Do you have a tablet?

[JoePCool14]

Technically, yes. But it's a Surface Pro 6 that usually has a keyboard attached to or is docked using a Surface Dock. So I guess I'm kind of cheating. 

I did use it a lot for note-taking, especially during my early college years, often times using the pen, before I reverted back to using old-school paper by the end. I really like the Surface line. This is the second Surface Pro I've owned and used, and I think they've been solid, premium* products. I've had my SP6 for a few years now, since before COVID, and I don't see replacing it in the near future.

When it does come time to upgrade, I might go for a more traditional laptop since I don't think I'll be note-taking much anymore, given I've graduated from college. If I could spend lots of cash right now, I'd probably get a traditional form-factor laptop and pick-up an iPad on the side for casual tasks. I have to admit, I'm a bit of an Apple fanboy that actually prefers their simple take on UI compared to Android. I use an iPhone and Apple Watch, so to have an iPad would admittedly fit in nicely.

* I say premium because I understand Surface devices are expensive, but you get good quality for the price.

[Scott5114]

I have to admit, I'm a bit of an Apple fanboy that actually prefers their simple take on UI compared to Android.

My experience with the iPad has taught me that the "simple" part is only true if the assumptions the Apple devs made about how you are going to use the device are correct. If you step outside of the limits of their imagination, things get complicated really quickly.

My go-to example was when I was trying to set the home screen background to a picture of my company mascot, a dragon. The whole thing wouldn't fit on the screen, so I wanted to set the top third or so of the image as the background, which would include the dragon's face and wings. On Android this is straightforward; after selecting an image, you are taken to a screen where you are given a box you can drag around the screen to select which portion of the image you want. On iOS, however, it "simplified" things by not giving you this option at all, and arbitrarily selected the middle third of the image to be displayed, so I now had a headless dragon stomach as my desktop background.

I eventually had to work around it by taking a screenshot of the portion of the dragon that I wanted displayed and setting that as the desktop background. I'd say that while the intent was clearly to "simplify" by reducing the amount of interface presented to the user, it definitely did not simplify things in actual practice, because the Apple devs were not imaginative enough to conceive of a situation where a user might not want the edges of their picture cropped off.

[kevinb1994]

Yes, it's a 2017 iPad.

[Pink Jazz]

At the same time, I would not go with a table that is too cheap either from some unknown off-brand. For most users, a Samsung A-series tablet or a Lenovo M10 Plus 3rd Gen should do the job just fine.

As for tablets vs. laptops, the key is portability. Tablets offer larger screens than phones yet are much more portable than laptops.  Many enjoy playing games or doing photo editing on the go, and this is the reason why higher-end tablets exist. If you are traveling on an airplane, a tablet is so much more comfortable to use and easier to carry than a laptop.

[Scott5114]

As for tablets vs. laptops, the key is portability. Tablets offer larger screens than phones yet are much more portable than laptops.  Many enjoy playing games or doing photo editing on the go, and this is the reason why higher-end tablets exist. If you are traveling on an airplane, a tablet is so much more comfortable to use and easier to carry than a laptop.

I disagree–for me the key is input precision. If the device isn't precise enough for me to do what I need to do, it doesn't matter where I can take it because it's just dead weight.

If I am doing something like consuming media (text or video) then a tablet is just fine. I don't need to interact with the device very often, and when I do, if my input is off by a dozen pixels or so, that's not a big deal.

By far, the most common thing I use a computer for is to create something, though, usually either vector graphics or text in 300-word chunks. I'm fairly sure that making someone create vector graphics with a touch screen (which often involves very fine nudging around of Bézier curves) is against the Geneva Convention. And it would take me three times longer to use a tablet to write a 300-word item than the amount of time it would take on my laptop (which still takes longer than the amount of time it takes to slam one out on my 1988 IBM Model M keyboard).

