Tablet computers-but not Apple

[Jeff Golas]

This. The thing is they just work - I'm not a fanboy either, but my brand new Windows 8 tablet tends to sit around while I wait and wait for my Ipad 1 to grind and chug and load websites. I'm most likely going to get a newer Ipad soon if my car stops falling apart.

Oh, BTW Deb, I am not an Apple fanboy either and I know what you mean.   I do own several Apple devices, but do not worship at the alter of Jobs like so many Apple users do. 

Just because a lot of jerks love Apple products does not mean they are bad.   Just because a lot of jerks drive BMWs does not mean I would turn one down.   

BMW proof here - http://live.wsj.com/video/bmw-drivers-really-are-jerks-studies-find/29285015-BB1A-4E41-B0C0-0A41CB990F60.html?mod=WSJ_article_outbrain&obref=obnetwork#!29285015-BB1A-4E41-B0C0-0A41CB990F60

[Lynne Desrochers]

This. The thing is they just work - I'm not a fanboy either, but my brand new Windows 8 tablet tends to sit around while I wait and wait for my Ipad 1 to grind and chug and load websites. I'm most likely going to get a newer Ipad soon if my car stops falling apart.

Jeff, just to clarify, you would rather wait for you ipad to load than use the new windows 8 tablet? signed, lynne who's probably just being dense on a Friday morning.

edit: how do i get this all out of the quote? See, I am dense this morning...

[Mark]

When you quote somerhign, hit control + end before typing.  You want to be outside of the [ /quote ]

[Kenny Cruzan]

I too was an apple hater at one time.  But I have gone to the dark side.  I have iphone which is by far the best phone I have ever had.  I have Ipad mini that I take everywhere including TENCON.  And last year I purchased macbook air which I love.  Once you start using gestures on macbook, its hard to use a MS touchpad again.  Of course I am still married to Microsoft so I run parellels and have windows 7 on my macbook and I have to say it works very very well.  Nothing like booting up mac os in 5 seconds!

Of course I still have complaints.  #1 complaint about IPAD is no freaking mouse.  I'm not even a mouse type person as I use shortcut keys but when your on a tablet and have citrix desktop open trying to scroll, my fat finger on the display just does not work well and shortcut keys are nearly impossible on ipad.

[Billy Welsh]

I too was an apple hater at one time.  But I have gone to the dark side.  I have iphone which is by far the best phone I have ever had.  I have Ipad mini that I take everywhere including TENCON.  And last year I purchased macbook air which I love.  Once you start using gestures on macbook, its hard to use a MS touchpad again.  Of course I am still married to Microsoft so I run parellels and have windows 7 on my macbook and I have to say it works very very well.  Nothing like booting up mac os in 5 seconds!

Of course I still have complaints.  #1 complaint about IPAD is no freaking mouse.  I'm not even a mouse type person as I use shortcut keys but when your on a tablet and have citrix desktop open trying to scroll, my fat finger on the display just does not work well and shortcut keys are nearly impossible on ipad.

Just last night I loaded Mocha RDP Lite (whatever the iPad flavor is called) on my wife's iPad so I could run Close-Day and Night Utilities while watching the game.  Did not really want to do that on my iPhone - can be done in a pinch but the small screen makes it annoying.  Well, one of the config options was "Use a wireless keyboard" which I turned on.  Worked quite nicely with the Apple bluetooth keyboard I have to say, but I did not think to try keyboard shortcuts.  Will have to play with that over the weekend.  Still miss the mouse, but with the full size iPad screen I was barely annoyed over it for this short operation.

[Joshua Conner]

I too was an apple hater at one time.  But I have gone to the dark side.  I have iphone which is by far the best phone I have ever had.  I have Ipad mini that I take everywhere including TENCON.  And last year I purchased macbook air which I love.  Once you start using gestures on macbook, its hard to use a MS touchpad again.  Of course I am still married to Microsoft so I run parellels and have windows 7 on my macbook and I have to say it works very very well.  Nothing like booting up mac os in 5 seconds!

Of course I still have complaints.  #1 complaint about IPAD is no freaking mouse.  I'm not even a mouse type person as I use shortcut keys but when your on a tablet and have citrix desktop open trying to scroll, my fat finger on the display just does not work well and shortcut keys are nearly impossible on ipad.

This pretty much describes me.  I still walk into the apple store and cringe when i see all the fanboys just drooling over anything with an apple on it.

[Jeff Golas]

Yeah I was a little vague there - I did mean I'd rather wait for the Ipad then use the Windows tablet.

Jeff

This. The thing is they just work - I'm not a fanboy either, but my brand new Windows 8 tablet tends to sit around while I wait and wait for my Ipad 1 to grind and chug and load websites. I'm most likely going to get a newer Ipad soon if my car stops falling apart.

Jeff, just to clarify, you would rather wait for you ipad to load than use the new windows 8 tablet? signed, lynne who's probably just being dense on a Friday morning.

edit: how do i get this all out of the quote? See, I am dense this morning...

[Mark]

I know I'm unique in this, and as much as it sounds like I am, I'm not really bashing the iPad. But... when I pick one up, I have no idea what to even do with it.  What does it DO that I want/need/could use?

I haven't found a use for one.  I got my wife the iPad 1 years back.  And, I know that the fact it's an iPad 1 does have something to do with it, but she hasn't used it in a long time, so once in a while I pick it up and wonder.  I'm bored, what could I use this for?  Then... I got nothing.  I just set it back down on the stack of papers or wherever it was sitting.

I tried to let my son play with it the other day, but he wasn't interested either.  Good thing, too -- the battery was dead.

Someone recently asked me if I could teach them how to use one because  they just got it from work.  I said sure; hold town the button on the top until the red slidey thing shows up.  Slide to the right, set down on the nearest stack of paper, and open a window.  then, after a few moments of nothing, I said just use it like you do your phone but don't try to make phone calls on it because that would just be ridiculous. 

