The Future Of The Tablet Is The PC

Megalith

Megalith

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Well, duh. I’d say that the ideal goal of any device is to give you the power and productivity of a desktop PC, and tablets such as the Surface Pro owe their success to that very reason. I think it’s time to move on from the Android and iPad toys, which have proven to be stopgap solutions. Some would argue that the simplicity of these devices makes them relevant, but I feel that the power and customizability of a full OS allows for that and far more.

Today, these tablet-laptop hybrids -- which blend the mobility and touchscreen friendliness of a tablet with the capabilities of a PC -- are on track to becoming the fastest-growing computing category. Shipments of so-called 2-in-1 devices like Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 and the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, for example, are expected to grow almost fivefold this year.
 
I have had numerous ipads, and android tablets, I feel like they are just toys with no real purpose. I always found myself getting out my laptop when I really needed to do anything useful.

I recently got an inexpensive tablet with detachable keyboard case that runs full windows 10 and I have to say it is so much more useful.
 
This is why I never bought an Ipad or Android tablet, as nice looking as they were. When the Windows 8 consumer preview was released, I bought an Acer Windows 7 tablet with 2GB of ram, dual core AMD processor and started with a 32GB SSD. I went from that to a Surface One, Surface 2 and now I am on a Surface Pro. :)
 
These things are basically just notebooks. I really can't understand the mania.
 
Android and iPad tablets are mainly media consumption devices. Fine for earing emails, playing simple games or watching videos, basically anything you can already do on your phone.
They are really nothing more than large phones.

Windows tablets with an Intel CPU are much more like real computers that have been scaled down to fit in a tablet form.

My wife mainly uses our android tablet for occasional web browsing and to play games as the 10"screen is much easier to see than her phone :)

I also have a Windows tablet (8" Winbook I got for $99 from Microcenter). I find it much more useful, since I can actually do real work on it if needed since it has a full OS. VPN, Remote desktop, etc. all work as good as they would on a laptop. Any plugins or other apps I need also work since it has a full copy of Windows. I was able to copy the ISO for some medical images onto the MicroSD card and install the viewer (windows only) so we could view the images. It's amazing how much you can do on a $99 tablet :)
 
ManofGod said:
This is why I never bought an Ipad or Android tablet, as nice looking as they were. When the Windows 8 consumer preview was released, I bought an Acer Windows 7 tablet with 2GB of ram, dual core AMD processor and started with a 32GB SSD. I went from that to a Surface One, Surface 2 and now I am on a Surface Pro. :)
Click to expand...

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS!(no pun intended ;) )
 
tablet is great for sitting on the toilet watching youtube while you take a dump, or in bed at night doing some reading.

If you need to be ultra portable, a Surface Pro is the best thing for you. Many others are realizing after the apple shine has worn down they can't get near as much work done on it as they thought they could.
 
nutzo said:
Android and iPad tablets are mainly media consumption devices. Fine for earing emails, playing simple games or watching videos, basically anything you can already do on your phone.
They are really nothing more than large phones.

Windows tablets with an Intel CPU are much more like real computers that have been scaled down to fit in a tablet form.

My wife mainly uses our android tablet for occasional web browsing and to play games as the 10"screen is much easier to see than her phone :)

I also have a Windows tablet (8" Winbook I got for $99 from Microcenter). I find it much more useful, since I can actually do real work on it if needed since it has a full OS. VPN, Remote desktop, etc. all work as good as they would on a laptop. Any plugins or other apps I need also work since it has a full copy of Windows. I was able to copy the ISO for some medical images onto the MicroSD card and install the viewer (windows only) so we could view the images. It's amazing how much you can do on a $99 tablet :)
Click to expand...

+1

Android tablets imo are just a consumption device, if they are cheap enough, run long enough, small/light enough they have their uses/value.

The Windows based tablets imo are just going to replace laptops. The tech is getting there already, hardware is outpacing software so imo it just makes sense.

I know I am strongly considering replacing my GF's laptop with a windows based tablet. She wants a tablet but won't use it enough to justify a dedicated one. She also doesn't push her currrent laptop enough to warrant a desktop replacement type device. I suspect she is as common of a case of "normal" user you will find.
 
