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When the first iPad came out I wondered wtf was the point of a tablet, and I’m still wondering
As a current university student, I see a lot of iPads and Surface tablets in my classes. They have essentially replaced traditional laptops in any specialties that isn’t computer science adjacent.
You can handwrite notes straight your textbooks/slides or type with an external keyboard without having to carry around a textbook+notebook+laptop. It’s very convenient.
The only 2 reason I can think of is price and size. Even if someone needs to draw something that can't be easily done with kbm, there are touchscreen laptops that can take care of that. But those do cost more than a cheap tablet and if you don't need any other features that needs more power then tablet would be a cheaper alternative. I don't get your second point of carrying textbook, notebook and a laptop tho, a laptop can already do all of that just like a tablet or even better. The only time someone asked me for tablet recommendations was when they needed something small to read on bed.
A touchscreen laptop is no where near the fidelity you get with the Apple pencil or a Samsung s-pen.
Lenovo has a stylus that's about as good as those, plus Samsung sells laptops that work with the s-pen and there's the Surface Laptop as well.
I have a Samsung Galaxy Book2 360 convertible because it can do the laptop stuff and the tablet stuff. With the Windows Subsystem for Android I even have that covered. Works pretty neat.
You just answered your own question about the notebook and textbook when you said someone wanted their tablet for an ereader. Tablets are easier to read on than a laptop, and you are able to scrawl in the margins. And in school we have it beaten into our heads that you learn better from writing things down than typing, so a lot of students have shifted to digital handwritten note taking.
I don’t think you have used a tablet for a while if you think they’re not as powerful as laptops nowadays. I specifically mentioned the Surface and iPads because the Surface pro is marketed by Microsoft as a equivalent to a laptop (and mine runs Linux really well). The iPad Pros run on the same M1/M2 chips as their Macbooks do, and honestly nothing comes closest to the pen and paper equivalent than the iPad+pencil (not even my Surface). I don’t see any other brands or Android tablets around, except for one guy in my human anatomy class that has a modded Nexus 7 and that thing is sick.
A lot of people don’t need more power than that in university or their work.
That was my first point mate, size. I don't see the feature wise difference but I only tried the iPad pencil for a little bit and didn't like it that much but could see people liking it.
Oop, when you said “size” I wasn’t sure if you meant screen size or the dimensions of the actual device, my b.
I actually talked to a few of my classmates since our conversation here made me curious. Many of them actually DO own laptops, but as their home PC setup, with dual monitors and external keyboards for gaming and as media centres. So it seems like laptops are the desktop replacements here, and tablets are the laptop replacement.
Again this is for a specific university demographic that primarily live in student apartment.
i bought a lenovo flex5 the one that you can 360 the keyboard and it becomes a tablet. the pen works pretty good in linux
Heh, reminds me of this ancient meme from when the iPad first came out
Tablets are very good for things that you wouldn't wanna do on your phone because of its small screen.
Like looking up to the monitor where I'd actually be doing the task instead?
Reading comics.
Yup. Everything else is just bonus
Tablets are good for "consumption" vs laptops/desktops that are better for "creation/production".
If all you want to do is browse the web, social media, watch videos, etc then tablets are a simpler interface for doing that, compared to dealing with all the extra things involved in a desktop OS.
For creation/production, aka "real work", laptop/desktop is obviously much more efficient and powerful for that.
That depends on your job, I use Tab S8 all the time for making up PDF's site visits, it's great.
If you're a digital artist or someone looking to get into digital art, an IPad Air with an Apple Pencil is the cheapest entry-point that doesn't require a computer and doesn't absolutely suck.
My kid has a Galaxy Tab FE with the stylus and does amazing stuff in Krita on it, and that was pretty cheap.
I used to think the same.
Turns out they are a good alternative to laptops.
If you don't need powerful hardware, then tablets allow to save space in the backpack, are way lighter and always have a touch screen, which in connection with a stylus is big deal for taking notes. Laptops with a touch screen, in comparison, cost way more (at least where I live they do).
Personally, I use it for studying and media consumption. It replaced almost all of my paper. You can also sign documents using those (depends on laws in your country). Inserting photos into documents is one thing you can't do as easily with laptops as well.
And when I do need access to better hardware, I just remote to my PC at home.
You can sign documents with the click of a mouse on a desktop. The validity of a digital signature comes from an authenticated account, time stamps, and an encrypted key; not your finger tracing on a touchscreen.
Not every digital signature is legally binding, I'm afraid.
