ipad vs. other tablet

[crimsonandclover]

My personal laptop is dying, and I'm trying to decide whether to get another laptop or go to a convertible tablet. I'm leaning towards tablet right now based on what I'll be using it for and am wondering whether to get an ipad or another tablet.

What do you have and what do you recommend? I'll basically want it for e-mail, surfing the web, and an occasional Word document (Christmas letter and the like), but I will also want it to skype with my parents. I have a Kindle, but I suppose if I take the tablet on a trip then I'll just use it as an e-reader, as well (assuming the battery life is adequate).

[GilliC]

Would you still have easy access to another computer? I love my iPad, but there are some things that I just can't do with it. There are certain web technologies that aren't completely compatible. For example, some of my banking sites, photobook creation, etc. can't be done on the iPad. It's tolerable for light word processing if you have a keyboard and mouse to use with it, but it wouldn't be my first choice. And I find message boards can be tedious and require a bit of patience because they don't always have all the features, the pages sometimes refresh in the middle of posting if you switch tabs to look something up, etc.

I like having a tablet to keep in my purse, but the only reasons I choose to use it at home over the laptop is that I don't have to get it out, boot it, or plug it in (my laptop battery is old). Setup aside, I'd actually rather do most things on my laptop.

[crimsonandclover]

My old laptop (that I'm currently typing on) can no longer be used as a portable laptop - my battery completely died and I had to take it out and plug the laptop in with the AC adapter, so I'm now chained to the wall. So I can keep this laptop in the office and use it for things that I need it for, but if I want to go downstairs and surf on the couch in the evenings, I would have to plug it into the wall down there. Doable, but a bit of a pain.
In general it's a bit of a pain since it's a 17.3" laptop (as it was my only computer screen for doing my PhD I wanted to make sure it was big enough), so I would like the portability of a tablet for in the house and taking to conferences.
Also, in a pinch I could use my designated work laptop. For tax purposes I should only be using it for work, but if I use it to write a Christmas letter or something, I'm not going to feel terribly guilty. DH also has a PC. We have no shortages of computer options in this house!

ETA - I realize I could just get a new battery for this laptop, but the laptop is big, it's 4 years old, and new batteries are expensive. That's why I'm just looking at a new unit.

[GilliC]

As long as you can keep using the old one, then my concerns are assuaged!

As for an iPad vs something else, I can't really give an opinion, because I've only ever owned iPads. However, I've loved them, and so many people I know who have them are happy with them.

I only know a few people with other kinds of tablets. Most of the people who rave about them are avid anti-Apple types. I do know one neutral person who bought a Galaxy Tab just to give it a try and is actually disappointed enough that he plans to switch to an iPad when he gets around to replacing it. But this is all second-hand.

[crimsonandclover]

Hm. I've been anti-Mac in the past because I just can't get past the one-button mouse. I had to use a Mac for a job I had in college and detested it. I don't have anything against Apple in principle, and if they would just put a stupid second button on their mice then I probably would have tried one out long ago. But does that even play a role on a tablet?

The Galaxy was actually one of the main ones I was looking at. Do you know what size your friend had? Lots of people seem to have problems with the 7" (about 4/5 of the 1-star reviews are from people who got the 7" one) while the 10" one (the one I was looking at) seems to not have the same problems. Why doesn't your friend like his Galaxy?

[GilliC]

Honestly I can't even recall who it was. I feel like the availability of apps was part of it, but I'm not at all sure.

I also hate the 1-button mouse, but it doesn't really factor into the tablet since it's all touch.

[Deleted]

Personally, I would recommend an 11" MacBook Air. I love mine, and it's only slightly bigger than an iPad, but you can do SO MUCH MORE on it. Like compose email or word documents, use all of the normal Office type stuff you'd do on a regular laptop. but it's super light and thin and easy to travel with. My parents both have iPads and insist on getting the weird cases with the keyboards….and honestly it's just ridiculous. Their iPad + keyboard combos are only slightly smaller than my MacBook Air, almost as expensive by the time you price everything out, and can't do as much. And the keyboard is still really small and not as functional as my nearly-full-sized one. Not to mention that they have to sit at a table to use the keyboard part, which completely defeats the purpose of having a tablet, IMO.

