My Ipad still sucks, even with iOS 5, is a tablet format any use for a grown up?

[Hicks12]

Glad its not just me... id much prefer a decent light weight laptop (like an ultrabook) that i can use all the time than a small tablet, for me it either fits in my pocket or in my bag, there is no need for middle ground there. Battery life just needs to be 2 hours tops for me, im always able to get to a plug socket at uni (everywhere haha) and at home theres plugs, my current Dell E6400 boots up near instantly and if i leave on standby its even quicker... standby on my laptop lasts like a whole day so really i can just leave it on standby and open it to do quick browsing .

My phone does my "I have no room and need it NOW" type browsing but a tablet doesnt fit in my pocket so cant actually meet my needs . I find tablets a novelty but thats just me, id still like to own one just to say i do haha!.

[Bunjiweb]

I'm currently sat on the toilet doing my morning catch up on an Asus Transformer tablet - I don't think balancing a laptop on my knees whilst I poop would be quite so successful.

But some of the reasons you state for not liking the iPad are the exact reason I went for the Tf101.It's a much more flexible and capable tablet experience in my opinion..

[Macman]

Can't fault my ipad tbh...

Its great for when I'm working on the car and need a know how guide at the side. Catch up tv without getting out of bed. It's practical. Battery lasts for ages due to my usage, don't use it that often. But the fact that it's there it's ideal for me.

The only thing I like about apple is the iPhone and iPad thats it... Everything else can get stuffed i.e. Mac Comps and Mac Books...

[cam1986]

Recently bought an ipad2 for the wife and daughter and i love it to be honest. Fast and effective.

[Bugbait]

I'll start by saying that for the most part I don't like Apple products. Yes, I'm generalizing.

Yet we have 2 iPads in our house, the 2 and “3” (or whatever the official designation for the current one is). My wife likes Apple products and having a young child (was just over one back then) she didn’t have time to get near her compact (13”) laptop during the day. When I got her the iPad2 she used it every day and loved it.

I never liked the screen on the iPad 2, it has a DPI that’s too low for comfortable text viewing but is fine for movies and games (anything moving). My son started to use her iPad for watching his shows and playing some games. So when the iPad 3 came out with its significantly higher resolution I upgraded the wife’s iPad so she wouldn’t have to share with my son.

My one and half year old son (at the time) could navigate the iPad with ease but he couldn’t use a laptop. No, this is not a testament to his intelligence but a credit to Apple’s touch interface. As much as I may dislike Apple for various reasons I have to give them credit where it’s due. Their touch based devices are so intuitive than any child or not-tech savvy person can use them with ease.

I rarely use either iPad and don’t own any laptops and haven’t for over a decade. When I use a PC at home it needs to have a big, quality screen with loads of power to back it up. I’m impatient and don’t want to wait. No laptop can run the games I like at the resolution and FPS that I find acceptable so it’s desktop all the way for me.

Bottom line: Different products for different needs.

EDIT: For what it's worth I traded my crappy iPhone 3GS in for a Samsung Galaxy S2 and haven't looked back. Eyeing the S3 at the moment.

[BerZerk]

Yes, I got the iPad 1... Which the missus is using most of the time. I recently bought the MBA, over the new iPad. It does more than what an iPad can do. I'm mainly use it at work...

[Saracen]

....

Seems like if you want to do tablet/ebook things, it's ideal.

If you want to do the tablet thing, maybe, or if you want magazines on an e-reader, maybe, but if you just want to lots of reading of actual books, the Kindle (and even Kobo) blow it away (IMHO, of course), and that's because the Kindle screen is designed for reading books, and for prolonged periods at that, and the iPad just isn't.

The Kindle is extremely good at doing what boils down to one thing, and doing it very, very well.

If, on the other hand, you want a tablet that'll do a number of things, and you can use it as a second-rate e-reader as well, then it's far more versatile. I can browse the web on my Kindle (note 1), but it's enough of a pain in the seat of the pants that only a confirmed masochist would do it often, by choice. As an emergency measure, it's about bearable. For regular use, forget it. But for simply reading books, there's no comparison. Horses for courses. And I guess the same applies to Ultrabook v iPad. It's about what you want it for, and what you do with it, and personal taste/preference.


