm's competing products -- but it did exactly what I needed it to do, and did it remarkably well.
It had good PIM features, a surprisingly usable spreadsheet, an instant access "write on the screen" memo pad, and battery life no modern equivalent can hope to match (the manual said 180 hours of use -- I changed the batteries about every 6-10 weeks.)
I got at least three years worth of very heavy use out of it. I still haven't found a replacement that is half as easy or convenient to use or is anywhere close to as reliable.
Not too bad for a cheap knock-off product.
If he finds that his $99 tablet adequately meets his needs and he's satisfied with the performance, does it really matter that it's "a piece of shit"?
Required reading for internet skeptics
Who uses canned air? I have an air compressor that is only as expensive as the power it uses and is more powerful for that stubborn dust inside heatsinks. They don't cost much and are grate for spray painting and air brushing. Someone in your family/friend must have one somewhere.
Unicode in Slashdot
Hey, take it easy buddy. You've got your work cut out for you just convincing those crazy people who made your netbook to put the apostrophe on the home row instead of that pesky waste-of-a-key semi-colon. While you work on that, I'll investigate this "over-sized iPod Touches for people with bad eyesight and big wallets" thing by heading for Starbucks to see if I can find some blondes.
Sherman, set the Wayback... "Yes, we know laptops like the ThinkPad are the wave of the future and that PCs are dead. But some of us see laptops as PCs with their keyboards and monitors attached and a few thousand bucks tacked onto the price." Yet, here we are, at least a decade later, and laptops, although they outsell desktops, are not the only computers around. New tech rarely completely eliminates the old. Yes, 8-tracks are history, but vinyl and cassettes are still around and are seeing a resurgence. When it comes to technology death sentences, I wait until the body is cold.
Pretty... and pricy...
Price it a little higher than an iPod and I might be interested though for what that gives me relative to my existing desktop and laptop I still don't think I will pay more than about $200 for any tablet in the near future...
And the ipad gets wet and dies. Thereby taking $700 with it. So you can't actually take the tablet everywhere you go. Also, bag gets run over: dead iPad. Suitcase dropped on? Dead.
So, no, the differences are not paper/hard back book.
The difference is more like a limited laptop with borked integrated graphics vs full laptop. Except in this case, the full featured one is a quarter the price.
Yes I attempted to design some handheld apps with the same limitations.
One thing that has changed with the new tablets, is that as hard as it is to type on them, its about 100x easier than it used to be!
Then develop a web interface on both. Oh, look, he finishes while the battery is still working AND gets time off to bugger off outside to smell the roses.
Oh yes!
I remember using Palm Pilots to register stock deliveries in an old job of mine.
It would take a couple of minutes to inspect the goods and 5 minutes to use the app to sign for the delivery and use the clunky interface on a small screen. Most of the problems were due to digitizer drift and bad UI but the experience was horrible.
Palm Pilots were great at their time (I still think that the T|X is the best overall device I've ever used) but in hindsight you can see how limited they were...
There are tons of point-of-sale applications, inventory control, logistics applications which crave a connected tablet device and that people use for real work everyday--the iPad is a boon to this industry.
The medical industry is being revolutionized by devices like this. Doctors can carry an iPad and easily lookup X-rays and lab results and chart info from anywhere in the hospital.
There is a huge rush to outfit kids with Down Syndrome and Cerebral Palsy with devices like this because it works better than any of the specialized augmentative communication devices that existed before and it costs 1/10th as much.
And yes, Grandma can use it to see pictures of her grandkids and Facetime with them.
But in your world, it is a toy for goofing off with, not something real that adds value to the planet.
The real world is bigger than your world, dick.