Do you have a tablet?

[Pink Jazz]

I was wondering, do you have a tablet?

I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab A8, 128GB/4GB Pink Gold. I previously had a 32GB/3GB Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 in Dark Gray, but I almost ran out of space, so I decided to get a tablet with more storage. Since my daily device is my phone (Samsung Galaxy S21+), I don't think I need a flagship tablet as well since I mostly just use the tablet for streaming and the YouVersion Bible app. Unless you are into gaming or photo editing, most people I think just buy high end tablets for bragging rights.

[abefroman329]

I have an iPad - I tried using a small-ish Android tablet that I got for free from Verizon many years ago, but, between the fact that I owned an iPhone and the fact that I don't know how to use Android devices (and can't be arsed to learn), I went with the iPad.

I mainly use it for streaming and video, though, and it's far from the highest-end iPad available.

[Rothman]

I don't.

My wife and I talked about getting her one.  I had my doubts; she decided she wanted it.  Some time later, she got rid of it since it wasn't worth it.

[Ted$8roadFan]

Yes.I have an iPad. Easier to look at than my iPhone, but not as portable.

[index]

I had an iPad for a few months, then I sold it. I don't really need a tablet. It doesn't do anything my phone and laptop can't do, all while being one extra unnecessary gadget to carry around.

[Takumi]

No, but I have a laptop that can be used as a tablet. I never use it as a tablet.

[Pink Jazz]

I had an iPad for a few months, then I sold it. I don't really need a tablet. It doesn't do anything my phone and laptop can't do, all while being one extra unnecessary gadget to carry around.

I mainly use my tablet just for streaming and using the YouVersion Bible app. A larger screen for these purposes is a nice perk, while being much more portable than my laptop. These usages don't require high-end hardware, and since I don't use my tablet every single day unlike my phone, I didn't think it was necessary to spend the money on a high-end tablet. However, the mistake that I made with my Galaxy Tab A7 is that I bought one with only 32GB storage, which wasn't enough (a lot of the storage was taken up by the OS). I would recommend at least 64GB minimum, with 128GB being optimal. This is why I decided to sell my A7 and get an A8 with 128GB.

[1995hoo]

I have two iPads, one an older model and the other a newer one to replace it. I particularly like the larger screen for reading documents when I'm on the Acela or similar so that I don't have to pull out a laptop. If I want to type more than a small amount I'll use the laptop (too many typos using the iPad), but for reading I prefer to use the iPad.

My boss has an iPad Pro he loves, but that device is rather large for my taste. He has weak eyes and says he appreciates having more screen space for zooming in further.

[JayhawkCO]

I have a laptop and an XL screen phone. A tablet seems like it has the worst of both of those items.

[dlsterner]

Bought an iPad about 10 years ago or so.  I figured that it would work well for travel since it would handle email and web surfing.

Nowadays, after all these years, it does not get much use.  It is functionally obsolete, yet I haven't bothered to replace it.  I found that it is just as easy to travel with my MacBook Pro in tandem with my iPhone.  The MacBook can do all that my iPad does, and much more.  Also has a better display and keyboard which is important as my visual acuity and my finger dexterity are both not what they used to be (being in my 60's).

I can see the iPad shining over the other two if trying to do work on a flight, but to be honest, I prefer to just take a nap while flying

[Scott5114]

I won an iPad in a contest at work about 10 years ago. (We were given a series of innocuous pictures and asked to identify which of the company's facilities each one was taken at. Fortunately, I had taken the time to visit several of them in person and could pick out the differences in the decor at each of them pretty well.) During the time that I used it, I mostly used it to watch YouTube videos in bed. I also used it as a cash register at a couple of trade shows I went to. I stopped using it when YouTube demanded an upgrade to a version that couldn't be installed on that iPad. (Which seems stupid to me, why couldn't I just keep using the outdated version? It is not like I was doing anything but watching videos; I wasn't uploading or commenting or anything.)