Note 1 - That facility, web use, depends on model, if you use 3G rather than wifi.

[scaryjim]

iPad - wouldn't touch with a barge pole. Why not? Because you can get all of the USPs of a tablet device from pretty much any other tablet, at a lower entry cost (and I rarely buy any computing device above entry level). So I have a playbook, and I use it as much, if not more, than my very lightweight and portable 3810TZ, which I previously though was the only portable computer I'd even need - after previously having a cheap 10" 'droid tablet, which I knew was *not* the only portable computer I'd ever need.

Why do I use my playbook so much? Basically, it does all of my day-to-day internet stuff, as well as playing music and letting me read (mostly pdfs, some doc/docx) with minimal fuss, and much more comfortably, than my laptop. Plus, it's around an eighth of the size and less than a third of the weight of my light, portable laptop, which makes it a no-brainer which I'd rather stick in my bag.

In fact, at work I have a brand new 13" Latitude with a SB i7, with a docking station, so I have the choice of desktop experience, laptop experience or playbook, and I've spent quite a bit of time recently using my laptop as little more than a convenient way to transfer research papers and background reading to the playbook for ease of reading. Indeed, I've sat at my desk with my laptop idling to itself whilst I've read a paper on my playbook, because it's so much better for that purpose. It's also very usable for taking quick notes in meetings (I used to hate on-screen keyboards, but the playbook's is surprisingly good), plus it gives me easy access to my email & calendar either through native apps or a well-featured browser. In many situations, it's simply the right tool for the job.

That said, there are plenty of things I wouldn't use it for (typing lengthy forum posts like this one, for instance), but then given the option I wouldn't use a laptop or ultrabook for this either - I'd use a desktop (or at least a docked laptop with a decent monitor/mouse/keyboard, like my work setup). In fact, I have only one real use for a laptop - when I need to take a controllable full PC environment somewhere (e.g. when doing software demos).

But to actually answer the question in the thread title, yes, a tablet format is a lot of use for a grown up - if you have the right usage pattern and you buy the right tablet

[jimborae]

I'm currently sat on the toilet doing my morning catch up on an Asus Transformer tablet - I don't think balancing a laptop on my knees whilst I poop would be quite so successful.

Eugh....................TMI, the horror of the image I have in head!!!!

Having said that I may just quote that in my sig as I find it strangely amusing.

[Smudger]

So, in conclusion, the iPad is for girls and kids?

[Bugbait]

So, in conclusion, the iPad is for girls and kids?

Pretty much .

[capt_cornflake]

And the bewildered

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

And Cats!

[dangel]

I've got.. an iPad. There, I said it.

I mostly like it - but the thing I really hate is the dumb as feck keyboard. It's pants. In 2012 it's a joke that I mostly type full words on it, the predictive is rubbish (and often auto corrects to the word I wasn't thinking of) uses tiny teeny wee text with unclickable 'x' hit targets to cancel them and makes me lust for my Galaxy Nexus' swiftkey keyboard every damn time i use it. Safari is awful too but Atomic helps in this regard. Flipboard is gob-smacking and I probably use it more than anything else on it.

I agree though - far too heavy - if halving the weight had halved the battery life I'd of been happier.

Meh, it's a toy, but I do use it daily. Just wish Apple had actually done anything with their UI since the iPhone 1. They haven't and it shows. Good job the screen is lovely.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

my wife wants to buy a ipad 3

ultrabooks are better right? aint she better off with a macbook air?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

my wife wants to buy a ipad 3 and then an iPad 4 and then an iPad 5,a Macbook,a Macbook Air,an iMac an Apple telly,Apple iTV,Apple care

ultrabooks are better right? aint she better off with a macbook air?

Fixed for you. The Apple is in your house and its not budging!