There’s an old saying that the happiest days of a boat owner’s life are the day they buy the boat, and the day they sell it. For me, the happiest days of an Android tablet owner’s life are the day they buy a new one, and the day they buy a newer one. For some reason, I always buy tablets with great expectations, get them set up, and then promptly lose them in a pile on my desk, not to be seen again. Then a shiny new tablet gets my attention in a year or so, and the cycle repeats.
You might be thinking that I just buy cheap junk tablets. It is true that I have. But I have also bought new Galaxy and Asus tablets with the same result. Admittedly, I have owned several Surface Laptops and Pros, and I do use them. But I can’t remember the last time I have used one without the keyboard. They aren’t really tablets — they are just laptops that can also be heavy, awkward tablets.
Why?
I get the sense that iPad users get more use from their devices, but I’m not sure why. Maybe because Android tablets are really just blown-up phones. These days, my phone is big enough for most things. Sure, the tablet is bigger, but it isn’t that much bigger. In addition, my phone usually has a much better CPU, camera, and everything else. Not to mention it is constantly connected to the Internet, even if I’m not in range of a known WiFi router.
Read webpages? Phone. Play games? Phone. Deal with e-mail? Phone. The only advantage is if I put the tablet’s cheap Bluetooth keyboard on and use it like a laptop. But wait, I can just as well do that with the phone. Plus, voice typing for things like e-mails and messages is much better than it used to be.
Then there’s using it as a laptop replacement. When my laptop weighed a ton and got a few hours on a battery, that seemed like a good idea. But modern laptops don’t weigh that much, and they have pretty reasonable battery life, too. I always install some kind of Linux, like Termux and even Termux-X11, so I can use it as a lightweight Linux laptop. And I still don’t use it. (My setup is similar to the one in the video below, although you may have a few hiccups getting it all to work.)
Desktop
Phone, tablet, or laptop, I’m still more likely to be found at my desk behind a big screen with a serious computer. Maybe it’s a generation gap, like clinging to a landline phone (I don’t) or a DVD player (another thing I don’t do). Maybe it is that most of the things I do on the computer benefit from large split screens and fast computing times.
Of course, there’s also the gadget factor. My desktop computer is huge and heavy, full of cards and water coolers, disk drives and fans. Some people trick out their cars. It is hard to expand most laptops, phones, and tablets, although I have had some success taking them apart for simple upgrades. They never seem to go back together quite right, though.
So Then?
So then what do I actually want a tablet for? I don’t know. Which leads me to ask you: what are you using a tablet for? Do you really use it regularly? Or is it another gadget collecting dust? It doesn’t count if you repurpose them for some dedicated use: a second screen, a touchpad, or a 3D printer controller. I mean using them as a replacement for your normal computing platform. Let us know in the comments.
Maybe I’d be happier making my own tablet.
browsing web (phone is too small), watching movies, reading pdf datasheets (in portrait mode), some games
i need an actual keyboard or the experience is not a good one. this is why my phone is mostly just for two factor authentication and something to do while waiting for a root canal
Yes, just, yes, thank you. I have an iPhone, multiple iPads, the odd Android tablet, and a laptop. Each has their place.
But for actual USE, the day-to-day stuff, I find myself coming back to the traditional desktop computer with a useful keyboard and mouse and big screen (readable! even at my age!) My wife has trouble with whatever web page on her device? Let’s go use the COMPUTER, wherein it works and off we go.
TL;DR: A “device” is not the single all-encompassing solution to all problems.
I don’t have a tablet, but often wish I had an ipad. I’m not in the apple ecosystem though.
They wife does have one ipad, that I often borrow for reading some books. I do prefer physical books, but frequently I just want to consult or read a chapter. Besides, I use her tablet for some music stuff, mainly garage band and synth emulations. She uses it more frequently than her laptop.
I had a kindle once, and I find kindle either to small or to expensive depending on the model, also too locked up. Hope to never use one again, may try some other kind of e-reader in the future.
I had some android tablet in the past, but I would avoid them today. find them a bit neglected from manufacturers in comparison to phones. I use android phones and don’t like how often apps that I used to like simply become incompatible with android version and become obsolete out of nowhere.
