Is the TAB going to replace the laptop ?

[help distressed]

More and more guys are using the TAB for its features like email, phone,camera, small office like PP word excel. How is it really different from a cell phone? Is it going to replace the LAPTOP?

[Dani]

The TAB? Do you mean a tablet? Huh??

[vmanes]

Tablets have their place for consumption of content, and lightweight (very lightweight) productivity use. But for really doing work, I don't see the desktop or mid-to upper end laptops going away. Tablets don't have the storage, the power, the ergonomics of usage that a full up machine has.

The content they consume has to be made somewhere.

[Ancient Dragon]

My PC has a lot of external devices connected to it, I don't see how a tablet could possibly do that. The tablet I have has only one port -- to tether to a PC or recharger.

[jwenting]

I need a keyboard, and an on-screen one that would sit vertical when I have the screen in a comfortable position would be useless, even if it were comfortable to use which an on-screen keyboard isn't.
And of course a 7" or 10" screen is just too small for serious use to replace a 15" laptop. Especially with that on-screen keyboard taking up 50% of the screen.

[Stuugie]

I remember, years ago, seeing a debate about whether or not the laptop would replace the pc. It didn't and won't and I suspect the tablet will fall in the same vein.

[stultuske]

for some tasks, sure. if it's just reading your horoscope online, no need for more.

but, as Stuugie said: go and ask somebody who, for hobby or job, needs access to the latest and fastest video cards, whether they still have a desktop, or are completely switched to the laptop yet.

the laptops contain advantages the tablets don't, just like the desktop did with the laptops.

Even though there are less desktops sold nowadays, there still are sold. so completely replacing? wouldn't count on it.

[Ancient Dragon]

I have a tablet for a couple years now -- almost complete waste of money. The only thing I use it for is to play a few games on occasion. One time I thought I could set the tablet up so that I could watch TV on it through my TV provider -- paid a few dollars to get the TV receiption rebroadcase onto my wifi then receive the wifi signal to the tablet -- it worked -- but it was sooo slow that it was nearly unwatchable. Good idea, but it's just not fast enough.

[Reverend Jim]

It would be fast enough if you lived in Chatanooga. They have incredibly fast (publicly owned) internet there.

[diafol]

I've just invested in a new iPad Air - I swore I'd never buy an iPad - pretentious nonsense as they are. Huh, after I bought it, I couldn't put it down for 5 hours straight. That was a month ago. I haven't picked it up since. What a total waste of money. I've given it to the kids to destroy.

"Oooh you can get an app for this and an app for that..."

To that I say, "Oh grow up and get a life". Reminds me of snake oil peddlers and religious leaders selling their wares. New tech for the great unwashed. Did Eve take a bite out of that old Apple?

So as a 40-something grumpy luddite, PADs are for the terminally vacuous - give me a newspaper any day.

The crazy thing is that you see them everywhere, like a freakin fashion accessory. Some people think they're so cool. To my mind, it just makes them look like a bunch of sad bucks (misprint).

Mind you I used to think the same about mobiles. Actually, I still do. I'm beginning to rant again. No - they're crap. If you want to work, use a laptop/desktop. If you want to waste your life, become a selfish little turd and ignore the people around you, use a PAD.

[diafol]

Did I mention that I enjoy the following:

1) Getting lost in a strange city (and refusing to ask for directions)
2) Using hand signals to make myself understood to somebody with no grasp of any language that I speak
3) Guessing how much money I have in my bank account - always an adrenaline rush at the supermarket checkout at the end of the month
4) Reading about news that broke 2 full days ago and having the pleasure of paying for it
5) Forgetting anniversaries and birthdays and having to grovel shamefacedly - that's a perverse one actually.
6) Getting up from the sofa to change tapes or vinyls after each song or spending some me-time spooling back and forth trying to find the song I like.

[Stuugie]

Well, I would be lost without my smart phone that hasn't made me smarter. Between my games, health apps, and keeping track of all my contacts, I have to use a smart phone.

@diafol, lol, the world is moving on and there's no need for:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5. Unless you really want to forget that for which case you're right
6. Tapes? Ack (although I wish I still had some vinyl.

