Weekend Open Forum: Do you own a tablet? If yes, what is its primary use?

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,280   +192
Staff member

A recent report from Pew’s Internet & American Life survey found that 42 percent of adults now own a tablet of some sort. True enough, the popularity of these mobile computers has exploded in recent years as pricing has come down and quality continues to rise.

We’re curious as to how many TechSpot readers own a tablet. If you do own a slate, do you mind sharing which make and model it is? Also, what's the primary use of your tablet? For those of you that don’t yet have a tablet, what has kept you on the fence thus far? Let’s hear it in the comments section below!

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Nexus 7, a few games b4 bed, to bore myself when I cant sleep , the odd bit of browsing, but I have had to force myself to find a use for it.
 
I'm an investigator and I spend most of my days interviewing witnesses. I used to use a digital recorder, but have found that the iPad did a better job of recording, but it was a hassle getting the recordings off because of Apple's walled environment. Because I love Android, I just recently purchased the Galaxy Note 8, GT-N5120 with LTE, and it's recording capabilities are just as good as the iPads. I also use it to do my banking as I use Quickbooks Online, my company's billing system in online through Harvest and all of my work docs are in Dropbox. When I'm not on my tablet, I recently purchased an LTE version of a HP Chromebook and LOVING that so far.
 
I bought an asus tablet and couldn't find a use for it. then I bought the asus dock to go with the tablet and now I have a useless docked tablet that sits in a box
 
I do 95% of my "at home web browsing" using my Ipad sitting comfortably in my couch. I work 8 hours a day with a computer, I don't wanna use one at home.
 
I primarily use my Ipad mini for listening to music and reading my books on Amazon Kindle.
 
Yes, I have a bottle with about 100 tablets in it. Whenever I have a headache, my doctor told me to take two aspirin tablets and call her in the morning.
I think it's obvious, you need to find a more adventurous primary care physician.

One that says, "take two of these, and if you can even find your phone, consider yourself lucky".
 
I own a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 (WiFi) Edition and I use it on a daily basis.

After searching for a 1080p touchscreen-ultrabook @1000e (and failing to do so), I ended up with a tablet in my hands. It ended up becoming a better purchase than I had imagined. I can now e.g. control my PC and TV through it. (TeamViewer/Unified Remote + Samsung WatchOn)

Here is a short list of apps I use on it:
-Spotify
-Netflix
-YouTube
-Twitch
-S Note & Adobe Reader
-Google Calendar & mail
-Social media apps

Android tablets are used mostly for entertainment-purposes. There is no Microsoft Office -support on this device and most of the applications that are available are optimized for phones anyways.

I've been quite happy with the purchase this far though. Still, it's not all positive.

Trying to find a reasonably priced touch-Ultrabook for studying purposes ended up being impossible, so I had to digress and get a tablet. That means I can't do all the things I could with a fully equipped Windows 8/Linux laptop. (Programming doesn't come easy on this device, but it's not meant for it either) Tablets aren't laptop replacements (yet) and they are quite far away from replacing desktop-computers.

One extra positive with the device is stylus support, as the included S Pen is really coming in handy. Battery life is better than what I'm used to with high-resolution laptops, but I haven't used an Ultrabook, so I should be feeling the difference! This device doesn't quite replace a laptop, but it does come close enough and it sure does have it's perks.
 
I have an iPad Air. This is my first iPad ever. Before I bought this I had a Google Nexus 7 2012 model. Once the device was upgraded to kitkat the performance of the device deteriorated dramatically. I became really disappointed. I am a computer science teacher at a high school. I use my tablet for everything. The new iPad is fast, stable and a no nonsense device boasting high performance and agility. Compared with the Google Nexus this thing blows the Nexus away. Also the life cycle of the IPad is about three years compared to an Android tablet which you have to upgrade every year. So in retrospect Google products becomes more expensive yo own versus Apple products and satisfaction deteriorates with product age. My first Apple product was an iPod back in 2000. From my experience with the iPod my satisfaction remains consistent And h as s never deteriorated due to software updates affecting the overall end user experience.
 
I have the Barnes & Noble Nook HD+. It's a nice tablet that competes very well against the rest of the field. But I find that I don't use it anywhere near as much as I thought I would. Discovered that I prefer reading real books vs. e-books, I don't like to game on a tablet when I have a $3000 gaming rig at home, it's not fast enough to really do anything I'm used to with my home and work computer. Not sure what I was expecting when I bought it, but whatever it was, never panned out.

