In my personal opinion I think that these new Tablets are simply a marketing scheme by the companies to generate more sales. These products do not do anything that can not be done on a computer and more importantly some don’t even offer some features that laptop computers do. I have yet to see a tablet that has a cd drive which is a very important tool for installing programs or drivers on to your computer. Also when you think in to it the Ipad is just an enlarged Iphone without the ability to be used as a phone. However these companies have seen that consumers will waste their money on these items and are now beginning to exploit this. I personally also could not and would not want to deal with a touch screen keyboard. There is absolutely no way it can be as efficient or convenient as an actual keyboard. I have tested most of these products and although you can bring about many arguments for why it is a good invention you can also bring about many reasons why it is a bad product too. Personally I would not buy an Ipad, samsung tab or any of the other brands simply due to the fact that a smart phone is a much more portable device and gives you basically every feature of the Ipad or any other tablet as well. I believe this item is just another material product that everyone wants for the cool factor. I personally see no use for them however.
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Tablets are for consuming. No really productive activities take place on them; therefore, it is my assertion that tablets are useless for producing anything. I’m certain that as developers create productivity applicatons for the various tablet platforms, more productivity will be gained from them, but until you can develop applications for a tablet platform (at a minimum) ON that platform, it’s basically a fun gadget.
I don’t think it’s fair to call these devices simple marketing schemes, because millions of people love them. They can keep in touch with their families, friends, etc., and they can access emails, photos, and other media. So for a consumption device these make perfect sense, but anyone who expects a table to act like a computer is wasting their money.
All of the things that you said can also be done from a smart phone as well or from a netbook which can be bought for cheaper than an iPad. Just my personal opinion though.
Tablets are for consuming. No really productive activities take place on them; therefore, it is my assertion that tablets are useless for producing anything. I’m certain that as developers create productivity applicatons for the various tablet platforms, more productivity will be gained from them, but until you can develop applications for a tablet platform (at a minimum) ON that platform, it’s basically a fun gadget.
I don’t think it’s fair to call these devices simple marketing schemes, because millions of people love them. They can keep in touch with their families, friends, etc., and they can access emails, photos, and other media. So for a consumption device these make perfect sense, but anyone who expects a tablet to act like a computer is wasting their money.
Your statements are not correct. Let me explain.
you say ” These products do not do anything that can not be done on a computer and more importantly some don’t even offer some features that laptop computers do”
That is very untrue because, Netbooks and Laptops are far far more pawerful. THey can do any computing task, new netbooks can run very resource intensive programs like Graphic editors, there is nothing you cant do with a good laptop and almost nothing you cant do with a good netbook.
I have a new eeepc netbook it cost 250€ now a standard iPad cost 350! and you cant watch flash movies over the internet. PATHETIC.
If i go for a samsung tablet they cost the same or more and cant do the kind or normal tasks i require as mentioned above.
If i plum for the rather expensive acer tablet @ 400€ i get nothing more then either of the 2 above only a feeling of buyers remorse!
Tablets require a subscription!!! Give me a break!! 3G… bite me!
In closing, the title of you blog is “The Ipad and all other tablets are useless”
I would like to redefine this and say that if you buy one of these you should be declared clinically stupid and cast in to the snow for wasting money on something that is nothing more then a fashion statement. If by chance you are reading this on your over priced piece of smudged glass… You clearly have more money then brains.
You dummy, your ageeing with him. Don’t you realize that. Honestly I think people like you just post to argue. The funny fact of it is, is that you come off as negative but yet you agree with the smart people who know technology like me and lane obviously.
@Mark Yates: You’re an imbecile, the biggest kind of imbecile; the imbecile who can’t READ.
You read the first sentence and thought “Welp, gee! He must be against the OP!”, then saw his criticisms of tablets (which are totally justified) and thought “wait a minute! These aren’t reasons in support of tablets!”. And then you drooled on your top and soiled yourself…
Where David says “your statements are incorrect”, he’s arguing that the statements weren’t extreme or extensive enough; NOT that the OP is totally wrong.
Seriously, good job buddy.
