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Replacing a Laptop with an Ipad: Worth It?
Professor Snugglesworth
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After finally owning an iPhone, I've been looking into getting an iPad next. I've been considering selling my laptop so I can get the extra cash to put toward said iPad.
For those unaware, my main computer resource is my desktop, which is pretty much up to date on all fronts. I have an extra laptop that I take with me to school, or to compose an article using MS Word on my bed, outside, or elsewhere.
Since the main things I do with a laptop is type on it and use the internet, I'm thinking an iPad would be a suitable replacement/upgrade. It's smaller and easier to carry around, has the simplified iPhone interface, full internet features, and so on.
So I just wanted some advice on whether this is a suitable idea, or if current iPads are lacking something vital that gives laptops the edge. Currently I'm uncertain if iPads have a USB port, which would be pretty important for using a keyboard or mouse, should I choose to. I'm also wondering if its Word equivalent is just as full-featured and easy to use.
So yeah, opinions and whatnot.
For those unaware, my main computer resource is my desktop, which is pretty much up to date on all fronts. I have an extra laptop that I take with me to school, or to compose an article using MS Word on my bed, outside, or elsewhere.
Since the main things I do with a laptop is type on it and use the internet, I'm thinking an iPad would be a suitable replacement/upgrade. It's smaller and easier to carry around, has the simplified iPhone interface, full internet features, and so on.
So I just wanted some advice on whether this is a suitable idea, or if current iPads are lacking something vital that gives laptops the edge. Currently I'm uncertain if iPads have a USB port, which would be pretty important for using a keyboard or mouse, should I choose to. I'm also wondering if its Word equivalent is just as full-featured and easy to use.
So yeah, opinions and whatnot.
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And the thing doesn't even support a mouse to my knowledge.
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After fooling around with a friend's iPad for a while some time ago I found it pretty miserable for anything past casual web browsing. "Full internet features" is simply not true.
- No multitasking means you can't do anything while you're browsing the web, not even listen to music
- No Flash means you will probably be seeing a lot of blank spots in webpages
- No physical keyboard makes typing URLs or forum posts a chore
- No software other than that on the App Store means you're stuck using Apple approved software
- Wifi burns through the battery extremely quickly
A lot of websites don't render properly on the iPad, and since you don't have a cursor you can't "hover", which (unless they've fixed it) borks certain functions of Twitter and some other websites.
If I were you, I would do this: Instead of spending $500 for the low end iPad, spend $300 and get a fully functional netbook. You'll end up with a device that is about the same size, about half the price, and with an infinitely larger software library.
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In 4.2, due out sometime next week probably, you can print from it, multi task, and use AirPlay. Also the majority of web video is now in HTML5 format, so the Flash thing is less and less of an issue each day.
Personally, I have found it more than sufficient for day-to-day laptop-esque tasks. I've had mine since a month after it launched and I use it daily.
I do have Pages, the Word equivalent, and it's perfectly fine for any kind of word processing.
And with all due respect to SmokeStacks, if your friends iPad was burning through battery quickly on Wi-Fi, it's probably defective. I run mine all day on various networks, including 3G, and when I plug it in at night it's still got a good 15% left.
I see no reason to get an iPad with 3G anyway, since for any "on the go" online browsing, I would just use my iPhone.
Any idea if the iPad will be featured in some sort of holiday deal, namely Black Friday? If I save up now and put my laptop on Ebay, I may be able to afford one in time.
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Well, if you swap SIM cards you won't need another data plan. Though if your iphone uses standard-SIM you'll have to cut down the SIM card to work in the ipad --this is actually not very hard (I did it for my iphone 4,) and if you do it carefully you can actually use it as a dual-card (takes a piece of tape) that you can move from your phone to your ipad and vice versa.
I don't know how hard it is to generally get two SIM cards that tie to one plan --in Canada with Rogers it was easy, they just gave me another one when I got my original iphone, and my previous SIM card and the new one both work fine with Rogers.
