So I guess it really is humorously coincidental that I seemingly disappear right after a post discussing the difficulties of blogging, but here I am to say I never left you! My absense was due in part to illness which made my bed my bestest friend and in part to the fact that I have embraced the use of a tablet. I will admit that a tablet is far easier to bring along when working than a laptop, but there are quite a few downfalls as well. I'm actually attempting to write this post on a 7" Nook HD tablet and in comparison to the posts I have written on my iPhone, I have to say I prefer the iPhone.
This week has been a research filled adventure for me as far as technology is concerned because in addition to purchasing a tablet I had to pick out a phone and carrier. All of my rhangouts)has led me to the conclusion that in today's WiFi connected world each device fills a particular need for the user and each user's needs are different.
Primary Full-Function Computer
By this point we pretty much all have this one. This is either a Windows PC or a Mac and for most of us is a laptop. It is true that in the past a laptop was considered "on the go" computing, but today we are constantly on the go so we all just have laptops.
My laptop is a 12.1 inch HP Touchsmart Convertible Laptop. I bought it after community college before starting at university and I put a ton of research into it. I was an early adopter of both touchscreen and convertible laptops and in high school I had a convertible Asus netbook with a resistive touchscreen (all the techies are laughing at my resistive touch screen). If I'm completely honest with myself I've always loved the looks of wonder and awe that I get when effortlessly flipping the screen around to lay flat in tablet mode. By now I don't get that reaction because in the past year convertible tablets have become the "it" thing to have so my computer looks just like everyone else's "new" computer (even though it's three years old!). My touchscreen came with a Wacom active digitizer which is basically a pen that works on your screen and the benefits of this pen are simple, yet profound. You get fun features to show off like being pressure sensitive and having a digital eraser on the end, but most importantly, when you are using the pen your hand is ignored. For me in college this meant that I could naturally take notes easily and have them quickly converted to text.
So, for me, my HP is the perfect computer when I need a keyboard for writing or any serious computing. Even the 12.1 inch size is tailored to my preference. Coming from having used a netbook I wanted something big enough for a full-sized keyboard but still smaller than the standard 15" laptop screen. After all, if I'm watching a movie I can always hook up to a TV. Even though it is not a novelty item any more, I don't think I'll be replacing my laptop any time soon.
After about a month of working nights as a doula/night nanny I came to appreciate how bulky even my small laptop was. On a slow night where a baby sleeps well I could be stuck finding a way to entertain myself for 5-6 hours easily after getting the cleaning done. Bringing my laptop requires me to bring my backpack instead of my tote and the amount of time I chose yo play on my phone instead led me to start researching a tablet purchase.
The In-Between Computer-Tablet
One of the first places I went for advice was my brothet . my brother is currently deployed and on active duty with the Navy on board the USS Nimitz. Since he doesn't have a wife or children to support back in port, he has certainly fallen into the trap of having lots of money saved up by the time you have shore leave. Because he for some reason assumed I, too, had such money saved he suggested the Microsoft Surface Tablet. For a couple of days I did flirt with this as an option. The Surface Pro (his suggestion) goes for about $900 and as far as functionality does pretty much everything my HP laptop does. In the end, I came to the conclusion that the Surface was essentially a convertible that fell more on the tablet side than the laptop side and therefore was not what I was looking for.
Tablets: Mobile Media Consumption & Web Browsing
So the Surface was too much computer for me. I had to sit down and ask myself "why do you need a tablet?" And "What fo you want your tablet to do". Here are the answers I came up with:
- Something light weight and portable
- Browse the web easily
- Bigger than my phone, but smaller than my laptop
- Read books
- Watch movies
- Play flash games
Not a terribly demanding list, it showed me some basics immediately. Size was the first factor I figured out; I think that 7-8" is the sweet spot for tablets. Since my computer is only 12.1", a 10" tablet just seemed too big. I'm a little person (5' on a good day) and my tiny hands have issues with iPads and similarly sized tablets. My tablet needed to be "iPad mini" sized. The iPad mini was even on my list of possibilities, but never made it too high because of the price, incompatibility with flash, and honestly I prefer android over iOS. Sorry to the apple fans out there but I've had an iPhone for over a year now and while it certainly has it's appeal, I'm going back to android at the end of the week.
So in the field of 7-8" android tablets my short list consisted of:
- Nexus 7
- Samsung Galaxy note 8.0
- Samsung Galaxy tab 8.0
- Nook HD
While I would have loved to get a Samsung, the price was a bit high and I couldn't shake the feeling that they were going to be obsolete at any moment. So the real competition came down to the Nexus 7 at $229 and the Nook HD at $129. In the end, I just couldn't justify an extra hundred dollars for a camera. To me that seemed to be the only difference. While I could certainly go into the specs of each device, there are tech blogs that will do that for you (I'll even link to a few at the end of this post). If I ever decide I want a pure android experience I can mess around with the software and get it. Now, price point was the deciding factor in the end for me, but my choice has implications. With the Nook HD I cannot do video chats (no facetime, Skype, or hangouts) and even though I have access to the Google Play store, a lot of apps are listed as "not compatible with your device", so who knows, maybe I will mess with the software a bit and update in a later post.
Cell Phone (and provider)...TBC
I had intended to include my quest for a cell provider and a phone to match, but this post I already long enough and that subject just might demand its own post.
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