I tried the Ipad and Ipad 2 as well as other tablets and I just looked at them and thought whats the point they do nothing besides a few thing which I can do on my laptop etc I just couldnt see a reason to buy well not yet thats if there is a use for them later in life but I dont see it. Im glad im not gonna bother who knows maybe il buy one a few years from not but I might not.
When it comes to tablets the focus should not be on the hardware but instead about access. That’s where the value comes in. When it comes to the ipad you get access to the app store, i tunes, etc. For android devices, you get access to the Android Market and soon; google music, google books, and google movies. Smart phones paved the way for the tablet market. When developers saw what could be accomplished with a phone, everyone scratched their heads and said the same thing, we need a bigger screen! Thats where the tablet kicks in. I’ll admit its a luxury item. No one *needs* a tablet. But then again, no one *needs* a BMW when a honda civic works just fine. Catch my point?
Yeh I get your point. Have you ever heard of browser extensions. These are in essence the same things as tablet and cell phone apps. I want apps on my phone but I don’t need them on a tablet or PC. To me the focus of the tablet should be an ultra portable laptop computer with a touchscreen keyboard and usb ports that is as capable as a net book or laptop pc. It doesn’t need a dvdrw drive or anything of the sort because everything I do nowadays can be done with a pen drive. I’m still not getting rid of my software collection on CD anytime soon, at least not until I buy my external portable hard drive coupled with a solid state disk HDD.
Read On for a well written rant on the need for blank media and the current setup for smart people in the next generation of computer use:
Soon enough I will have a PC that will run an OS entirely on flash storage. One really only needs about 80 GB of HDD space because when you think about it you can run your applications securely on a completely portable WD passport drive. I am planning to Run all my applications off a USB drive in the near future. I will probably never toss my optical disc collection though. Although outdated and scratching prone that optical disc certainly our, they still hold great value to the consumer for backups of data.
Great advice to protect your valuable old Discs:
If you don’t want your disc scratched up simply take better care of them and buy tasks appropriate and or better quality blank media to backup your data. Buy these things called dskins that cover the optical disc and you can play the disc in a compatible optical disc drive while they are still on the disc. They are expensive but well worth it for consumers like me who prefer to backup data and OS’s (Operating Systems) on a DVDs for easy access and install on a traditional Desktop PC or Laptop and Netbook Computer.
More Relevant reasons for Keeping Blank Media Around:
Another argument for keeping blank media in your possession is for making backups of your DVD collection or Home Movies, if your a family man or woman and for your music. Last I checked although Blu Ray is the new standard for movies blank blu ray disc can still be bought and are relatively inexpensive. Also music is still best backed up on a blank disc. The old mp3 disc is an excellent Idea for anyone like myself who has allot of music that they want to archive on less than 5 disc for a last resort backup of your music that is easily accessible.
It is highly unlikely that your flash storage will fail and one may think that this makes Blank media a moot point or product to sell but on the contrary it is not a good enough reason to do away all together with blank DVDs Cd’s and blu ray disc. The reason one may ask for is that when you delete stuff from a flash drive or an external hdd drive plugged into a usb port it is gone forever (does not go to the recycling bin in windows) without the use of powerful file recovery software that although relatively inexpensive is not guaranteed to work and hardly ever recovers all of your data.
Hard Reality that Data Loss Happens No Matter and Backups are Crucial:
Trust me because I have tried it myself when my pen drive failed me. Data loss happens to people no matter what. This is why backups are so important. This can be avoided altogether with inexpensive blank media on hand and a super multi optical drive that are very inexpensive.
Plug for an excellent and prove e tailer Site:
See http://www.newegg.com if you like my ideas and want to buy items I’ve mentioned here to create your own backup scenario. They have some of the best prices available on the internet for everything from HDD to motherboards to PC cases and Memory. That is just in the computer hardware section. This is an awesome site for receiving current technology at rock bottom market prices that your traditional best buy and staples and in most cases Walmart can’t even touch or come close to.