Still, I'd just jailbreak your iphone and turn it into a wifi hotspot, then connect the ipad to it that way for internet on the go (that you don't want to just use through your iphone.)
For casual e-mail and web, it's great. It isn't that hard to type things out, and even if things are hard to read on some sites/e-mails due to the way they were created you can pretty much zoom in on anything to get past that.
If you intend to do some serious heavy duty typing.... it's not so good. Doable yes, but not so good. If you got a Keyboard for it that would alleviate this, but also cuts down the easy portability. So depends upon how you will use it.
Music/movies/content. The netflix streaming is great, the youtube app is good if you are on youtube a lot. Getting content to a non jailbroken ipad is an exercise in pain unless you love you some itunes. Then it's just unwieldy if it's not music or video already in an ipad friendly format.
Overall use, look & feel. This thing is pretty polished looking and it is pretty easy to use and responsive. Currently an app needs to be explicitly coded for background use otherwise it will just stop/close when you switch. Mobile Saffari is crap and you will probably hate it. The app store is hit and miss, there's some gems in there surrounded by heaping piles of steaming blandness.
Overall, if you are looking for a strictly casual to moderate use of it while typing, or willing to get a keyboard, there's a good chance you will be ok with it, if not perfectly happy.
1. you can listen to music while browsing the web
2. ridiculous
3. this is not true unless you are really terrible at typing on it (ie someone who hasn't used it for more than a day)
4. jailbreak if you really need something that's not on the appstore
5. the battery lasts all day, i don't think you were even playing with an ipad
also mobile safari is great
there are also other browsers you can download
The majority of my browsing and net use is done via pc, but this works well when I'm not near one. Based on what you wrote in the OP, I think you will be satisfied with the iPad.
Also keep in mind that while I do think the iPad does a lot of things better than a netbook, it's not a netbook. There are things you won't be able to do that you might want to, or other things that might be a little more obtuse to accomplish than you're used to. There'll also be other things that are smoother, sleeker, and easier in a way that only a multitouch oriented tablet can offer. You'll just have to keep in mind that it is a device that's not even a year old, and has one of the most active developer communities on the planet. If there's something you can't do with the iPad today, you may be able to do it tomorrow.
The multitasking concerns are alleviated with 4.2, which just had it's gold master seeded to developers--meaning it'll be out to the public in a week or two. Multitasking on the iPad works the same way that it does with iPhone and iPod Touch -- apps states are automatically saved in the background and instantly recalled when you 'relaunch' that app. Background processing is made possibly via a handful of APIs which allow for music players and location-based apps to keep themselves going.
The keyboard is completely fine, it just takes getting used to.
As far as the guy who mentions things being rendered incorrectly, it's extremely rare that you see a webpage that doesn't render correctly on MobileSafari, and when it does it's likely because the developer did something wrong. WebKit (mobilesafari's rendering engine) is actually one of the best browsers for standards compliance, and supports more HTML5 and CSS3 features than most current desktop browsers.
I have a desktop, a laptop, and an iPad. I think all three have their place, but if I had to choose anything to get rid of, it'd be the laptop. My desktop handles gaming and beefier tasks like photo editing and development projects. My laptop handles these things too, just portably and with less power behind it. My iPad is used for basically everything else. Web browsing, eBook reading, watching movies and TV shows, etc. If you're only looking for something to accomplish those tasks, the iPad is perfectly capable.
I love my iPad, but it does not replace a Laptop, and you should not sell your Laptop to buy the iPad. You will regret it.
iPad is good for casual things. Reading in bed, quickly browsing e-mail, reading websites while on the move, some quarky little games; but as far as replacing the functionality of a full laptop, it does not.
You SHOULD get an iPad - but I don't think you should sell your laptop to get it.
In regards to the following:
That being said, when iOS 4.x becomes available for the iPad, many features will be added that take the already existing system and enhance it. It is a fantastic portable media device. Fantastic.