Well for one, I’m not buying a phone bigger than 6″: if I need a TV I’ll buy a real TV. (Yeah, there’s not much of a choice of smaller phones now, and I’m not buying one that costs more than a decent TV either… Mine is an uphill battle).
A 10″ tablet is great for reading PDFs. It is also better than a phone for reading EPUBs because less scrolling and tapping is needed. And mine is a cheap Alcatel device with a plastic screen (who cares, it works!) and slow WiFi that I got for free from my internet provider… As an e-book reader, it’s been great.
I’m still on my 2020 iPhone 12 mini because I don’t want to give up the size…
Yep. When the tablet weighs half a kilo including the covers, there’s no comfortable way of holding it unless you put it on a stand on a desk, and then you’re hunching over it poking at a touch screen developing muscle cramps between your shoulder blades.
It’s not the format the problem but the OS.
I use my x86 tablet-PC every day.
It’s not the OS but the use case.
I bought a tablet for browsing the TV-guide and random websites during commercial breaks when watching TV.
Then I stopped watching TV because there was never anything interesting on, and I was just browsing the web on the couch, uncomfortably trying to balance a glass slab in my hands, instead of sitting in a comfy chair in front of the large screen at my computer desk.
I’ve got a Samsung Galaxy Tab S4. I use it multiple times a day. It’s what I carry when I travel even though I had a small laptop.
If it died today, I would replace it tomorrow.
It’s getting a bit long in the tooth now. Android 10 IIRC. I’m starting to run into apps that it won’t run, or do unpredictable things when they do run.
I did install a virus scanner as my friends at Samsung haven’t pushed a security update in several years. Better than nothing I suppose.
Installing a ‘virus scanner’s is actually probably worse than nothing. Greater attack surface, selling your data (how is it free?), and TONS of historic cases of mobile antimalware apps themselves being malware.
I tried carrying a tablet for travel with the idea that I could whip it out instead of the laptop on the train or bus, but then I realized it’s just as difficult to dig out of the backpack and all it does is add weight. Between the phone and the laptop, it doesn’t do the job of a laptop and it’s more cumbersome than the phone, so I just leave it on the coffee table at home.
Yes yes yes.
In my experience, people who use ipads are people who don’t really use computers. About the only person I really know who uses one seriously is a fellow-volunteer in a volunteer organisation; I routinely need to help her because she can’t figure out how to send a document she’s written on the ipad.
About eight years go I bought a laptop that folds around into a bit (15″) tablet. I still use it, but I can count the number of times I’ve used it as a tablet on one hand. It even came with a bluetooth pen; likewise been used about five times and only for the novelty value.
I tend to read books on my phone and a while ago I thought maybe I should buy a tablet to read books on since the phone screen is inconveniently small? I bought a Pixel fold instead. This was an expensive decision but the right one – one device is better than two.
Every now and then I think I’d like an eInk tablet for reading books. But I suspect they would go the same way – never used. Not to mention that they seem to be bloody-mindedly crap. The most popular ones don’t use the Google app store so say goodbye to reading any books you’ve purchased anywhere else.
I’d be happy if they’d give you a decent amount of atorage space after the os install. Mine is complaining about running out of space and getting slower due to os bloat. Runs great hn nw bu wih8n a year it is notably slower!
My kids watch youtube (and play a few games) on their cheapo temu tablets. They like that there’s a little privacy and they don’t have to fight for use of the single TV.
I don’t have much use for a tablet…i’d kind of like one for sheet music and i actually have one for that purpose but i haven’t worked out how to make it usable yet.
I got the 7″ Nexus tablet back when they first appeared and my biggest disappointment is that after i realized i would never use it again, i hung it on the wall and re-purposed it as an alarmclock. And it became too slow for that function! Which is unbelievable but i watched it happen. It just got slower every day until the “swipe right to turn off the beeping” was too slow. I replaced the OS with cyanogenmod and it was better for only a couple weeks. There was something seriously wrong with the tablet, probably hardware…and something much worse wrong with the OS.
iPads are super useful for in-flight use. All of your charts and everything on something like Foreflight.
I designed the jacket covers for the book series I wrote. The Ipad, combined with Procreate allowed me to do just that.