Sorry to say but cd’s are going to be dead. Every thing is going to be digital. And in a few years apple and make are going to polish up cloud computing and we are only going to need a humming bird processor to do what ever you want because hold on to your seats; We well not need to own massive hardware at least for the mainstream folk who dont like messing around with the mechanics of it all. Point being learn to love the tablet because that will be your pc and our phones our laptops. New wave of tech heading our way.
I personally do not agree with you, I believe that the “smart phones” of today already have a slew of the capabilities that tablets have. Not to mention they are more portable, smaller, cheaper and more than likely have the ability to do any of the tasks a tablet will do. People do not want technology that doesn’t actually advance anything and that is what the tablet is. They are not a viable replacement for computers.
Hello, i agree about everything and I know its your personal blog and all, but understand if you see someone down the street using one; dont critize. I myself am planning on buying a tablet for specific reasons. Im going to college in a year and need something to record lectures, draw/write notes, research, etc. Sure my laptop and smartphone could do all that but there are problems. Carrying my 15″ 3 pound laptop would just make me feel and look, well, tired and typing and researching on this phone makes my eyes squinch and my fingers ache because if the small real estate on this phone (droid 2). The tablet is lightweight, compact, and has more real estate to type. I will still be using both devices but as a stay in the dorm to make final details/printing/rigorous researching (laptop) and traveling/calling/gps (droid). Its all a matter of personal preference, and if you have found no use of a tablet, thats fine… but remember others have found a use and thats why they got it.
-Brandon
Carrying your 3 POUND laptop is going to make you tired? 3 POUNDS?!?!?!?
And you will have trouble keeping up with notes on your iPad you can trust me on that.
My laptop weights 10 lbs. I carry it around and let a program on it take notes for me. Why would I get a tablet for taking notes, when a piece of paper could do the same thing? Or my laptop which is required for my classes anyway which can run blender and 3dsmax. why would I need to lug around two things when I could just lug around one?
Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it…. I apparently have more money than brains while maintaining a 3.89 GPA… I find lots of uses for my iPad and it weights less than my Macbook or Imac (and is far less cumbersome) .. so… each to his own I say. Long live Apple and Steve Jobs and … may all opinions still be aired through whatever forum you wish! Ignorant merely means – uneducated it, in no way implies stupid.
Your GPA does not indicate intelligence, that is what an IQ is representative of. Thank you, come again.
3.89 GPA really isn’t all that impressive for you to be writing comments online bragging about it hahaha
People just like Apple because its fashionable not because its useful.
It’s “to each his own”… dumb ass. Obtaining a 3.89 GPA in today’s high-quality education system is not a feat one should brag about. I am a 27 year old Computer Science PhD student. Guess what… I take notes with a $1 pen and an $0.80 mead notebook. I have a 4 year old flip-phone and I do not even own a laptop. Also, I don’t just repeat garbage that Google finds for me, I read books and academic journals that are printed on paper! I know, it’s weird.
yaaaaay. I’m 18 and own mac products. I dont know what I’m doing in life but I’m proud of my little gpa score which means nothing outside my little school I go to and which will disappear and become pointless in 1 year. it’s like earning a medal for trying hard. I’m rich so I own mac products and mommy and daddy pay for my schooling which I’m probably getting a degree that I will /never/ use once I graduate.
“In my personal opinion I think that these new Tablets are simply a marketing scheme by the companies to generate more sales. ”
You have a laptop and a smartphone.. I bet you have a desktop computer too.
I have never used iPad but I understand why people love them (because I own a couch).. And CDs are dead, I don’t have a laptop but my smartphone doesn’t have a cd/dvd drive. It’s funny how people can do 38198 things with computers, but when you call it “iPad” it’s suddenly useless.
“I believe this item is just another material product that everyone wants for the cool factor. I personally see no use for them however.”
Man, I remember when blogs were cool..
I have to agree with the author. I have a very extensive computer background. I own a high end laptop, desktop, in addition to a smart phone. I bought an Acer Icona A500 tablet and while the device is great and fun to “play” with… I can’t find anything to do with it besides “play”. I’m rooted it, I have a different ROM on it, I’ve connected it to my office VPN, PBX…but this is all play.
Just got an android tablet for a birthday gift. They’re glorified PDA’s and I quit those about 10 years ago.