Pretty much the only time I use it now is if I know I'm going to be waiting for something (oil change) or someone (friend), and I do routine stuff like check e-mail, my fantasy football league, very basic web surfing, etc. If I did a lot of traveling - and I don't - I could see where it would be much more handy. Otherwise, I'd say my usage is around 5 hours a month if that.
 
I have a Motorola Xoom that I originally purchased for work however it quickly became just an entertainment device. I found it too slow to type on screen in meetings, our large organization has no outlook integration on mobile devices (vpn only) so I was redirecting through gmail at times. I can't open various office files properly, no Autocad, Visio or other similar type file access. I'm not a fan of having the laptop blocking me from others in meetings so it was a return to the trusty notepad and pen. That was until..

The Surface Pro 2, a device that has totally changed the way I work. I retired my laptop and run the SP2 on dual external monitors, in the dock with external keyboard and mouse at my desk. On the road I use the attached keyboard and wedge mouse. If I am at a customer site for long I'll plugin to an unused workstation monitor for an extra screen. I have all my apps (Autocad, Visio & custom business apps, Juniper VPN) and can open all files natively, edit and email. I also develop heavily in Linux so I have VM's (Debian and Suse) on hand. At some point I'll play around with dual boot on the device.

Probably the biggest change has been use in meetings. The pen input is superb I hand write all my notes, draw diagrams and file away in One note. There is no impersonal laptop blocking me and others nor am I frantically typing away while someone is talking. I also have access to every file, email, note etc I need.

I really like the little details like the fine point pen input, the touch is disabled when the pen hovers over the screen so you can rest your palm on the screen. The rear camera is angled up so you can have the device upright yet still record presentations.

On the flip side MS support leaves much to be desired for and a few of us have gone through some painful sleep/hibernate issues on the device since the Dec firmware patch but that seems to be ironed out since the Jan 14 update (for most it seems not all).
 
Gah!!! That iPad needs a software update!!! I literally can't handle a badge of any number next to the App Store or Settings. Unacceptable!
 
I have an iPad 3. I use it primarily for school texts, reading blogs, e-books, sheet music, and various types of journaling. I also use it as a metronome when I'm at the piano or guitar.
 
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I use a Samsung Ativ 500T with stylus pen - windows 8 at work, I use Office (email, excel, word & access), One Note for documentation, audio/video/image capture & editing, remote desktop, sync with home server. At home - TV remote, surf web, metro games, board games, JRiver Media player- stream audio/movies/Netflix. - Michael
 
I have a new Nexus 7, which I use mainly for games, reading, and web browsing when I have a wifi connection. I don't have a smartphone or laptop, so it gets used quite a bit, even at home. I'm looking forward to getting a Chromecast also to let me stream to the TV,
 
Most apps I've tried are very, very bad. Games or site apps. I mostly play Candy Crush and use FlightRadar.I would use it for surfing much more if the darn thing didn't use up all my bandwidth updating.

Tablets should be free because they are mostly about sucking people dry

I have a Hisense Sero 7 Pro. Nice tablet from Wal-Mart $116
 
I have a iPad 2 which gathers dust for the majority of the time, I occasionally use it for emails and feeds.

My work laptop is a Lenovo Twist, but it rarely is used as anything other than a laptop - touch input is too slow I found. Amazing power for a ~13" laptop though. Powers a second screen, allows me to have multiple RDP sessions, spreadsheets and TeamViewer remote support sessions.

At home we have a Surface Pro, it's brilliant, out of the box no bloat ware in sight (I mean nothing! Such a refreshing experience). I installed AV and it was good to go, despite what I first believed the touch pen is used extensively. Again it is very powerful, if only they were out in the UK when I got the twist :( The battery life is pretty good to, I spend my life advertising them to friends and family the way Microsoft should have advertised them.
 
Yup. But between my phone and PC, it just collects dust... (good thing I didn't pay a cent for it)
 
I spend my life advertising them to friends and family the way Microsoft should have advertised them.

That is very interesting as I find myself doing the same thing. When you get one, realize the potential and find it delivers, it's amazing! The thing basically sells itself when people see how and where it can be used. You're spot on with the MS advertising / marketing, they have a complete disconnect with the product.
 
Use a first generation nexus 7. Used to browse news and read books. Rarely games maybe 8. All installed is free.
 
I recently bought a dell venue 8 pro. I use it for websurfing, youtube, and anime. It is really convenient to use it in bed or while traveling around.
 
I had an ipad mini and sold it recently. It was originally purchased to replace my portable HP DM1 laptop, however tablets as discussed in the previous comments are pretty much restricted as "consuming devices" so news, videos, pictures etc

I did use it for a time as a remote control for xbmc, which I admit was quite cool, but again I find myself grabbing a laptop more often than not...
 
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