I have tried to find an iPad shaped hole in my life for years. For a long time, it was where Apple was putting all of its energy. I think they planned to stop making computers altogether in favor of tablets.
I don’t have that hole in my life. It might be my age, but I am firmly in the laptop camp. I admit that I have tried to touch my MacBook Pro’s screen to interact. (Then again, I’ve also tried to swipe magazine pages :D )
Remember when the guy that scored 1000 win10 tablets, and was giving them away 20 at a time here on HAD? Well, I got myself 20 of these and get plenty of use out of them, I have 3 lit up and running right now.
I use an iPad Air at work for taking photos directly into onenote and adding annotations, when doing a walk down for a new project. The company chose an iPad because of the better integration with Microsoft products than the Android tablets.
(I would prefer Android and Linux, but work is deeply into Microsoft)
The plant doesn’t allow cellphones and some area require a device that is rated for a hazardous environment , which the iPad can be with the right case.
Kitchen TV replacement
Unfortunately tablets are just crippleware computers that severely restrict you to someone else’s vision of what a computer should be used for. Like going to only a single restaurant all your life and being force fed the same meal day in and day out irregardless of what you order. The only time the meal changes is when there’s an “upgrade” and they take away one of the items on your plate and remove one of your pieces of cutlery and then tell you it’s better that way.
I can read a book on my phone because its just text and the text can reflow on the fly making a pretty decent experience.
I can’t read engineering datasheets like that. Download a data sheet from TI or AD or whoever and I can’t read the graphs etc without endless zoom in and out, very uncomfortable. However my tablet has zero problems with that.
I also use my tablet in the workshop to look at CAD drawings for the same reason, no zoom in / zoom out.
Same situation in the lab for reading schematics.
In summary, software can reflow text making plain text usable on a phone, but you can’t reflow a schematic or a graph from a transistor datasheet to make it practical to use a phone.
I have a big ol Tab P12 and most of the time it stays on the fridge on a magnetic mount.
It’s a calendar, shopping list, recipe reader, and sometimes a comic book reader. Which reminds me that I have a series to catch up on!
TBH it’s not nearly as useful as a laptop. The launcher is whack (and the recent menu breaks for other launchers) and Google calendar’s Android UI is definitely intended for vertical layout. Remember to set charge limits so the battery doesn’t deteriorate from constant charging.
I do use my tablet quite a lot. I’ll use the phone (Galaxy S22) for interwebs access when I’m out and about, I find the tablet (Galaxy Tab S10+) is much more usable with its large screen. It gets significant use in the evening at home and most of the day when we’re in the RV. That said, I’m responding on my Linux desktop (NUC) . I use a Macbook for solid modeling and 3D printing.
Not sure I have too much more to contribute than the other replies, but for me – it’s the right device for the right situation.
Heavy computing – my desktop that I upgrade as needed. Also has ~30 TB storage in it
portable computing – my laptop. It’s strong enough that it can run Jetbrains IDEs without issue and I think can maybe run 1 VM, but can definitely run some Docker/Podman containers
99% of the time outside of a building – my phone meets my needs including as a book (I prefer my ereader, but don’t always have it with me), music device, podcast device, gaming device (not my #1 choice, but good for some Slay the Spire or Gwent), and….voice calling (here and there)
So what is a tablet good for?
Watching Youtube or Netflix (back when I had it) at the dinner table if I want to show something to others or above the kitchen sink if I want to watch something while I do dishes.
reading graphic novels, comics, cookbooks, or anything that isn’t just a regular black and white book
a device the kids can use to Chromecast since they don’t have their own mobile phones
The place in my life for a tablet (notes, datasheets, organization) is well filled by an e-ink tablet. I don’t have to wake the screen constantly, and the battery life is measured in weeks not hours.
To your point, anything I could/would do on a tablet, I can do on my phone, so the tablets always end up collecting dust. If I could easily run Linux software on it, a tablet as a mobile working computer could work, but using the terminal on a touchscreen is garbage so I’d end up carrying a small Bluetooth keyboard, maybe a mouse, maybe a backup battery bank…. At that point I’m carrying a laptop with extra steps.