4 ms·

I've never really understood tablets. I'm of the opinion that if I was going to carry around something too big to fit in a pocket, I might as well just make th

by beoba 16y ago

I've never really understood tablets. I'm of the opinion that if I was going to carry around something too big to fit in a pocket, I might as well just make that thing a laptop.

pohl 16y ago
I love mine. I never carry it around, but I use it all the time. I guess I sometimes carry it from the nightstand to the sofa, or to the kitchen, or to my desk to sync. Those journeys are too brief for a pocket.
- beoba 16y ago
  Yeah, I do that with my laptop. It does everything, and I can use it for hours without discomfort.
  - pohl 16y ago
    I like to lay flat on my back - with my 14 month old son napping on my chest - watching some tech presentation video (or browsing, or even playing the LASW RTS. These are sublime moments that my laptop can't bring me.
    - dablya 16y ago
      I'm having a hard time picturing this being comfortable (or more comfortable than having a laptop sitting next to you). Are you holding the tablet above your son the entire time? Don't your arms get tired?
      - pohl 16y ago
        I had to watch myself do it because I had never noticed the specifics. Turns out it varies. Sometimes I'm holding it over him, but the weight is being transferred through my forearm to the sofa beside my body through one or both elbows. Other times my hand is just balancing it and little Henry's diaper-padded posterior is propping it up. I have a cover on it that flips behind the tablet,like one would fold a magazine cover behind a magazine, and sometimes I hold the thing with my index finger extended horizontally into this hinge, with a moment of force being applied by the side of the device into the palm of my hand. It's never been something I had given much though to. The idea of craning my neck and reaching my arms to operate a laptop on the table beside me strikes my as uncomfortable, though. To each their own, I guess.
ZoFreX 16y ago
I don't "get" them either... I have a smartphone and a netbook, and I don't see what a tablet would bring to the table. Apparently my netbook "isn't better at anything", I must have missed the release of Eclipse for iPad /s
rsaarelm 16y ago
They should make great viewers for non-reflowable nonfiction PDFs where you want to jump around the document a lot. Laptops don't fare so well with documents that want to be in full-screen portrait orientation, and e-ink devices have a large display latency.
- ylem 16y ago
  That was one of the main reasons I bought my iPad--it let's me read/annotate PDFs. This is great for when I travel!
epochwolf 16y ago
> I'm of the opinion that if I was going to carry around something too big to fit in a pocket, I might as well just make that thing a laptop. If I want to go out to a coffee shop and do some writing I have a netbook bag that I throw my iPad, a set of earbuds and an apple wireless keyboard into. It's great because it's a lot easier to focus on writing than it is with my laptop. I use Elements which syncs to dropbox. I also use that bag if I want to just hang out, sip coffee, and read the latest book I downloaded. I love my iPad. It makes so many small tasks so much easier. Right now it's streaming a SomaFM station. I can look through and pick stations on the SomaFM app faster than I can dig through their website. It also makes a wonderful remote for my Apple TV. Edit: I haven't had much exposure to smart phones aside from a blackberry that I didn't care for. I have owned an IBM ThinkPad 750 which is basically ye olde netbook. (Yay 14.4 modems)
tygorius 16y ago
Interesting that your chosen alternative was a laptop rather than a netbook. Along those lines, if you think in terms of the evolution of personal computers as desktop -> laptop -> netbook -> tablet, that last step is a puzzler. If you take the author's 10 reasons and strip out the stuff that's a retread of previous products ("Look, it's portable! And OMG you can watch movies!") it seems to me you're left with one key point: the user interface makes it fun & easy to use. I don't think it's an accident that the only two tablet platforms that look viable so far, Apple and Android, are based on years of usability testing in the smartphone arena. Tablets may be computers inside, but in terms of product design they're consumer entertainment devices.

by beoba 16y ago

I've never really understood tablets. I'm of the opinion that if I was going to carry around something too big to fit in a pocket, I might as well just make that thing a laptop.

pohl 16y ago

I love mine. I never carry it around, but I use it all the time. I guess I sometimes carry it from the nightstand to the sofa, or to the kitchen, or to my desk to sync. Those journeys are too brief for a pocket.

beoba 16y ago
Yeah, I do that with my laptop. It does everything, and I can use it for hours without discomfort.
- pohl 16y ago
  I like to lay flat on my back - with my 14 month old son napping on my chest - watching some tech presentation video (or browsing, or even playing the LASW RTS. These are sublime moments that my laptop can't bring me.
  - dablya 16y ago
    I'm having a hard time picturing this being comfortable (or more comfortable than having a laptop sitting next to you). Are you holding the tablet above your son the entire time? Don't your arms get tired?
    - pohl 16y ago
      I had to watch myself do it because I had never noticed the specifics. Turns out it varies. Sometimes I'm holding it over him, but the weight is being transferred through my forearm to the sofa beside my body through one or both elbows. Other times my hand is just balancing it and little Henry's diaper-padded posterior is propping it up. I have a cover on it that flips behind the tablet,like one would fold a magazine cover behind a magazine, and sometimes I hold the thing with my index finger extended horizontally into this hinge, with a moment of force being applied by the side of the device into the palm of my hand. It's never been something I had given much though to. The idea of craning my neck and reaching my arms to operate a laptop on the table beside me strikes my as uncomfortable, though. To each their own, I guess.

ZoFreX 16y ago

I don't "get" them either... I have a smartphone and a netbook, and I don't see what a tablet would bring to the table. Apparently my netbook "isn't better at anything", I must have missed the release of Eclipse for iPad /s

rsaarelm 16y ago

They should make great viewers for non-reflowable nonfiction PDFs where you want to jump around the document a lot. Laptops don't fare so well with documents that want to be in full-screen portrait orientation, and e-ink devices have a large display latency.

ylem 16y ago
That was one of the main reasons I bought my iPad--it let's me read/annotate PDFs. This is great for when I travel!

epochwolf 16y ago

> I'm of the opinion that if I was going to carry around something too big to fit in a pocket, I might as well just make that thing a laptop. If I want to go out to a coffee shop and do some writing I have a netbook bag that I throw my iPad, a set of earbuds and an apple wireless keyboard into. It's great because it's a lot easier to focus on writing than it is with my laptop. I use Elements which syncs to dropbox. I also use that bag if I want to just hang out, sip coffee, and read the latest book I downloaded. I love my iPad. It makes so many small tasks so much easier. Right now it's streaming a SomaFM station. I can look through and pick stations on the SomaFM app faster than I can dig through their website. It also makes a wonderful remote for my Apple TV. Edit: I haven't had much exposure to smart phones aside from a blackberry that I didn't care for. I have owned an IBM ThinkPad 750 which is basically ye olde netbook. (Yay 14.4 modems)

tygorius 16y ago

Interesting that your chosen alternative was a laptop rather than a netbook. Along those lines, if you think in terms of the evolution of personal computers as desktop -> laptop -> netbook -> tablet, that last step is a puzzler. If you take the author's 10 reasons and strip out the stuff that's a retread of previous products ("Look, it's portable! And OMG you can watch movies!") it seems to me you're left with one key point: the user interface makes it fun & easy to use. I don't think it's an accident that the only two tablet platforms that look viable so far, Apple and Android, are based on years of usability testing in the smartphone arena. Tablets may be computers inside, but in terms of product design they're consumer entertainment devices.