I can not think of one use for a tablet, whether it’s the iPad, which I would say is the best one or the POS $99 Sylvania that doesn’t even work. Netbooks do A LOT more than a tablet, have a keyboard, and are about the same size. If you’re an Apple fanboy then go ahead and get the Macbook Air. Same size as an iPad and it’s pretty much a real computer. Personally, although my next computer will be a MacBook Pro, for traveling, I’ll buy a $200 Windows Netbook that will blow every tablet out of the water in terms of everything except the touch game and pedometer feature, which you should have on your phone (if you wasted money on a tablet yet don’t have a phone I don’t even know what to tell you).
I was in Best Buy a few days ago and I saw something even worse than a tablet: a netbook with a touch screen that was running Android! Why in the world would anyone waste their money on that product? Windows or Mac OS is available in that size; get it! And this device had a touch screen too. I mean, at least it had a keyboard but still. The tablets that you can dock in the case with a keyboard are better, because you can actually type, but then again, if that’s the case, buy a $200 netbook! I saw a nice HP netbook running 2 GB ram and Windows 7 Premium (most netbooks have Starter Edition). $400 I was interested but it had a screen that flipped around so you could close the clamshell and use it as a touch screen. Windows 7 touchscreen? I can’t even comment as to why someone would want to do this when the little pad thing is there and works fine.
I work in the electronics department at a major department store. We all know the crazies come out at Christmas time, but I’ve never, EVER seen scummier, crummier, nastier people than I’ve seen this past year. They all want tablets and act like I murdered their grandmother when I tel them, “It’s two days before Christmas, that’s why we’re out of stock.” “Well, they’re in the ad????” I love that one. It really isn’t a question, so I just stare at them or walk away. Hideous people, I tell you.
Personally I have a 2004 laptop. Heavy, old, and the screen isn’t the brightest compared to new ones, but I have a 250 GB HD, 2 GB of RAM, and Windows 7 Ultimate Edition. I have a DVD burner, a battery I can remove and replace with the backup, space for downloading, 4 USB 2.0 ports, slots for SD, xD, CF, and other cards, PCMIA slot, Firewire, WiFi, CD player, keyboard, a mouse, a mouse pad, blue tooth if I buy the adaptor….I could go on and on, right? All of those features on my lowly 2004 laptop don’t exist on tablets. Imagine if we were comparing this to a 2012 PC or Mac notebook? Considering that this 8-year old, $800 computer destroys any tablet in existence, I think it’s safe to say that tablets are in a different category.
So, my phone is also old. It’s a 2007 Blackberry and the only reason I don’t have an iPhone is because up until recently they didn’t SIM cards and also that you can’t replace the battery. I still might get one but some of those HTC phones looks nice too. I do like the ones with the physical keyboards. Or, maybe I could get a tablet? Ahh, nah, I think I’d prefer a phone because I can’t do everything on that, plus it fits in my pocket and has “voice chat” with local house phones from which my customers call me. So, since a tablet is pretty much destroyed by the usefulness of a phone, what category should we put them in?
I bought a Fenix TK45 $150 LED flashlight. It was $150. As bright as a car headlight, aircraft grade aluminum finish, looks super cool. I never really use it except as a night light (on low it lasts like 1000 hours on one set of batteries). My GF bought me a bracelet. I don’t like wearing it because it pulls the hair on my arms. Looks cool, kind of. It just sits on the dresser. I guess it gets about as much use as the picture of the ocean on the wall. I paid $30 for that picture and enjoy looking at it. I think this is the category in which we should place tablets. Something we cherish. I have a super old camera in mint condition. Will never use it but I’m happy knowing it’s there. Lets place tablets in the “antiques” category. They don’t actually DO anything.
There was one use, however. If my family goes hiking and I can’t go they can voice chat with me on the iPad while I’m sitting home sick at the computer. I can see the scenery and they can see my face and my reaction to the beautiful sights. I can’t smell the flowers but I can hear the birds singing. And I guess the tablet would be easier to carry than a netbook.
Conclusion – That last paragraph was a super stretch; and tablets suck!
