Printable View
With the announcement of the iPad 3, I have to again try and understand the appeal of tablets.They are weaker than laptops,don't have keyboards,have a limited OS, are kind of expensive.To make matters worse, people are starting to talk as if tablets are the future of computers.Am I missing something or is everyone just caught up in a fad?,what does everyone else think.
its good for old people and people who dont know how to use computers
They are mostly used for work related purposes. For casual use I dont see much point in them.
What kind of work?Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkDragon
Scheduling and Video conferencing
I would like one for digital comicbook/gaming magazine purposes, but I find it hard to put down the heavy price for a good tablet
when all I'll do with it is read my comics and email.
The thought of reading books and comics on a tablet seems so weird to me. I guess to todays younger generation thats what they prefer.
A combination of battery life, portability, and screen size. iPads last forever and are extremely portable. If you're on a plane going over the ocean, you can be entertained for 10 hours straight and not have to give up much storage space. No laptop (or other device) can match its battery life, portability and screen size combination. It just makes the iPad really useful on the go.
Also, surfing the web with a touch interface is much more fluid than using a mouse and clicking on links. It is MUCH less clunky and really makes it feel like you're effortlessly navigating the web.
The iPad (or tablet market) is not a complete replacement for laptops, but when you don't need to do serious typing or raw horsepower, it surpasses the laptop or subnotebook's utility in just about every area that matters for a portable. For most road warriors, those two features just aren't that necessary. The iPad is powerful enough to surf the web, watch movies, play games, and its keyboard is adequate for firing off emails and texts. I think laptops will diminish to power users in the future.
I just hate tablets in general, they are fairly fragile, especially with the touchscreen. It is nothing more than an enlarged PDA and overall more of a pain in the ass. You have to carry it around like a Laptop, but it confers no advantages over one other than being lighter. I feel yes this is a fad, when people realize that the item they bought is inferior to a full sized machine the concept will get dropped in the toilet, at least for the public userbase.
Tablets are the future because they are the ultimate consumable proprietary device. I know IT managers who swear by them, but they're all just damned consumers who buy every new thing that comes along. One of them swears he can type faster on a tablet keyboard than he can on a real one. I asked him if he could type over 100wps and he lied and said yes.
What's more, my wife had an ipad given to her by the school district to see how it could be used to teach kids. She got hooked on using it a mere six months after I bought her a toshiba mini laptop. Then she wanted an iphone, then I got an android, now she wants to upgrade her new to her iphone when contract time comes around. For a guy who keeps 15 old game consoles hooked up at all times, and repairs or upgrades his own PCs, this is a disaster. I just keep asking why she wants that stuff, and it's because the devices are designed to be consumable/replaceable.
What's worse, everybody is moving from laptops to these, and there is NO SUPPORTING tablets, so there goes my side business too.
They're more practical than laptops to watch movies and surf the web in a mobile context, some kinds of work too.
Only a good ultraportable like the macbook air or the one by samsung can compete, but they're much more expensive.
EDIT: I'd never buy one though, as it doesn't fit my needs, and I can afford an ultraportable.
They will stop being a fad until they put a full OS on all of them. I watch all my shows online (the free kind ;)). Until I get to do that with a tablet, I won't see much use for them. But they're getting close, though.
Has anyone ever jailbroken an Ipad yet/before? That's the only way I'd ever buy one...
For the mostpart I think that tablet owners are in denial that they made a poor purchase or that the product is inferior to alternatives. The only tablet that really did things right was the OQO series which had a legitimate OS on it rather than a stripped down one or one modified from a PDA styled one. The iPad, HP pad, those ones that run off of Android and all that crap, they rely on advertisement to make the product seem much more functional than they actually are.
Tablets aren't about functionality, they're about convenience. I didn't really understand why someone would pay for a Macbook Air till I actually spent some time with one.
Well, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that thinks it's a novelty item.
I see a lot of people here claiming tablets will only be good with a full OS. You're quite mistaken. "Tablets" with a full OS already existed, nobody bought them because they were slow, clunky and had terrible battery life. Apple was the first company to figure out tablets didn't need more functionality, they needed less. Microsoft is now trying to do a "hybrid" OS, something that's a full OS but with a tablet UI on top (windows 8). I've beta tested it. It's garbage. You end up only using each "half" on the specific system (tablet or pc), while having to use the other half for some things in a very clunky and impractical matter. The only point I see in it is so you can connect the tablet to a keyboard and mouse and turn it into a full laptop.
You can't have a "full OS" on a tablet, it just doesn't work.
Again, it's about practicality, not functionality. If you can't figure this out (as in, you're the kind of people that buy 17'' laptops), you're not the target audience to begin with.
EDIT: There is the issue that at smartphone + laptop kinda fit every usage of a tablet + more... So tablets are still somewhat pointless.
My mum just got one and that describes her!Quote:
Originally Posted by streetsofrage
And don't forget the damn yuppies, and their ignorant children who yell at me in school because I don't have an iPad. Why would I even want one?Quote:
Originally Posted by streetsofrage
Sadly true, my father reads computer magazines and they're saying tablets and laptops are going to merge in the future. I shake my head "no" in shame.Quote:
Originally Posted by kokujin