Tablet Owners: Do you really USE it?

[alent1234]

i use my ipad 2 more than my laptop

on the train to work i'm reading books on it
i have my work and personal email on it as well
my older son uses it for youtube and some of his books along with educational apps
my younger son is almost 10 months old and i'm going to start using the flash card apps on it with him soon

 

[Pliablemoose]

I'm seriously not trying to shit on the thread here...

If you don't find that you use your xoom because of "lack of worthy applications" what makes you think that an ipad 2 will be any different? Most apps these days can be found on both devices, so you are just going to be using the same worthless apps. If not the same exact one, there will be a close substitute.

I just don't see the point of saying, I don't use my current tablet enough, so I think I'll buy a new one.

I spent a lot of time the other day at Office Depot and logged in to my Google accounts with several Android tablets, there is still a huge difference in the apps available for android tablets.

The gap may be narrowing, but it's still there, and I was not impressed with what I saw.

Give the Android tablets/market another 6 months to a year IMHO, and they'll nearly be equal, but not yet.

Each Android tablet I used crashed or froze at least once while I was using them BTW (Thrive, Transformer, Lenovo.... They're still not ready for prime time, like I said, given some time, and they'll be awesome and as well rounded as the iPad, but not yet...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWd0gYrSXAM

There's an Android eTrade app too, that I use daily as well, but not an android tablet app, and it didn't look very good on an Android tablet...

 

[Bateluer]

Give the Android tablets/market another 6 months to a year IMHO, and they'll nearly be equal, but not yet.

Each Android tablet I used crashed or froze at least once while I was using them BTW (Thrive, Transformer, Lenovo.... They're still not ready for prime time, like I said, given some time, and they'll be awesome and as well rounded as the iPad, but not yet...

I didn't experience any crashes or freezes on the Xoom, Transformer, Tab 10.1, or Iconia A500, but generally, I agree with you. HoneyComb hasn't exactly been a firecracker. Crucial apps only became available months after the tablets/OS were released, WiFi only versions were slow in coming, etc. In a year, the processing power on these tablets is going to quadruple, at minimum. They'll have NetFlix, Hulu, HBO Go, etc. Apple knows its going to take the Android tablets some time to catch fire, but once they do, it'll be a firestorm and mirror the phone market.

On a positive note, I think the Xoom/Tab/Transformer have been getting OS updates faster than any non-Nexus phone ever did. 😛

Ice Cream Sandwich, which will hopefully be open source, will be what ignites the Android tablets.

 

[ponyo]

I'm seriously not trying to shit on the thread here...

If you don't find that you use your xoom because of "lack of worthy applications" what makes you think that an ipad 2 will be any different? Most apps these days can be found on both devices, so you are just going to be using the same worthless apps. If not the same exact one, there will be a close substitute.

I just don't see the point of saying, I don't use my current tablet enough, so I think I'll buy a new one.

You're pretty much correct. Just like OP found his iPad2 useless, the above Xoom owner is feeling the same. Exchanging for an iPad isn't going to solve his problem unless he's Apple fanboy who received his Xoom tablet as a gift. Tablets are not for everyone and power users should stick with their notebooks.

 

[Pliablemoose]

I didn't experience any crashes or freezes on the Xoom, Transformer, Tab 10.1, or Iconia A500

I really put them through a workout, and tethered them to my Thunderbolt, the CSR's were freaking out 🙂

I managed to crash or freeze all of them...

Worst I can manage on an iPad is to slow them down a bit, but they speed up with a reboot.

 

[Cobalt]

Use to tell myself I'd never get a tablet, don't see the point blah blah blah. Going on a month now with my iPad 2 and absolutely love it. Do all of my school work on it. It's an absolute must to jailbreak it though.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

i have ipad but rarely use it because it doesnt have 3g, so my phone is more convenient to use. anyone who gets a tablet should get cellular service, otherwise you wont use it

 

[Pliablemoose]

i have ipad but rarely use it because it doesnt have 3g, so my phone is more convenient to use. anyone who gets a tablet should get cellular service, otherwise you wont use it

Nope, just get the WiFi and tether it to your rooted or jailbroken phone.

 

[Cobalt]

Nope, just get the WiFi and tether it to your rooted or jailbroken phone.

Yup this is what I do.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

Nope, just get the WiFi and tether it to your rooted or jailbroken phone.

dealing with two devices every time you want to check something online is too much trouble. also cant providers tell youre doing that now (im dependent on verizon for business, so i wouldnt want to do anything to tick them off)?

can you do this with a virgin phone and is the speed coverage ok?

 

[Pliablemoose]

dealing with two devices every time you want to check something online is too much trouble. also cant providers tell youre doing that now (im dependent on verizon for business, so i wouldnt want to do anything to tick them off)?

can you do this with a virgin phone and is the speed coverage ok?

You could, but Virgin's network is slow as hell... It's not worth the effort IMHO, anyone use Virgin had a better experience?

 

[Deeko]

I'm seriously not trying to shit on the thread here...

If you don't find that you use your xoom because of "lack of worthy applications" what makes you think that an ipad 2 will be any different? Most apps these days can be found on both devices, so you are just going to be using the same worthless apps. If not the same exact one, there will be a close substitute.

I just don't see the point of saying, I don't use my current tablet enough, so I think I'll buy a new one.