Since then, I haven't had a working tablet. I don't miss it much. Having the bigger screen was nice sometimes, but doesn't justify the expense of buying another one. I'm also a firm believer in having an actual keyboard, and I have a laptop, so it's pretty easy to push simple tasks to the phone and more complex ones that have to be mobile onto the laptop. So a tablet is in sort of a grey area where it doesn't really solve any problems for me other than...watching videos in bed, so I can have a biggish screen without lugging my laptop in there.

Someday, if I have a bunch of extra money sitting around, I might buy another. But if I do, it certainly won't be an iPad. The experience of using an iPad taught me that I absolutely hate iOS and the design philosophies underpinning it. Lots of things that were simple and straightforward to do on Android were next to impossible on iOS, because Apple apparently never contemplated a user wanting to do what I wanted to do, and their obsession with making things "simple" meant that any workarounds were walled off. It made using it enough of a chore that half the time I'd just do stuff on the phone I could have used the tablet for. And it was annoying to have to carry to deal with an entirely separate set of cables than the ones I already had for my phone. Also, this was old enough that the iPad had a headphone jack; if it hadn't had one I probably wouldn't have ever taken the thing out of the box, since all of my headphones are wired. I don't really have much interest in buying any wireless ones and having to worry about batteries.

[Pink Jazz]

I won an iPad in a contest at work about 10 years ago. (We were given a series of innocuous pictures and asked to identify which of the company's facilities each one was taken at. Fortunately, I had taken the time to visit several of them in person and could pick out the differences in the decor at each of them pretty well.) During the time that I used it, I mostly used it to watch YouTube videos in bed. I also used it as a cash register at a couple of trade shows I went to. I stopped using it when YouTube demanded an upgrade to a version that couldn't be installed on that iPad. (Which seems stupid to me, why couldn't I just keep using the outdated version? It is not like I was doing anything but watching videos; I wasn't uploading or commenting or anything.)

Since then, I haven't had a working tablet. I don't miss it much. Having the bigger screen was nice sometimes, but doesn't justify the expense of buying another one. I'm also a firm believer in having an actual keyboard, and I have a laptop, so it's pretty easy to push simple tasks to the phone and more complex ones that have to be mobile onto the laptop. So a tablet is in sort of a grey area where it doesn't really solve any problems for me other than...watching videos in bed, so I can have a biggish screen without lugging my laptop in there.

Someday, if I have a bunch of extra money sitting around, I might buy another. But if I do, it certainly won't be an iPad. The experience of using an iPad taught me that I absolutely hate iOS and the design philosophies underpinning it. Lots of things that were simple and straightforward to do on Android were next to impossible on iOS, because Apple apparently never contemplated a user wanting to do what I wanted to do, and their obsession with making things "simple" meant that any workarounds were walled off. It made using it enough of a chore that half the time I'd just do stuff on the phone I could have used the tablet for. And it was annoying to have to carry to deal with an entirely separate set of cables than the ones I already had for my phone. Also, this was old enough that the iPad had a headphone jack; if it hadn't had one I probably wouldn't have ever taken the thing out of the box, since all of my headphones are wired. I don't really have much interest in buying any wireless ones and having to worry about batteries.

If you want a tablet just for basic entertainment such as streaming and web browsing, go with an inexpensive Samsung or Lenovo tablet. The average user doesn't need an expensive tablet for most use cases except photo editing or gaming. Some people just like to buy high-end tablets for bragging rights.

[Scott5114]

Maybe someday. As it is, though, the amount of money I have to spend on things like that is less than $0 at the moment.

[Big John]

Advil

[jakeroot]

My grandfather has an iPad Pro that is almost entirely used by my grandmother to play various puzzle games. The massive screen is quite useful for them in their later (80s) years as their vision slowly gets worse.

She hogs it enough that he up and bought a MacBook Air a couple weeks ago, just so he had something to use; he had an iMac but it was a very base model and seriously slow, so he sold it a while back. He's quite happy to have a physical keyboard for emails.

[formulanone]

I have an "old" iPad Air which gets used for work about one week a month, and is good for finer controls of making music than anything else. I can get some light work done on it on weekends when I'd rather leave my laptop at home. It's nice that it's ready to look something up right away compared to the task of logging in and booting a PC, like an online restaurant menu.