As for them pads, they are more of a fashion statement and I get most bothered by the parents that use them during school concerts and plays so they can record their kids. They take up so much visual space in those scenarios when you're sitting behind the d-bags that use them.

Oh great, now I'm becoming a 40 year old grump.

[DavidB]

"Is the TAB going to replace the laptop?"

No, I don't think so.
I couldn't program on a tablet. Even a laptop is a bit awkward. I don't like being hunched over for hours when I am trying to write code. My preferred machine for serious code-banging is a still a desktop; with that, I can sit up straight, be comfortable, think clearly, and get better work done.

The only time I would consider getting a tablet or something similar, is if I were shopping for my children (8 - 12 years old). In that case, I'd go for a Chromebook (about $300): no operating system, no viruses, etc. everything is in the cloud. Most of the time they are just watching videos or playing games, so they don't need all the professional software packages anyhow.

[Reverend Jim]

@diafol - here's a handy tip. If you are losot in a foreign city and you don't speak the language and they don't speak English, it helps the locals to understand you better if you yell in English.

[mike_2000_17]

I could see how a tablet can be useful for some types of work where you need a really mobile smart-something for reading or taking notes or maybe light work. Basically, I don't think that the tablet will replace the laptop, it will replace the "pen and paper" stuff like notebooks, note-pads, folders, etc... which used to be the only reasonable way to easily carry some documents to some meeting or take notes "in the field".

For example, a friend of mine used to have an internship job where his job was to go around an entire power-plant and note down every temperature / pressure readings on the piping, and then come back to the office and enter them all into Excel, and then repeat. It would probably have been much more productive with a tablet from which he could just enter the values directly.

I see this as pretty much the only work-related purpose for tablets. And that wasn't something people did with laptops before, or it was really awkward to do with laptops.

As for leasure, I don't see where a tablet fits between a smart-phone, an e-reader, a TV, a laptop, and a computer. The fun little games on the tablet are just as good on a smart-phone. E-readers are better for reading. A TV is nicer for watching stuff. A laptop is nicer for sitting down and doing some work on-the-good (or in the office). And a desktop computer is better for serious work. I guess that as a "facebook and youtube machine", the tablet fits somewhat better than the rest, but is that really worth it.

[James_28]

Well I agree with the others that it will not happen so far. laptop have their space and need

[happygeek]

I keep a tablet (iPad 2) in my shoulder bag, and use it many times a day to browse the web when away from the office or home, check emails, connect to DaniWeb etc. Far better than my iPhone 5s for such things due to the larger screen (my eyesight is not so good). I also have a very good integrated case/keyboard (see my review of this here) which enables me to use the tablet for writing and research as part of my job (I'm a journalist and author).

Do I use my iPad in the office? Nah! I use a powerful laptop: Lenovo IdeaPad Y510P (Intel Core i7-4700MQ, 12GB RAM, 1TB HDD/24GB SSD Hybrid, 2GB GeForce GT 755M, Windows 8.1) coupled to a Dell ST220T Touchscreen and QPAD MK85-Pro mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX brown switches for any keyboard geeks out there. Haven't had a 'PC' for a decade or more now, no need when your lappy does everything it can do and can be taken home with you.

Will the tablet be the death of the laptop? No. I think a better analogy than the desktop PC/Laptop argument, which many may claim has been pretty much won by the laptop (just look at sales figures year on year) would be a netbook/laptop one. Many people said the netbook was the death of the laptop, and initial sales were good. However, the tablet has pretty much destroyed the netbook market.

So, the question should have been will the tablet replace the netbook, and the answer to that is it already has...

[jwenting]

For example, a friend of mine used to have an internship job where his job was to go around an entire power-plant and note down every temperature / pressure readings on the piping, and then come back to the office and enter them all into Excel, and then repeat. It would probably have been much more productive with a tablet from which he could just enter the values directly.

And have the tablet automatically record where he is using the GPS so he doesn't even have to fill in the sensor number, the system derives that from his location.

It's actually nearly one of the sample use cases Oracle uses to describe what a mobile device is good for.
They describe a pipeline inspector logging places in a miles long pipe that need repairs by walking or driving along and entering a log as he goes, then at the end hitting a button to upload the entire report to the head office (or even doing that on the fly if the device has 3G capability and there's a connection).