I'm confused about what you mean by "one-button mouse." This must be an old thing with Apple? Because I can do so much more with the touchpad on my MacBook than I can do with a regular PC mouse. You can normal click, two-finger click (equivalent to right-click), swipe to home screen, swipe to scroll….it's really easy and intuitive, and going back to PC mouse functions bugs the crap out of my because I lose functionality. Pretty much everyone I know who has tried a Mac in the last 5 years has fallen in love and won't ever go back to PCs.

[crimsonandclover]

Jan 2, 2014 19:43:34 GMT -5 @villainv said:

Personally, I would recommend an 11" MacBook Air. I love mine, and it's only slightly bigger than an iPad, but you can do SO MUCH MORE on it. Like compose email or word documents, use all of the normal Office type stuff you'd do on a regular laptop. but it's super light and thin and easy to travel with. My parents both have iPads and insist on getting the weird cases with the keyboards….and honestly it's just ridiculous. Their iPad + keyboard combos are only slightly smaller than my MacBook Air, almost as expensive by the time you price everything out, and can't do as much. And the keyboard is still really small and not as functional as my nearly-full-sized one. Not to mention that they have to sit at a table to use the keyboard part, which completely defeats the purpose of having a tablet, IMO.

I'm confused about what you mean by "one-button mouse." This must be an old thing with Apple? Because I can do so much more with the touchpad on my MacBook than I can do with a regular PC mouse. You can normal click, two-finger click (equivalent to right-click), swipe to home screen, swipe to scroll….it's really easy and intuitive, and going back to PC mouse functions bugs the crap out of my because I lose functionality. Pretty much everyone I know who has tried a Mac in the last 5 years has fallen in love and won't ever go back to PCs.

What you described sounded perfect (and I would definitely get the case with a keyboard with any tablet). I went on amazon and saw the price, though, and that's out of the range I can spend right now. I'm looking at max 500€ (ca. $700).

[Deleted]

Jan 3, 2014 2:24:31 GMT -5 crimsonandclover said:

Jan 2, 2014 19:43:34 GMT -5 @villainv said:

Personally, I would recommend an 11" MacBook Air. I love mine, and it's only slightly bigger than an iPad, but you can do SO MUCH MORE on it. Like compose email or word documents, use all of the normal Office type stuff you'd do on a regular laptop. but it's super light and thin and easy to travel with. My parents both have iPads and insist on getting the weird cases with the keyboards….and honestly it's just ridiculous. Their iPad + keyboard combos are only slightly smaller than my MacBook Air, almost as expensive by the time you price everything out, and can't do as much. And the keyboard is still really small and not as functional as my nearly-full-sized one. Not to mention that they have to sit at a table to use the keyboard part, which completely defeats the purpose of having a tablet, IMO.

I'm confused about what you mean by "one-button mouse." This must be an old thing with Apple? Because I can do so much more with the touchpad on my MacBook than I can do with a regular PC mouse. You can normal click, two-finger click (equivalent to right-click), swipe to home screen, swipe to scroll….it's really easy and intuitive, and going back to PC mouse functions bugs the crap out of my because I lose functionality. Pretty much everyone I know who has tried a Mac in the last 5 years has fallen in love and won't ever go back to PCs.

What you described sounded perfect (and I would definitely get the case with a keyboard with any tablet). I went on amazon and saw the price, though, and that's out of the range I can spend right now. I'm looking at max 500€ (ca. $700).

Yeah, they are expensive.  Just didn't want you to discount Macs forever because of the mouse issue because I'm pretty sure that doesn't exist anymore :-)  

You might look at the Microsoft Surface tablet too.  Apparently you can run actual windows on it just like you would a laptop.  I have no idea what price point they're coming in at though.

[mrsukyankee]

I have an iPad and my DH has a tablet. If I were to buy a new one, I'd go with the tablet versus the iPad. I can't get on anything that requires flash and I don't own an iPhone so can't synch stuff.

[crimsonandclover]

So based on the feedback here (before your comment, mrsukyankee) and my DH (who has a tablet) saying that he would probably go with an ipad given the choice again, I went ahead and got an ipad Air. We'll see how it goes... I'm mystified by the touchscreen commands on DH's tablet anyway (I almost never use it, and when I do I get frustrated very quickly because it does things I don't want it to), so I figure whether I learn on an ipad or tablet is irrelevant.

