Tablet users: what do you take the tablet for?

[BDBoop]

I just got a Nook HD+ last week and its great- 9" HD screen[bigger than kindles] reads both pdf& Epub, among others and I get free wi fi in B&N stores, not to mention can pretty much read anything in the store for free while i'm there. Rock bottom price was the clencher for me.

Can you read Amazon books on a Nook?

 

[Ringel05]

I still travel with a 17" laptop, don't need my reading glasses to see it. If, on the rare occasion, I use my smartphone to browse I need my reading glasses, been considering a large tablet to find a happy medium.

 

[Missourian]

Here's a really elementary question.

What good are tablets? Or iPads?

I'm seeing deals on this tablet, that tablet, the other tablet so I looked into what they do to see what I'm missing. I haven't found out yet.

OK I see where I could get e-mail portability. I already carry a laptop and it's just not important enough to see e-mail all the time.

I see where I can get GPS service. I already have a GPS.

I see where I can carry documents. That's useful but I already have a Nook.

I have no interest in games, and videos/photos can wait for the laptop.

What's left? What do these things do that nothing else does?

My wife gave me her hacked kindle fire.

I haven't found much use for it at all.

With no keyboard, it is pretty limited.

At least my phone has Swype.

The only thing out there I am looking at right now is something like the Surface...and that would replace the laptop, not augment it.


[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Surface-32GB-RT/dp/B009XNBFJK[/ame]

 

[Ringel05]

Just looked at a "how-to" loading Ubuntu on an Archos 9. A used Archos 9 runs around $60.

Uuuummmmmm...............

 

[Dot Com]

I just got a Nook HD+ last week and its great- 9" HD screen[bigger than kindles] reads both pdf& Epub, among others and I get free wi fi in B&N stores, not to mention can pretty much read anything in the store for free while i'm there. Rock bottom price was the clencher for me.

Can you read Amazon books on a Nook?

I don't think so. You might research that more to make sure but I thought I read where amazon stuff isn't compatible w/ android. Same goes for movies from amazon. I do a good bit of purchasing on amazon but not media so it isn't an issue for me.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

I just got a Nook HD+ last week and its great- 9" HD screen[bigger than kindles] reads both pdf& Epub, among others and I get free wi fi in B&N stores, not to mention can pretty much read anything in the store for free while i'm there. Rock bottom price was the clencher for me.

Can you read Amazon books on a Nook?

I don't think so. You might research that more to make sure but I thought I read where amazon stuff isn't compatible w/ android. Same goes for movies from amazon. I do a good bit of purchasing on amazon but not media so it isn't an issue for me.

uh...Kindle is a proprietary Andriod tablet. It can and does run Android apps....because it IS Android.

 

[Trajan]

the gov. that is you all, bought me an ipad 3, ( let me say thx btw), I use it at work to take pictures while I perform surveys and can e mail on the fly etc. So, its very useful to me in that context. Plus using Dropbox I can look at other docs I need, that I have preloaded in Dropbox from my laptop folders/files.

As for Kindle which I loaded on it, its fine for reading when you're traveling, but, in the end I prefer hard copy books, so I limit what I read on it.....and I do have tons of music on it and Podcasts which I use while I drive to and from work, thru my car stereo system via a 3.5 mm jack.


That being said, if I didn't use it at work, I would never have bought one on my own for myself as a 'civilian', it is not a word processor, forget spreadsheets, etc. Its a tweener, and at 700 bucks forget it, not even at 300......

When I travel I almost always see folks wiht a laptop, maybe one of twenty people I see use an ipad/tablet and never doing word processing etc. becasue at the end of the day its just to limited, thats why when they work out the bugs on the Surface Pro, I might opt for that, its just a tad larger but has all of the features of a laptop and via Dropbox, you won't tax your storage space on the device.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

BTW - in my opinion, the best tablet on the market is the ZaTab by ZaReason.
An open/hackable Android with source code provided means there are no commercial locks on the device.
The ports available are the best there is. Including an HDMI output so you can watch movies thru it on a large screen.
Top of the line everything as far as hardware...$349. If/when I need a new tablet - this is the one for me.

 

[Dot Com]

9.7" display? Not bad. Not bad at all.

The display on the Nook is one of the major points I chose it. Size & HD. The Nook is somewhat "limited" but that can be *cough* unchained as it were.

 

[flacaltenn]

Reading. I have a Kindle Fire. Probably 80% of what I use it for is reading.
Other than that, I am subscribed to two online magazines, very good for viewing those.
Games work well on them, as long as they are relatively simple.
The video quality is very good. It also has quite good sound coming from the audio output, and the speakers are surprisingly pretty decent - better than most laptops.
So in a nutshell - reading on a laptop is terrible on your eyes, and uncomfortable as hell. A tablet's screen is designed for reading. Watching videos is, I think, better also in bed as a laptop lying down is not that comfortable and you have to have the screen just right - whereas a tablet has the same video quality from any angle.

I didn't get the impression that tablets were using a "passive" technology like e-Ink (?) -- the glare of staring at a laptop screen after a day of correcting everybody who's wrong on USMB is one way the Nook is a relief from all that. I'm sure there are variations of course.

Useful info about the practicality aspects though. Thanks.

I can only speak for the Kindle Fire of course, it does not use e-Ink like the kindle reader or nook. However, like right now the text on the screen while I am typing is kind of blurry, this is due to the rather large pixels that make up the text on a PC. Also the background on a computer is way too white.
On a tablet, the first thing you see is the text is smoother, due to a much smaller/finer pixel size. Also the background "paper" has a blueish-gray to it. Not as brite white as the background of a laptop. Much easier on the eyes.

Not picking on u, but im a display designer guy and im always amazed how badly adjusted laptop screens and desktop monitors are. Sometimes I volunteer to show folks where the brightness contrast and even gamma correction controls are. Tablets being designed for flex viewing are always closer to optimum for reading but need some tweak for cinema.