TL;DR - I'm more of a laptop man than a tablet man.
For starters, I should tell you that I am a techy pervert. I love gadgets. I'm someone who my friends come to when they want advice about a potential purchase.
I'm currently rocking what is arguably the best 'droid 10" tablet out at the moment, the Xperia Z2 Tablet. I also own an iPad Mini Retina, Nexus 7 (2013) and have used other iPads (10") and Asus Transformers (including the T100) and the like.
My aim was to use it as my sole device, and have a cheapo laptop as a backup plan for when a task required a computer.
While I have experimented with tablets lots, I always end up preferring laptops. This time is no different, and I have to say, while I think tablets have their place (I'll get to this later), I think they are still nothing other than toys which when you want to do anything even vaguely "serious", are nothing but a totally frustrating compromise.
I love my Nexus 5, and I also like my Nexus 7 (a bit glitchy, for my liking though). I recognise the Z2 Tablet as being the cream of the crop of Android tablets at the moment; I tried the Samsung Pro 10.1 but it was laggy and had a poorer screen than the Sony, and full of bloatware.
The giveaway though is how much I end up using my ancient Lenovo T61 laptop with a knackered battery (but on the plus side an SSD and RAM upgrade).
This morning - good example: I picked it up, started surfing and the browser crashed. So I ended up using the PC. The apps for a large Android tablet flat out suck in most cases (even though large Android tabs have been out for years!) and the browsing experience is a distant second to a computer. Chrome on Android isn't great (I get sick and tired of choosing "Desktop user agent" when using it). Firefox is feature rich but unstable, Dolphin is slow and the best of a bad bunch is Opera. It's acceptably fast and decent to use.
Other things like the typing experience is second rate compared to a real keyboard, it is frustrating to type things and even just navigate the UI. The scrolling (especially in the browser) isn't great (weird as my Nexus 5 is great using the same OS and a slightly older CPU!), and overall, trying to do anything productive, no matter how trivial, is just an exercise in frustration.
I thought it would be liberating ridding myself of Windows unless strictly necessary, but I'm beginning to realise how stifling it is in the real world. I'll happily put up with slow and numerous patches for the ease of use and extra functionality it offers. I didn't realise how much I appreciated even small things like keyboard shortcuts and powerful file functionality embedded into the OS, not to mention that a desktop OS has been developed over many years to be as efficient as possible.
Ultimately then, I find tablets kind of fun when in the mood, but most of the time, quite frustrating.
I do think there is a case for stuff like the Nexus 7 as its an ideal travel companion, but the 10" version is nothing like as portable.
Is anyone else with me on this or is it just me?
For starters, I should tell you that I am a techy pervert. I love gadgets. I'm someone who my friends come to when they want advice about a potential purchase.
I'm currently rocking what is arguably the best 'droid 10" tablet out at the moment, the Xperia Z2 Tablet. I also own an iPad Mini Retina, Nexus 7 (2013) and have used other iPads (10") and Asus Transformers (including the T100) and the like.
My aim was to use it as my sole device, and have a cheapo laptop as a backup plan for when a task required a computer.
While I have experimented with tablets lots, I always end up preferring laptops. This time is no different, and I have to say, while I think tablets have their place (I'll get to this later), I think they are still nothing other than toys which when you want to do anything even vaguely "serious", are nothing but a totally frustrating compromise.
I love my Nexus 5, and I also like my Nexus 7 (a bit glitchy, for my liking though). I recognise the Z2 Tablet as being the cream of the crop of Android tablets at the moment; I tried the Samsung Pro 10.1 but it was laggy and had a poorer screen than the Sony, and full of bloatware.
The giveaway though is how much I end up using my ancient Lenovo T61 laptop with a knackered battery (but on the plus side an SSD and RAM upgrade).
This morning - good example: I picked it up, started surfing and the browser crashed. So I ended up using the PC. The apps for a large Android tablet flat out suck in most cases (even though large Android tabs have been out for years!) and the browsing experience is a distant second to a computer. Chrome on Android isn't great (I get sick and tired of choosing "Desktop user agent" when using it). Firefox is feature rich but unstable, Dolphin is slow and the best of a bad bunch is Opera. It's acceptably fast and decent to use.
Other things like the typing experience is second rate compared to a real keyboard, it is frustrating to type things and even just navigate the UI. The scrolling (especially in the browser) isn't great (weird as my Nexus 5 is great using the same OS and a slightly older CPU!), and overall, trying to do anything productive, no matter how trivial, is just an exercise in frustration.
I thought it would be liberating ridding myself of Windows unless strictly necessary, but I'm beginning to realise how stifling it is in the real world. I'll happily put up with slow and numerous patches for the ease of use and extra functionality it offers. I didn't realise how much I appreciated even small things like keyboard shortcuts and powerful file functionality embedded into the OS, not to mention that a desktop OS has been developed over many years to be as efficient as possible.
Ultimately then, I find tablets kind of fun when in the mood, but most of the time, quite frustrating.
I do think there is a case for stuff like the Nexus 7 as its an ideal travel companion, but the 10" version is nothing like as portable.
Is anyone else with me on this or is it just me?