That whole 'the hover over thing breaks Twitter.com'
Why the heck would you use the web interface when there is a plethora of free or cheap apps designed for the device
Also with SkyFire being approved and hopefully in the App Store this Thursday 'Flash' will be on the iPad (SkyFire renders Flash as iOS-friendly HTML5)
And typing on the iPad is fine. If you plan to write The Great American Novel, invest in a portable keyboard. Using it with the Apple Wireless Keyboard is a dream.
as much as i love the device, this is probably the most practical course of action
that is, save up money until the refresh/1st gen ipads get cheaper
Multitasking will be out by Thanksgiving.
It's the penultimate web browsing device.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
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...have you used an iPad? or the iPhone 4 that you own?
most developers target 1024x768 anyway, and isn't restrictive when your OS has the best zooming and font smoothing on any device anywhere
That's guaranteed to be an absolute disaster. I uninstalled Flash on my Mac a couple months back and don't miss it one bit.
There's nothing disastrous about a service that re-serves flash video as HTML5, unless you have a problem with HTML5 video
and if you have a problem with HTML5 video, what the fuck is wrong with you?
i was thinking more for financial reasons
maybe it's just because i don't really sell stuff, but it seems like having to sell your laptop to buy an ipad means you should wait until you can afford it
You're reading into what I said the wrong way. It's almost guaranteed to be a worse user experience as far as the application is designed and error-prone. It's not going to be a sexy experience for the user RE: "it just works" mantra that sells so many iOS devices.
We'll find out tomorrow when it drops and people can test it out!
Sure, it won't be sexy. But an optional hacky solution is better than no solution at all.
I never find myself wishing I had a real laptop when out and about anymore. My iPad is worlds more mobile, and does everything I need for a mobile device to do.
And for those rare moments where I NEED desktop-class apps, I use Logmein, and all is well.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Let me tell you my story. At work, I am the IT guy for a pretty big (100 users) research firm. I use an iMac and a MacBook Pro, both of which live permanently on my desk. At home I play a few games and write for my blog. I use a 17" MacBook Pro. At all times I carry my iPhone.
Just so we're all clear - I have extraordinary amounts of very powerful computers available to me both at home and at work. I also have the option of carrying those computers if I need to "set up shop" in somebody else's office. My iPhone means I have 24/7 access to email, internet and pretty much everything ever.
I still carry my iPad everywhere. Those laptops might be beautiful and powerful and run full OS X, but I can count the number of times I wish I'd been carrying them and it's roughly zero. Maybe a MacBook Air would change that. I doubt it.
At work I use my iPad for notes in meetings. For an email/calendar client (we use Exchange). For SSH or VNC'ing into my servers. For inventory management. For reading the news on my break. For doodling ideas on train / bus journeys. For showing things to people. As a second screen for monitoring servers / processes. As my to-do list.
At home I mostly use it for catching up on RSS and FaceBook. Or watching movies. Or reading books. I use it for playing games. I use it to read comics. I use it draft the odd blog post. I use it as a remote for my speakers. For showing people my photos. For dicking about in various "art" apps.
As far as I'm concerned, my iPad has already replaced my laptop. And I can't honestly see my setup getting much better short of the next iPad revision being a major perfomance leap.
It's an older model android tablet, I bought it to test out whether its something I would actually use, or if I'd just rather carry my cell phone around with me. I really like it so far, however it's underpowered and has a resistive touch screen. It has none of the limitations of the iPad and is 100% useable as a laptop replacement.
I wouldnt recommend getting the model I got, spend the extra cash and getting one of the new Tegra tablets if you're going to go in that direction. http://www.flatcomputing.com/products/details/3/FlatPad-A10T-NEW
That model might not be your best choice either, but what I'm saying is shop around a bit, there are other tablet options.
Regarding video - vlc released an app that claims to run any file type.
Once multitasking and a spotify dedicated iPad app arrive I will be happy as a pig in muck.