[Ric]

I know I'm unique in this, and as much as it sounds like I am, I'm not really bashing the iPad. But... when I pick one up, I have no idea what to even do with it.  What does it DO that I want/need/could use?

I haven't found a use for one.  I got my wife the iPad 1 years back.  And, I know that the fact it's an iPad 1 does have something to do with it, but she hasn't used it in a long time, so once in a while I pick it up and wonder.  I'm bored, what could I use this for?  Then... I got nothing.  I just set it back down on the stack of papers or wherever it was sitting.

I tried to let my son play with it the other day, but he wasn't interested either.  Good thing, too -- the battery was dead.

Someone recently asked me if I could teach them how to use one because  they just got it from work.  I said sure; hold town the button on the top until the red slidey thing shows up.  Slide to the right, set down on the nearest stack of paper, and open a window.  then, after a few moments of nothing, I said just use it like you do your phone but don't try to make phone calls on it because that would just be ridiculous. 

"...But... when I pick one up, I have no idea what to even do with it.  What does it DO that I want/need/could use?"

Totally / completely / exactly right there with you Mark! 

If someone gives me an iPad it's like being given a lizard.  Really kool but what do you do with it?

[Coral]

I have an ipad. I use it for stupid games, reading company email and watching tv shows. Occassionally I look up something on the internet. There is no reason I have this. I would not buy this. (It was given to me)

I can use to VPN into the network and connect to computers. I find that somewhat awkward and use either my home computer or my windows tablet for that.

Because I never bought any additional programs, I cannot use it to take notes at Tencon, but you will see me with it. I email the notes to myself.

[Hans Manhave]

So that is the same feeling I have when I am holding an Android pad.  Except I don't know how to hold an Android pad because there are too many buttons that get activated so no real place to hold it.  I had an Android pad.  A Dell Streak.  I gave it to the kids because it was too hard to handle safely for me who was absorbed in the Apple world.

An iPad is just like an iPhone, except bigger.  That is my opinion.  Probably change next week when the new ones are released.  There are lots of apps.  A desktop computer doesn't come with anything worthwhile either unless you put it on.  30 days of virus scanning?  90 day Office eval? 

Technology is just a tool.  Like my shotgun, mixer or my cordless drill.  Many brands, many models, some specifically for a single purpose.  None please all, none please all all the time.

[Billy Welsh]

An iPad is just like an iPhone, except bigger.  That is my opinion.  Probably change next week when the new ones are released.  There are lots of apps.  A desktop computer doesn't come with anything worthwhile either unless you put it on.  30 days of virus scanning?  90 day Office eval? 

Technology is just a tool.  Like my shotgun, mixer or my cordless drill.  Many brands, many models, some specifically for a single purpose.  None please all, none please all all the time.

Agreed.  I have some useful apps, and of course a few stupid ones.

[DebAmstutz]

Today I went into Office Depot looking for a low priced/clearance tablet and I was told that a tablet won't work for what I want to do - connect to the terminal server and get into TAM.  The salesperson said that the Android system on tablets doesn't play well with terminal servers.  They did have a small ASUS laptop that would do what I want.  I must admit I like the keyboard on the little laptop, and it's lightweight.

Oh, by the way, I learned last week that a "classic shell" program is available for Windows 8 computers for those of us who just can't cope with the way 8 looks.  Today was the first time I'd been in a store where someone actually wanted to assist me with what I wanted to know about the tablets.  I was away part of the week last week due to a death in the family and that set me back on trying to find something to take to TENCon.

[Jeff Golas]

My advice, even though I know some people are hard against it...

Before you discount new stuff...try it out for a FEW DAYS, don't just say "I hate it" then move on. I found myself doing that quite a bit over the past few years, and while everything new doesn't necessarily mean "better", what I've come to find is that if you get where they're going with the new designs sometimes, you realize that it DOES have some benefit.

Even before Windows 8, in Windows 7 I pin the 10-15 apps (or less) that I use the most to the taskbar, akin to how Apple's "dock" works. In addition, for things that aren't docked, a quick tap of the WIndows key, type what I want (literally), hit enter, and boom it runs. I don't even really need to look at the start menu or scroll/dig for stuff. On my past computers, I've had a LOT of software, and I do mean a LOOOTTTT of software installed, to the point where the start menu literally went off the screen. In those cases I got so tired of having to dig through the start menu to find things, but now I just type it, hit enter, and boom its running.

There ARE things that start menu is/was good for...being able to get to system management and some other stuff is helpful, I'm still learning about where they hide things in Win 8, but its not the disaster I thought it would be.

So, before you go back to sticking with "classic" interface...play around with the new UI and really learn how it works, and you may find its not as bad as it seems. Doing so gets you used to the new UI's (and thought process behind them) and helps you stay current.

[Jeff Golas]

PS this is the one I picked up to play with, and most likely will bring it with me to Tencon. I'm having activation issues with Windows on it but i think thats more of an MS issue than Asus.

http://www.amazon.com/VivoTab-Smart-ME400C-C1-BK-10-1-Inch-Tablet/dp/B00AA6OVLI/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1379447951&sr=8-6&keywords=asus+vivotab

My only complaint other than the activation stuff, is that this has a micro-usb port only. You have to use an adapter to adapt it to a full size usb plug, but the end result is that the tablet is much smaller (I plan to hang it on the sun visor of my Buick, I'll post pics of that relatively soon, maybe Friday/Saturday when I attend our next club function if the d--- thing passes inspection).

I also recently saw Staples put one on sale for about $280 that was actually $240 with free shipping from Amazon, but wondering if thats an older model, I believe that was an Asus as well.