For me, it's mostly a device to contain documentation. Saves me lugging a dozen pounds or more of paper books around with me all day every day.
For note taking I still use pen and paper, as it's much more comfortable for stuff that doesn't need to be stored (mostly it's just notes of things I need to do next, rather than meeting notes or stuff like that).

[Stuugie]

it helps the locals to understand you better if you yell in English.

Hahahaha, speaking yelling in English, my wife is a manager at a Garden Market IGA and one night we had to go to her work because an alarm was triggered. There was a cleaning crew there, doing their thing, when we arrived. One of the guys, who was of Middle Eastern descent, could not speak a lick of English. When my wife asked him if he set off the alarm he gave her that look that non-coders have when a coder is talking business. LoL, my wife proceeded to ask him again but the second time she slowed her words down and started speaking louder. I started laughing right there and both of them looked at me like I was crazy. I told her about it shortly after and she didn't believe me or realize that she had done that. LoL, it still cracks me up.

Anyways, get back on topic!

[vegaseat]

I use my IPad for information, but don't consider it a real computer. It is just too awkward to write a scientific program with it, even though I found a good Python IDE app for it.

I do find myself touching the screen of my older laptop a lot.

[G_Waddell]

My opinion is for certain tasks no. That being said I do have a Google tablet, my wife has an IPad and my son has a tablet too. One thing I can see a tablet being really handy for is instead of having to cart a load of textbooks into school, is that they should be able to down load them on to tablets and then bring in a single tablet.

I use my tablet for playing the odd game, watching netflix when travelling and surfing the web but to use it for anything else requires at least a keyboard and I have a laptop that has that built in, is more powerfull and nearly as portable.

As for desktop, I actually don't use one anymore we have one at home hooked up to the TV for if we want to watch netflix but that's about it. At work we all have laptops and docking stations so we can bring them to client sites if we need to.

I think one of the reason Windows Surface has struggled is they have tried to get the tablet to be more than a big smart phone and more like a laptop but have instead ended up with a product that is neither fish nor fowl with the result being people who want a machine for mainly entertainment buy a tablet, people who need it mainly for work buy a laptop and(if they need it,) a cheap tablet and poor old compromised Surface is left on the shelf.

[ckide]

tab == paper book

[Dani]

Well now you tell us!

[deceptikon]

Two years ago I'd say no way in hell. These days I'd say that appropriately designed tablets can kill the netbook market, though not the laptop market due to simple scalability limits. My current tablet (ASUS T-100TA) is a perfectly suitable netbook as well as a nice tablet.

[Ancient Dragon]

When is a tablet not a tablet but a notebook? I bought my college grandaughter a Microsoft Surface with keyboard about 6 months ago and she loves it, a lot lighter than a notebook and the keyboard is slient. That's really about the only difference between the Surface that I bought here and a standard notebook.

[G_Waddell]

There is a great advert for toilet tissue here where the wife is helping the child draw a picture on paper and the husband pulls out his tablet and shows a graphics app to them saying "Karen" while shaking his head. Next clip, the couple are relaxing on the couche and she takes out a book and he takes out the tablet and again "Karen" while shaking his head and so on. The final scene is him in the toilet, he reaches for the toilet paper but it's finished, he shouts "Karen" and then sees his tablet being pushed under the door with a picture of a toilet roll on it. The tag line is paper has a future

[mindstreak]

Maybe if they integrate all the feautres of a laoptop into a tablet , then laptop would become extinct.But i dont see it happening in the next few years or so.

[jwenting]

There exist already tablets that can have keyboards attached to them, they aren't replacing laptops because they're still cumbersome to use.
The main drawback of tablets as is is the small screen size, lack of connectors for external appliances (keyboard, mouse, screen, printer, harddisks, DVD drives, card readers, security devices, you name it). And if you add all that, it's too large to be useful as a tablet :)

[diafol]

The tag line is paper has a future

Perhaps it should be that paper gets rid of shit and that tablet are shit. :)

[napninjanx]

Maybe not, cause tablets is fun to carry around but laptops will exist to cause people dowload and save files faster and people don't wanna spend hours downloading and transfering files to desktops etc would take to long.