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People get a tablet because they are very mobile, and because they should "just work." I suspect the 7" tablets coming out right now for android (galaxy tab, for instance) and the iPad are really the only games in town right now, with early to mid 2011 opening up the floodgates.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
But you'd have had to read my post to get that info, wouldnt you?
what are you using to manage all your keyboard-centric activities?
i have an iPad, and i fully respect it for what i consider it to be: a very fancy media device. movies, television, photos, and not-so-serious web browsing, it's great. the games are fun too, and maybe if i pick up a stylus i'd consider doing some serious brainstorming/idea creation via a drawing app. i have yet to see if a stylus is accurate enough.
but for any sort of serious web browsing, such as doing research on a subject, not having a mouse, not being able to have some sort of tabbed browsing mechanism, and having to use the built in keyboard makes it horrible!
if you're using the iPad keyboard mount or a bluetooth keyboard, that's great and all, but as somebody who on a daily basis has 5-6 tabs open all the time and needs the ability to flick through them, it's def. no replacement for a laptop.
maybe i'm just information-addicted and using the iPad in such a way isn't for me - that's an entirely legitimate possibility; but i would never, ever regard it as a laptop alternative, unless your needs are very simplistic. as a web developer/programmer/full time student/web browsing maniac, it just doesn't meet any of those needs. i wish it did!
plus, i also carry my iPhone around with me all the time, which to me, absolutely negates the necessity of having my iPad with me. i can type way faster (without a bluetooth keyboard) on my iPhone, watch netflix, i have permanent links to Google News and Slashdot on my home screen, and the convenience of being able to bust out a fairly discrete device without having to bring out an attachable keyboard/bluetooth keyboard is invaluable.
it seems like if you have an iPhone there's no reason to pop out an iPad - except for very light, very casual things, that you want to see big.
most of all, most of all
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It's a rebrand of the Malata pad, which while having great specs, was received in a very lukewarm fashion.
Android tablets are absolutely not ready for primetime yet, save possibly the expensive but well designed galaxy tab.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
So what you are saying is wait for the next thing to come along?
Is it worth getting a current iPad, or is there a new model coming up that I should hold out for, instead?
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As someone who uses his iPad every single day, I am not entirely sure what I would want from a newer iPad.
Specs are largely meaningless on this thing; I never find myself wishing it had more RAM, or a faster processor; with the exception of how they handle tabs in Safari (something the use of an alternative browser easily remedies), there really isn't a time when you notice the hardware ever getting in the way. I don't even know what a faster iPad would even mean, from a use perspective.
Cameras are nice, but it is a shitty form factor to actually use AS a camera, and facetime is not really catching on at the moment.
Chances are, some time around March-May there will be a new iPad on the shelf. I am just not convinced it is worth waiting for.
Also, Apple never puts things on sale. Ever. Closest they come is with whole "free iPod when going back to school and buying a Mac" deal. Waiting for a price drop, especially a sale, on Apple equipment is not really a wise move.
I guess what I am saying is... if you want one, go demo one in the store for a bit, and buy it if you like what you see. The next generation is going to be a mild evolution at best.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Fancy retina display.
Camera on the front.
Embeded Microphone.
iOS update to the current one.
And that is all.
We already know this to be true, and many will buy it because "dude video conference!"
And then there will be 1000 video conferencing apps but everyone will still use Skype.
retina display is unlikely. 1024x768 will need to upgrade to a 4:1 pixel ratio to maintain pixel perfect scaling of the interface, and a 2048x1536 display is just goddamn ludicrous.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Based on...?
I believe there is a new device coming from Apple the second Steve Jobs is on stage holding it up going "here is our new godamned thing and you're going to buy millions" and not a second sooner.
A smaller version? Better stock up on sandpaper.
Another bonus for going Android, you can use a keyboard and mouse with it. I've used mine twice at someone elses workstation when they were gone to type up emails, it was nice to have a full computing experience whenever I want.