IPads and tablets

Joined
Feb 21, 2004
Messages
4,756
They've been out for a few years now and most of the unwarranted hype around them should be over.

Do you use one? Which one? What's your experience? Can they replace most daily tasks of a laptop, such as bank errands? Any drawbacks?


Edit: How does Steam and games play on IPad? Thinking about it, Valve should just release their own tablet with SteamOS and some browser. Maybe I'll wait for that instead.
 
Do you use one? Which one?

I have a gen1 Surface RT.

What's your experience?

I use it for reading RSS feeds and emails in bed and watching movies on trips.

It's great at movies, 16:9 screen, 10+ hours of battery life, built-in kickstand, hands-down the best mobile movie-watching platform.

Can they replace most daily tasks of a laptop, such as bank errands?

In a manner. I've used it for a couple months as my only PC, but with my regular mouse/keyboard plugged in via USB hub, monitor plugged in via hdmi, and using remote desktop to a full Win8 machine.

Any drawbacks?

The processor is painfully slow and makes web browsing a terrible experience.

Edit: How does Steam and games play on IPad?

It doesn't. You could possible get an acceptable experience using RDP with RemoteFX, but I don't really care to. Does support either wired or wireless 360 controllers though, which is nice.

Only serious tablet-y gaming platforms are tablets running Win8 with reasonable GPUs(Surface Pro 2, Razer Edge) or the Nvidia Shield for PC streaming.
 
I also have a Surface RT. It's too slow to do any serious work on, but it's a fantastic thing to play around with. I love the design of it and the look of the OS. I mostly use it for bumping around online and listening to music.
 
Thank you for the answers! The use of it still seems pretty limited. If it was better for web browsing and supported suitable, non-mobile games it might have been worth a look.

The app interface ruins it a bit.
 
Well the speed is a problem specifically with the Surface RT, the Tegra 3 SoC is nearly two years old, modern tablets of any OS have much more punch, and something like the Surface Pro is going to be faster than 90%+ of laptops people use.

And like I said, you've got options if you want non-mobile games, the Razer Edge, Surface Pro 2 (with xbox controller) or Nvidia Shield are all good.

Not quite sure what you mean by the app interface - Surface Pro runs the full Windows desktop (and RT runs desktop for MS apps, but you can't install third-party desktop apps), but the Windows desktop is terrible for touch use, so I don't know why you'd really want it on a tablet you're going to use as a tablet anyway.
 
I was thinking that being able to play some of the mac/pc games I've got on Steam would be a fairly large argument for getting a tablet, but I guess it's not that simple. The civ games or FTL seems suitable for tablets.

I'll wait and see how the SteamOS project envelops.
 
Tablets just don't do anything for me - if a large smartphone isn't enough, I prefer a small laptop.
 
Tablets just don't do anything for me - if a large smartphone isn't enough, I prefer a small laptop.

:shrug:. If I have a desktop at home to handle my more powerful computing (games n junk), I'd much rather have a far more portable, far more convenient tablet than a laptop.
 
Portability really depends on specifics and capabilities - a Surface Pro with Type Cover is ~18mm thick with a 10.6" screen, while a Macbook Air is 17mm thick with an 11" screen - their footprint is nearly identical.

Only real difference in capabilities (other than OS) is the touch capabilities and much better screen on the Surface Pro, but that's mostly a matter of choice by Apple.
 
Sizes, weights, form factors... things are pretty continuous these days from smartphone to desktop replacement. At the 1kg mark, you have tablets with add-ons, hybrids, laptops with a few tricks (foldable, double-sided or detachable screens), and some very sweet old-fashioned laptops.

I went for Sony's Vaio Pro, because that got me a reasonable 13" touchscreen at 1080g (same weight as the 11" Macbook Air).
 
I really like the mini-tablets. E.g., the iPad mini or the Nexus 7 (or the new Nexus whatever it's called).

Seems like the right size for what a tablet really is, which is a much bigger smartphone with more power but minus the phone.
 
Back
Top Bottom