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.
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.
Tablets are very good for things that you wouldn’t wanna do on your phone because of its small screen.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the case of the iPad, cash for apple. Otherwise, a very bad hybrid between portability and workflow. And I mean that on iBads too. The workflow on those is much worse than on Android, especially if files or multiple apps are involved. You know what else has the size of a tablet, built in keyboard, does not need an external monitor to produce a Desktop (in Androids case) and costs 1.3k and not 3k? A Laptop! Case closed. Bonus points with Waydroid if you need your apps that hard.
Who the fuck would pay 3.000€ for an iPad? I had to buy one because Apple somehow managed to get an exclusivity contract with the schools of my city but that ‘only’ costed 400€ with the additional option to get financial support if your family can’t pay this much money. If possible I would have used a laptop or at least something other than an iPad but now I have to use it and hate it with my entire being although their glorified Bluetooth was quite nice before they gimped it.
If Google can’t be bothered to create decent tablet apps for their own apps, why are any other devs going to do it?
clearly you’ve never met a non-programmer with an app idea. so many random people have billion dollar ideas they’re willing to give you for free, and how dare you shrug that idea off as not worth your time, they’re giving you a lottery ticket they can’t turn in because they don’t “get” computers, but you do, so with just your skills and effort, and their genius idea you never could have thought of because you’re not an “idea person”, YOU could be a billionaire.
I may be conflating foldables with tablets which might not be fair. Most of my experience was that of poorly scaled first party apps and tons of wasted space. Looks like they fixed chrome though. Still, reading articles from late 2022 about Google finally getting their act together is saying a lot for a ten year old product.
Wow. What a ringing endorsement. 😬
I have an older Samsung Tab 6 and I love it. The stylus is wonderful for drawing and painting, the screen and speakers make it great for watching movies on vacation, and the battery lasts all day.
You can install a real desktop style browser and terminal. That makes it easy to get real work done.
My experience has been so good that’ll probably upgrade this at the end of the year. I still have my laptop, and that’s my main go to device for getting things done but the tablet is just effortless.