I've used a lot of Apple and Android tablets (heck, throw in the HP TouchPad as well) - ok for email, good for some web browsing/video watching, not good for much else (IMHO).
I even set out to stop using pen/paper - I figured I could take notes on these. Except they suck at taking notes. The onscreen keyboards are awful to type on.
No problem, get a BlueTooth keyboard. Except now I have to charge my keyboard and my tablet. I also have to either carry them or get a case that turns my tablet into a notebook.
Did I mention my phone does a lot of what the tablet can already do?

I see people go to meetings with custom cases for tablets. They are really trying to use the tablet.

I now bring my light-weight laptop (currently a Macbook Air 11" - I am a mobile app developer, so yes I use Macbooks and not Windows devices at work). It's not much heavier, has way more computing power, and is superior in so many ways.

Look at sales trends. Tablet sales have fallen. People are figuring out that they already have a phone which does everything the tablet can do and that tablets are not really that useful. Total luxury item.
 
Hybrid laptops are a fail as long as they cost 3x as much as a comparably powerful laptop. For all the accommodation of a hybrid laptop wrt to portability, I might as well carry a laptop.

Now if you had a hybrid laptop where I split the screen off and it became an android tablet, then you might have something worth the markup for some people.

Otherwise I'd prefer my smartphone which I will carry everywhere but talked better to my desktop/laptop at home. It would have been nice to plunk my mobile device down next to my desktop/laptop and have the screen go dark and see it pop up Picture in Picture on my desktop and be able to run stuff on my phone without leaving the screen I'm currently engaged with and be able to drag and drop between my laptop/desktop and mobile device to share content, contact, etc. But no, lets give a 23" desktop the same interface as a 4" touch screen.
 
jwcalla said:
These things are basically just notebooks. I really can't understand the mania.
Click to expand...

It's true that x86 tablets running a desktop OS are basically just capabilities-impaired laptops that tend to have lots of greasy smears from excessive screen poking caused by the use of their incapable physical user interface. I've seen lots of them end up getting plugged into a keyboard and mouse-y just so they can perform some kinda useful function, but there is a market for them (admittedly its pretty much saturated at this point so there's no growth in sales EXCEPT in the case where the tablet is like a convertible that is also a laptop). Companies would be silly not to sell stuff to that market because they can price inexpensive hardware a lot higher and sell the device at a premium over a very competitive market of more affordable, capable laptops.
 
steakman1971 said:
I've used a lot of Apple and Android tablets (heck, throw in the HP TouchPad as well) - ok for email, good for some web browsing/video watching, not good for much else (IMHO).
I even set out to stop using pen/paper - I figured I could take notes on these. Except they suck at taking notes. The onscreen keyboards are awful to type on.
No problem, get a BlueTooth keyboard. Except now I have to charge my keyboard and my tablet. I also have to either carry them or get a case that turns my tablet into a notebook.
Did I mention my phone does a lot of what the tablet can already do?

I see people go to meetings with custom cases for tablets. They are really trying to use the tablet.

I now bring my light-weight laptop (currently a Macbook Air 11" - I am a mobile app developer, so yes I use Macbooks and not Windows devices at work). It's not much heavier, has way more computing power, and is superior in so many ways.

Look at sales trends. Tablet sales have fallen. People are figuring out that they already have a phone which does everything the tablet can do and that tablets are not really that useful. Total luxury item.
Click to expand...

And I think your points here are key as to way the 2 in 1 market is growing and the general tablet market not so much. Devices like the Surface line aren't as constrained to being just tablets and are excellent for note taking particularly free form notes with a pen where a keyboard and mouse may not be the best input method. At one moment one can be typing away with a physical keyboard pretty much like a laptop and in an instant remove or flip the keyboard over and start writing with a pen that's in many ways for more powerful than physical pen and paper.

I understand that many see hybrid devices as a compromise that's neither as good as a conventional clamshell laptop nor a pure tablet but that's the truth about any device. The devices that we use all represent tradeoffs between price, build quality, speed, size and weight, portability, input methods, etc. Good hybrids offer a lot of flexibility however in one device which maximizes portability and that's their strength.
 
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