Just think how successful a company Palm would still be had their Palm Pilots had 10 inch screens instead of 4 inches. Smart phones put them out of business but make them bigger? Make $$ millions!
Palm Inc. did not go out of business. In fact, the company is worth $1.2 billion today.
You take a smart phone, strip out the phone, make it two to four time bigger and charge twice to four time as much and you have a tablet. Proof positive that fools and their money are soon parted.
The funny thing is I would have agreed with you before Christmas. But I got my Kindle Fire at Christmas and haven’t turned on my computer much since then. We don’t have cable, we have netflix. We hardly turn on a TV anymore. I don’t store any documents on a computer anymore because I use Evernote and Google Docs. My family pictures are backed up on Shutterfly. I don’t think we will be able to store documents for free forever, but we can do it for now and move them to whatever device of the future when that time comes. I am still all “old school” with my hotmail email address, but even hotmail has an app for my kindle so it is really easy to check in on my email. As for CD’s – are CD’s not already dead? Tablets may be a device for consumption, but it replaces other devices for consumption and I am okay with that. Instead of running back and forth between a computer and the kitchen or having a laptop eat up lots of counter space, now I can access all my (free) online recipes easily in the kitchen without printing out gobs of paper. We already had wi-fi since we already have multiple computers in the house, so there are no monthly subscription fees that I have paid. I like that the kids can easily operate the kindle with the content I have already put on it, but have a harder time accessing other things. It allows them to use the device independently but safely (they are 6 and 3). I can download books for them that they can easily access – so it is really perfect for travel too. My husband has an IPad for work and has a stylus and a keyboard for it that make it as effective as a computer. His office uses Google so there is nothing he can’t access on the IPad. He still brings home a laptop sometimes, but can accomplish a lot on the IPad that is work related. I still prefer to take meeting notes on yellow legal pads. I’ve never liked typing in meetings in general. So, I like my tablet. I don’t think that makes me an idiot. It just makes me a person that has different computing and entertainment tastes than you do. (I also don’t have a fancy phone, in which case maybe I wouldn’t have a tablet).
You are perfectly right. This message is being writen from a Dell D400 Latitude laptop (1 Go RAM, 1 Ghz proc, Win XP). It’s 10 years old… and far better than an iPad3, or latest Asus Transformer. Faster, able to launch better apps… I enjoy a real keyboard and mouse, all USB, and they do lack on a tablet. Basically, you CANNOT WORK on a tablet. Pure consuming, users a considered by Apple as dorks, just good enough to watch videos and share useless thinkings over Twitter and Facebook.
Yet, they sell millons of tablets. So, face the truth: there are millions of morons, and Apple has found a terrible market. Let’s hope it just won’t overwhelm everything.
Tablets fill a very niche group of people. Majority are probably ones who want portable browsing and e-mail but don’t want to sit at their desk. :b I personally as a gamer see no need in buying a tablet… Plus I have a smart phone so mobile contacts are never a problem.
I do own one however (won it in a scratch and win at a near by Asian grocery store)
And although it’s not better than my comp it is handy as a dual screen and to save my phones battery when I go out :p
Haven’t tried but I hear it’s not bad for university students who don’t want to lug a laptop around risking your main computers well being.
I feel I wasted almost 500 on a samsung 7.7 tablet in singapore I love the screen resolution and its portability and size but it will be the lasst tablet that I pay over 100 dollars for
I still prefer my laptop by a mile and plan to buy an ultrabook soon
Tablets are only great when you are on the move and want something very light and portable and smart phone screens are just too small for me
But if I am in a car or on a plane then I prefer an ultrabook
The tablet would just not be used more than 10% of the time and am I going to pay 500 or 600 for that Never again I think tablets are a fad and another thing to show off
U kive it for reading the news but soon I will be able to buy a decent tablet for 100 dollars and that is about all I should be spending on this toy
Most of the time I just won’t use it
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I couldn’t resist commenting. Well written!|
Do you have a Diigo account?
Tablets are not only a waste of time but a waste of money too, My uncle bought one while on vacation, and It still sits in the corner.