But with a larger phone, it's less necessary than before. The keyboard is less user-friendly and intuitive than my phone's, and it stores less (understandable since it's five years older). And it doesn't seriously edit real photos and there's no file structure to manage, everything has to go to the cloud.

Work paid for it but the idea that it would be "out of date" is ridiculous, so I probably wouldn't buy my own. I suppose if I did more tablet-based tasks, I'd appreciate it enough to purchase one. My son really likes his Samsung tablet but my daughter and wife use their iPads a lot more infrequently.

I'm still a PC guy; the 10-year-old Surface I tote around most other times still handles file backups, has a USB port, and almost everything I need an iPad to do, though a lot more clumsily than anything else. I only use the attached keyboard since it's used as a mini-laptop, or as a docked PC when working from home. I'm still amazed I get 3 hours out of the battery and the processor is fine for handling 2-or-3 tasks at a time. I've been dragging my feet on a new laptop since I'm waiting to see what new laptop work will give me in the next 12 months.

[Max Rockatansky]

Surprising yes, my wife bought it for me years ago to watch movies on planes.  It's an Amazon branded something, does it job and doesn't give me trouble.  If it broke I probably wouldn't replace it myself.

[MATraveler128]

Yes. In fact I'm actually using a 2020 iPad Pro to type this.

[Scott5114]

Surprising yes, my wife bought it for me years ago to watch movies on planes.  It's an Amazon branded something, does it job and doesn't give me trouble.  If it broke I probably wouldn't replace it myself.

Does it have Android on it or some sort of Amazon software?

[Max Rockatansky]

Surprising yes, my wife bought it for me years ago to watch movies on planes.  It's an Amazon branded something, does it job and doesn't give me trouble.  If it broke I probably wouldn't replace it myself.

Does it have Android on it or some sort of Amazon software?

Amazon I believe.   

[LilianaUwU]

Unless you are into gaming or photo editing, most people I think just buy high end tablets for bragging rights.

If you're so much into gaming that you need something high end to play said game, you'll go for a PC. Same for photo editing.

[on_wisconsin]

Surprising yes, my wife bought it for me years ago to watch movies on planes.  It’s an Amazon branded something, does it job and doesn’t give me trouble.  If it broke I probably wouldn’t replace it myself.

Does it have Android on it or some sort of Amazon software?

Amazon I believe.   

AMZN devices generally use a locked-down, forked version of AOSP Android. However, Play Services and Store can usually be sideloaded on most of the company's tablets, as well as most APKs. YMMV tho...

[kkt]

I inherited my child's ipad to try out.  I basically decided I didn't like it.  I type reasonably well, a whole lot better than I do making squiggles on a screen with a stylus or my finger, so I really want a laptop, not an ipad.

[J N Winkler]

I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab A that I inherited from my former neighbor, who died three years ago at the age of 97.  Her daughter had it configured as a GrandPad while she was still living and reset it to the factory configuration before passing it on to me.  I use it primarily for light Web browsing (including reading news articles), exchanging Messenger PMs, reading ebooks, consulting agenda packets when I am in meetings, and so on.  It is easier to carry around than a laptop, and with a Bluetooth keyboard I can also use it for notetaking and other forms of light writing.  However, my real workhorse is a Windows gaming laptop.

Though I have tentatively determined the tablet was manufactured in 2017, I have no idea how its specs compare with others of the same vintage.  I've backed away from using it for certain types of Web surfing because it is slow to render ad-heavy pages on the screen, which results in false taps where an attempt to press on link A instead loads link B.  It would be easier to use if it had an ad-blocking HOSTS file (I use MVPS' HOSTS file on all of my Windows PCs), but to install one I would have to root it first, which is not a trivial task.

[1995hoo]

Unless you are into gaming or photo editing, most people I think just buy high end tablets for bragging rights.

If you're so much into gaming that you need something high end to play said game, you'll go for a PC. Same for photo editing.

My brother got an iPad Mini for dealing with photos while traveling. He likes to camp and didn't want to bring a laptop.