In my country, there are 3 types of it. A simple one (login/password), unqualified (encrypted series of numbers), and qualified (same as unqualified, but encrypted using certified means by government). The last two are stored on a physical drive.
The higher the grade, the more legal power the signature holds.
When signing it by hand from a tablet it's the same as signing it personally where I live. Which, unlike qualified digital signature, can be used for any document.
That's actually something we need to get handled as a society. Unfortunately the justice system still runs on fax machines so we're basically not viable as a species.
On the government timescale, these devices blinked into existence 10 minutes ago. I'm just glad I can digitally submit my taxes
Desktops aren't exactly portable.
A laptop is exactly the same as a desktop, just more portable.
By that logic, a tablet is exactly the same as a laptop, just more portable.
?
The internals and software of a laptop and a desktop are almost identical.
SkyeStarfell already said it more politely than I was going to, but you can also sign things from phones. The point was that it doesn't have to be a written signature so the tablet medium provides no benefit.
I don't need that powerful hardware.. it's the software side that's mostly lacking for me (as a software developer :)
Comic book and sheet music reader for me.
Even though I have relatively decent phone which can display 1080p videos no problem, I still prefer watching videos on my crappier tablet scaled down to 720p because it's still better to watch worse quality video on bigger screen than better quality video on smaller.
True, although I just watch them on an actual screen then. The situations where I need a portable - but not really all that portable - device to watch a video on that requires a large - but not really all that large - screen are so utterly rare. They happen, sure, but I might as well watch on a Steam Deck then or something, something that has another intrinsic "main" value.
Digital Comics. They're the best device for them.
Replacing paper for handwriting.
That's literally my only use for my iPad. Which is sort of sad, since it's a very capable device, just hamstrung by Apple's shitty software.
then get a remarkable or a supernote. both are vastly superior for handwriting notes on.
Yeah, I use a boox but have the same take away. Any eink tablet is going to be 10x better than an iPad for notes.
Digital cook books (either in PDF or on Kindle) are amazing on a tablet.
Also, any other kind of PDF. Way better for D&D rulebooks (or other rpg games).
Also comics, video, youtube, etc.
A lot of digital artists use the iPad because of Procreate. It's a nice alternative to having to use a separate laptop + pen display.
For many people, a tablet is a decent alternative to a laptop. Not everyone needs the capabilities of a laptop.
Having a lightweight computer that you can in your hand with a large enough screen. Typing this reply to you on my Galaxy Tab S6 Lite now; nicer to use than my phone.
I don't really see the use at home either, but for notetaking at school it is an absolute godsent. No more forgetting stuff at home or carrying around a heavy folder
With a 6,6" phone I don't need a tablet for everyday carry because the screen is just big enough. Back in the day of 5" screens I always had a need for a tablet. Nevertheless, tablets are great for certain professional tasks.
Like taking inventories, putting together orders and other warehouse tasks where I need to work with spreadsheets on the go but a laptop is just too unwieldy.
Tablets are also absolutely great for live mixing with digital boards—you can walk around in the audience and adjust the sound on the spot. Same for adjusting the system settings while doing installations. And for small gigs, the mixing board can be tucked away in a stage corner and not clutter the floor.
Pilots use tablets as digital kneeboards for checklists and other necessities.
Tablets also make great POS devices and there are many specialised models for just that task.
Tablets are simply fantastic for wallmounted or desktop control panels for smarthomes. You can even use the front camera for motion detection so the screen comes automagically on when you approach it. I use WallPanel, but Fully Kiosk Browser is also very popular.
A 6.6" 20:9 screen isnt't that big. You're just getting the top and bottom bezels of the older 5.5" 16:9 phone basically. So a tablet will still have a bigger screen.
Agree with your other points about use cases for tablets. They're pretty versatile, I don't know why this community likes to poo-poo them.
Being in a highly technical field I agree with you in wondering the point of tablets, but I am observing a couple of people -in a local transport medium, use it as a replacement for pen-paper with an added advantage of collaboration on a document with multiple people.
I'm not bothered to check, but tablets might be cheaper than 2-in-1 or otherwise touchscreen PC laptops.
Reading on the train
Handwriting but digital. I used to use a 2in1 laptop (Fujitsu T935, the weird mechanism is a great conversation starter) for that before I eventually stopped handwriting altogether, but I can see how a tablet is more convenient because you don't have to deal with windows BS or make linux work well with a touchscreen. An ARM SoC also helps a lot with weight and battery life at the cost of not having a full computer.
I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite. Mostly use it to take handwritten notes and read books/papers.