And Macs don't have the one-button mouse anymore?? Cool! That might actually put them in the running for me in the future, although now it will (hopefully) be several years before I have to make another computer purchase.

[allibally]

Enjoy it!

I've played with other tablet screens and for me the ipad is just way more responsive to touch. I still have a laptop but I find myself using my ipad mini way more. Which is surprising because for awhile I was so adamant that I didn't need a tablet.

[crimsonandclover]

So I ordered the ipad Air from the mstore online the other day. The package arrived today. I opened it and found a copy of Mmagazine, 12 copies of a Hamburg local paper, and... that's it. What the what? No ipad. So far I can't get through to apple's service hotline, either. Awesome. Things are not getting off to an auspicious start.

[GilliC]

Jan 8, 2014 6:34:03 GMT -5 crimsonandclover said:

So I ordered the ipad Air from the mstore online the other day. The package arrived today. I opened it and found a copy of Mmagazine, 12 copies of a Hamburg local paper, and... that's it. What the what? No ipad. So far I can't get through to apple's service hotline, either. Awesome. Things are not getting off to an auspicious start.

Oh no! Did it look like the package been tampered with?

[allibally]

Jan 8, 2014 6:34:03 GMT -5 crimsonandclover said:

So I ordered the ipad Air from the mstore online the other day. The package arrived today. I opened it and found a copy of Mmagazine, 12 copies of a Hamburg local paper, and... that's it. What the what? No ipad. So far I can't get through to apple's service hotline, either. Awesome. Things are not getting off to an auspicious start.

Yikes. This was happening around the US too. At Target.

[lin]

This is probably a bit late to weigh in here but DH and I just went through this same debate; we each had laptops and smartphones that weren't getting any younger, plus an iPad that we have been "sharing" (though DH gradually started using it for more and more at work over the past year to the point that I hardly ever got my hands on it anymore.) Anyway, long story short, he finally went and got himself the Microsoft Surface as it seemed to be the best of both worlds. The screen detaches so you can use it as a tablet, but it has a good keyboard, better than those that you can use with iPads. So it's really a laptop and tablet in one. It does everything a laptop can do and runs Windows 8. Not sure if it can run all the apps that an iPad would though, but he's really happy with it. It's a lot lighter than a laptop and cheaper than the MacBooks (he's not a big fan of Macs anyway.) I think it ran us about US$1,000 so a good $500-$600 cheaper than a Mac laptop. Anyway, now we're both happy cause it means I get the iPad back! Good luck!

[crimsonandclover]

Jan 8, 2014 10:29:14 GMT -5 GilliC said:

Jan 8, 2014 6:34:03 GMT -5 crimsonandclover said:

So I ordered the ipad Air from the mstore online the other day. The package arrived today. I opened it and found a copy of Mmagazine, 12 copies of a Hamburg local paper, and... that's it. What the what? No ipad. So far I can't get through to apple's service hotline, either. Awesome. Things are not getting off to an auspicious start.

Oh no! Did it look like the package been tampered with?

No. We're guessing it was someone in the logistics department who took out the ipad and replaced it with the papers so the weight was still the same before sending if off. Thankfully the store finally got back to us and is taking it seriously. I had to file a report with the post office today and the apple people said to keep the papers so that the police can take fingerprints from them if necessary.

[Deleted]

Jan 9, 2014 7:21:26 GMT -5 lin said:

This is probably a bit late to weigh in here but DH and I just went through this same debate; we each had laptops and smartphones that weren't getting any younger, plus an iPad that we have been "sharing" (though DH gradually started using it for more and more at work over the past year to the point that I hardly ever got my hands on it anymore.) Anyway, long story short, he finally went and got himself the Microsoft Surface as it seemed to be the best of both worlds. The screen detaches so you can use it as a tablet, but it has a good keyboard, better than those that you can use with iPads. So it's really a laptop and tablet in one. It does everything a laptop can do and runs Windows 8. Not sure if it can run all the apps that an iPad would though, but he's really happy with it. It's a lot lighter than a laptop and cheaper than the MacBooks (he's not a big fan of Macs anyway.) I think it ran us about US$1,000 so a good $500-$600 cheaper than a Mac laptop. Anyway, now we're both happy cause it means I get the iPad back! Good luck!

New versions of my MacBook Air runs for about $900, and they are only marginally bigger than an iPad (it's the 11-inch).   I can't imagine spending more than that on a tablet...