A big difference is the number of tablet optimized apps. Sure, Android has an app for everything you want to do, but most of those apps are still designed for phones. There are a lot more apps built specifically for the iPad than there are apps built specifically for Honeycomb.

For me, though, the lack of app count on the PlayBook really doesn't bother me. The browser on this is just so awesome, almost everything I do with it is browser based anyway.

 

[xSauronx]

i use my nook color, some at home for reading and casual browsing/facebook/gaming. sometimes on the road as a passenger for games and reading. sometimes at work for reading/browsing.

really, i could very nearly justify getting rid of my timeline x, and might look at doing so very soon. today was the first time i really used it in weeks, and that was just because i had let the nook color battery die

 

[badb0y]

I use my iPad when I wake up and am laying in bed just to read news/weather and Anandtech forums. Then I use it to play games/browse the internet or watch videos using Airplay periodically through out the day. At the end of the day I use it to read books.

So yea I get my moneys worth out of it. My laptop is deadweight now I need to sell it.

 

[Dulanic]

I picked up one and returned it a week later, I didn't see that it offered anything over the other devices I have. For quick info I have my phone, for serious things I have my laptop.

 

[chin311]

use it more then my laptop ever got used, play games on it, watch netflix, browse, check email. I'd say a full charge on my iPad 2 lasts me a few days.

use it WAY more then I ever thought I would.

 

[blotto]

I Pretty much use my iPad 2 exclusively now, so much in fact that I sold my laptop. 99% of my mobile computing is web surfing. I figured why lug aound this 15.6" beast when a tablet can handle most of my usage and my desktop can pick up the slack.
I sold my Thinkpad w510 and bought a PRS guitar. It gets 10x the use my laptop had near the end.

 

[Genx87]

ASUS Transformer replaced my laptop. I use mine daily. However I do agree it isnt worth 600 dollars. Luckily I jumped on the staples 100 dollar off any tablet promo and got mine for 299 🙂

 

[ultimatebob]

I Pretty much use my iPad 2 exclusively now, so much in fact that I sold my laptop. 99% of my mobile computing is web surfing. I figured why lug aound this 15.6" beast when a tablet can handle most of my usage and my desktop can pick up the slack.
I sold my Thinkpad w510 and bought a PRS guitar. It gets 10x the use my laptop had near the end.

I thought that I'd use my iPad for web surfing as well, but a lot of the sites that I visit don't look correct on it. They either use some fancy JavaScript pull-down menu system that doesn't work right with the iPad, or they use Flash.

 

[Genx87]

I thought that I'd use my iPad for web surfing as well, but a lot of the sites that I visit don't look correct on it. They either use some fancy JavaScript pull-down menu system that doesn't work right with the iPad, or they use Flash.

This is a problem we are having with our development at work. They create sites that look terrible on iPads. So we have to get them an iPad to build the site better. Of course it renders perfectly fine on my Android based Transformer 😀

 

[blotto]

I thought that I'd use my iPad for web surfing as well, but a lot of the sites that I visit don't look correct on it. They either use some fancy JavaScript pull-down menu system that doesn't work right with the iPad, or they use Flash.

I've found that 90% of my web viewing is ok but there is that 10% of sites that just don't work. It's the trade off for the tiny comfortable form factor. At least the web experience is mostly great, I had an iPad 1 first and decided to sell it after a week and upgrade due to horrible browser performance. When deciding between an Android device or an iPad 2 I grabbed my brother's transformer and a friend's iPad 2 and side by side browsed with them. Surfing was slightly smoother with the iPad especially when things got heavy like a page of animated gifs in threads like the "jesus's middle name" one in ATOT.
That outweighed the flash capabilities of the Android.

 

[gorcorps]

I'm seriously not trying to shit on the thread here...

If you don't find that you use your xoom because of "lack of worthy applications" what makes you think that an ipad 2 will be any different? Most apps these days can be found on both devices, so you are just going to be using the same worthless apps. If not the same exact one, there will be a close substitute.

I just don't see the point of saying, I don't use my current tablet enough, so I think I'll buy a new one.

That's very not true. The app support on the iPad is worlds apart from Android. I can't say he'll like the iPad better, but he'll at least find better made apps and more decent choices. Anybody who thinks that Android and Apple marketplace and apps are the same are spouting bullshit and haven't owned both. Not the same at all.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Anybody who thinks that Android and Apple marketplace and apps are the same are spouting bullshit and haven't owned both. Not the same at all.

What makes them so different? They both have the main apps that most people use.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Let's not stink up a decent thread with X>Y crap. Again.

 

[poofyhairguy]

dealing with two devices every time you want to check something online is too much trouble. also cant providers tell youre doing that now (im dependent on verizon for business, so i wouldnt want to do anything to tick them off)?

With my wife's iPad 2 and iPhone (which are both jailbroken), she has installed MyWi on-demand tether when makes it so that as soon as the iPad can't get a wifi connection it automatically connects to her phone via bluetooth and tethers. Its seamless for her.

As far as them catching you, well an iPad has very similar usage patterns to an iPhone (mobile safari either way) so I don't see how they could tell. My understand is that people busted for tethering are doing it to a computer. I have never heard of a tablet user have that problem.

And for the record, both my wife and I use our tablets way more than we expected. It changed how she reads news and keeps up with people, and it changed my cigar smoking times and trips (bye netbook) and almost killed my DS as my primary gaming machine. The next generation of tablets, with 1080p playback and virtualization support, will kill my laptop as well.