I am considering trading my laptop for a tablet. Is this a good move?

Depends what you want it for.

I dont use a laptop, i use a desktop which it hasn't been ditched.

My wife has ditched her laptop for a tablet, except for working from home in ms office.

I've had a tablet for 6 months but still use my laptop and desktop just as much as before. I use my tablet in situations where I wouldn't have bothered using my laptop - so I see it as an additional tool, not a replacement one.

For anything which involves entering information (such as contributing to DS forums!), I still find a proper keyboard much quicker and easier than a touchscreen one. For work, it will be a long time before a tablet is capable of replacing my desktop system.

Yes, my cellular version of the iPad 4 replaced my laptop. As the previous poster said, it depends on your use of the laptop.

But why is it a good move.

No. A tablet is OK for many things but if you do a lot of work with documents, websites, image manipulation etc. a laptop or desktop is still the best.

I also find typing on my iPad frustrating, perhaps it's me but I often find I mistype and trying to edit a particular word in a paragraph really frustrating.

I have a laptop that runs 24/7 that I use to stream media to other devices in the homegroup, but I use mostly tablet now, browsing, media, email, Office, but mostly reading. If I want something serious I switch to the laptop. But I work 8 hours a day with computer, so I try to avoid more work when at home.

For me it was a far superior move as it gives me much greater portability, much lighter device, much greater battery life, much better screen quality and better access speed in terms of being able to quickly use and then store the device. I also have an unlimited 4G LTE plan on it that makes it always accessible to the Internet.

It's not a good move. When I want to watch Hulu on my tablet, and I go to www.hulu.com via chrome browser on my tablet, it prompts me to download the Hulu app which doesn't work with vpn. That's how it goes for the most of the video apps. Another thing that there is no ad blockers for tablets. I have Acer Iconia B1 android tablet and I can't seem to find an ad blocking app or a plugin and ads are everywhere, in browsers, apps and e-mail. When you have a laptop, I think you can surf more freely and use various apps and plug-ins including VPN for geo-blocked websites and apps. Tablets are great, but I still wouldn't ditch my laptop for them.

You can't say "no" and then follow that with "but if." It all depends on what you do on your laptop, as the second part of your statement correctly says.


It takes a bit of practice but I can type as quick on my iPad's screen as I can on my Macs keyboard.

I find an onscreen keyboard on my Surface pretty good, I am not tempted to use the cover keyboard which I use only as a cover.

There are browsers available for the iPad that have builtin ad blockers and not everyone is trying to access content illegally. There are plenty of legal ways to access video content.

i have 2 tablets but have just bought a shiny touchscreen laptop (15.6" screen for significantly less than a Surface).

Whilst the tablets are great for casual browsing and gaming I have started tinkering in the world of DSLR photography and image manipulation is just so much simpler on a PC/laptop - as is website management, plus I also need to Citrix in to work which, whilst functional on a tablet isnt ideal.

But it really is up to each individuals needs.

I love my tablets.
I love my laptop.

They both suit me best at different times.

The web pays its way with adverts.

With browsers paying their way too via referral link/searches etc, few really want to bite the hand that feeds.

He can say that unless some pedant is reading his post

I can copy type at a comfortable 50 WPM but can't do that on a tablet, it all depends upon your personal level of proficiency if your typing skills go across the board with different keyboard typs so I'm guessing that although you are posting almost forty replies a day your typing speed is not great. I suppose you have a lot to catch up on here though since your last incarnation on DS

Yeah, i've read this before too. If someone says they can type as fast on a touch screen (even if its swype like on android), then it just means they cant touch type competently on a PC keyboard.

With 10 fingers on the keyboard there is NO way you can possibly type as quick with 1 or 2 fingers. I've asked this poster what their WPM was, they ignored it.

I would say that ranks up there as one of the more bizarre posts I have received so far. This forum isn't lacking in that regard, unfortunately.

Using your kind of reasoning people shouldn't be able to text as amazingly fast as they can.

Almost... 95% of the time my laptop sits unused. (though my desktop doesn't) However I'm on my laptop right now, as I'm away from home for a couple of days and a tablet doesn't cut it. Plus I can't run Lightroom on a tablet.

I don't use my laptop anymore since I got my iPad but I still use my desktop

Sounds like you're a candidate for a convertible.

Something that's a laptop and tablet-y but is still only one device and is powerful.

Almost again, use the tablet for everything but things like word/excel and even then I usually do them at work, I do need to work from home occasionally so I would use the laptop for that.

For when I'm doing a lot of browsing, I much prefer a laptop to a tablet.

If I'm going to look at only one or two articles which are quite long then I'd prefer the tablet (but only because it has a much better resolution than my current laptops).

I have a samsung galaxy 7 tablet and use it to check emails and play games. I hate using it for the internet. I would much rather use my laptop as I find it easier to negotiate web pages and surf the net. Using the touch screen always does things I didn't intend it to do. Maybe it depends on what you are used to.