Hell, I don't even know if there even is free vector-editing software capable of producing SVG files on iOS or Android. I certainly doubt there's something with a comparable feature set to Inkscape. One of my best friends draws raster graphics on his iPad using an Apple Pencil and some sort of software from Autodesk, and while he produces good-quality work on it, he runs into a lot of baffling technical glitches, like the alpha channel randomly getting discarded, that I've never had Krita on my laptop do.

[JoePCool14]

I have to admit, I'm a bit of an Apple fanboy that actually prefers their simple take on UI compared to Android.

My experience with the iPad has taught me that the "simple" part is only true if the assumptions the Apple devs made about how you are going to use the device are correct. If you step outside of the limits of their imagination, things get complicated really quickly.

My go-to example was when I was trying to set the home screen background to a picture of my company mascot, a dragon. The whole thing wouldn't fit on the screen, so I wanted to set the top third or so of the image as the background, which would include the dragon's face and wings. On Android this is straightforward; after selecting an image, you are taken to a screen where you are given a box you can drag around the screen to select which portion of the image you want. On iOS, however, it "simplified" things by not giving you this option at all, and arbitrarily selected the middle third of the image to be displayed, so I now had a headless dragon stomach as my desktop background.

I eventually had to work around it by taking a screenshot of the portion of the dragon that I wanted displayed and setting that as the desktop background. I'd say that while the intent was clearly to "simplify" by reducing the amount of interface presented to the user, it definitely did not simplify things in actual practice, because the Apple devs were not imaginative enough to conceive of a situation where a user might not want the edges of their picture cropped off.

I think that's true, and I guess I don't mind it since I don't try to go too crazy with how I use my Apple devices. I've never really had any serious thought of jail-breaking my iPhone, for example.

[7/8]

I guess I'll buck the trend of tablet naysayers. I use my tablet more than my phone and home PC combined. Almost every AARoads post outside work hours is from a tablet. My first tablet was around 2013-2014 when I won an iPad mini from a raffle. After using that a while, I got a Samsung tablet (forget which one). Eventually I dropped it and the screen shattered, so after using that for a while, I decided to get a Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (my current one). My only complaint with the Samsung ones is the lack of a headphone jack, so I have to remember to keep the dongle around. Otherwise I love the bigger screen than a phone and it's way more convenient for my general uses (AARoads and Reddit) than a laptop. Actually, it's arguably too convenient and it's easy to spend too much time on it.

[vdeane]

I've personally never understood internet browsing on phones/tablets.  I usually queue up a ton of tabs and then cycle through them, so the phone/tablet interface doesn't work as well for me.  While staying at my Aunt and Uncle's house in the Thousand Islands last year, I figured the greater portability of a tablet would have been more convenient than trying to find places to use my laptop, but whenever I think of trying to do a full forum check on a tablet interface I back down from the idea.  Plus I have more control with a laptop, and they don't fall out of software support like phones/tablets do (I run Linux, so whenever a version hits end of life, I just upgrade to the next, and my current hardware has never had issue with that).

[1995hoo]

^^^^^

I'm reading this and posting from an iPad and I have 21 browser tabs open at the moment (some to remind me of things, some like this forum  that I leave open, and some that I just haven't gotten around to closing).

[Roadgeekteen]

I don't. I have nothing a tablet can do that can't be accomplished by my phone or laptop.

[MikeTheActuary]

I got a Kindle Fire tablet a couple of Amazon Days ago, on a whim.

I like it better than my phone as an eBook reader, and it's OK for light surfing.  I'll bring it along, primarily as an eReader, for quick trips where I don't need my personal laptop, or for when I will be camping in a parking lot while my wife is in a doctor's appointment or is shopping.  (She doesn't drive....)

[hbelkins]

I have an iPad and have also been issued an iPad for work.

Last year I bought an Onn (Walmart house brand) 7" Android tablet for use as a music player to replace my iPod Classic. It proved to be a tad too big for easy vehicle use, so my wife uses it to stream YouTube music while she's working at her home business. I bought a cheap $20 Android Tracfone that will accept a 256 GB card for my music player.

[epzik8]

I have an Amazon Fire HD 8, but don't use it much as I also have an Acer Aspire 5 laptop.