May 10
8
The iPad has started a lot of dialog between people about what kind of mobile device is best – an iPad type device, or something more like a netbook. The short answer is, it’s purely a matter of personal opinion and usage habits.
The iPad can be accurately described as a consumption device. Accessing just about anything, from e-books to magazines, web sites, hoards of apps and more can be done with ease. But you wouldn’t necessarily type a long email or a document on it – at least not without the (separate) hardware keyboard attached. The iPad (and potential other slate/tablets to come) are truly an internet appliance.
As I write this today, my buddy is in the hospital for gall bladder surgery, and he’s got his iPad with him at the hospital. I know the device is helping him cope with being confined to a boring hospital room! Absolutely perfect for a situation such as that. He is getting caught up on Facebook, working through emails, playing some games, reading a favorite book and surfing numerous sites.
By comparison, I believe Netbooks can be described as productivity devices. They are truly mini-laptops, running a full OS such as Windows XP, Windows 7, Linux, etc. While the devices are far from being computing powerhouses, they can run just about anything a full-blown laptop can. For example, I have Adobe Photoshop CS3, Dreamweaver CS3, Office 2007, and numerous other apps running on my Dell Mini and they work just fine. Maybe not as fast, but sufficient! Personally, my remote/mobile needs require the use of a hardware keyboard for most of what I do, and to me, it’s much easier to have that keyboard built in, rather than having to worry about carrying something extra.
Granted, battery life on my netbook (4hrs) pales by comparison to the iPad (11hrs or so), but at least I know when I go out the door to an appointment or wherever, I can turn on my netbook and operate just like I do on any other PC. As I write this today, I am sitting on my deck with my netbook, doing some newsletter work in Microsoft Publisher (as well as writing this article). I’ve been editing photos with Photoshop too. None of this would be realistically performed on the iPad (and I anticipate, any other iPad imitator to come). Those devices are aimed at consuming content, whereas netbooks are aimed at producing content. Those are broad generalizations, but pretty accurate.
Personally, I don’t see where an iPad/slate/tablet would fit into the scheme of things for my computing needs. A netbook and a powerful smartphone compliment one another wonderfully, and an iPad/slate/tablet wouldn’t replace the need for either of them. And the thought of carrying yet a third device is just absurd!
It all comes down to personal need! If in doubt as to what you should purchase, take inventory of what you envision yourself doing with a mobile device the majority of the time, and you’ll have a better idea, based on what I described above!
