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Do you need a tablet???

Tablets are a much better vacation-computer than a laptop. They provide the ability to look up directions, itineraries, and information about your travel destination without being bulky to take along with you. The few-moving-parts design makes them somewhat more robust to being taken places like the beach than a laptop would be (though do be careful even so). Plus they can double as a GPS navigation system.

I do all this with my HTC Incredible, and it fits in my pocket. :)

True, phones can serve those purposes as well, but there is something to be said for the larger screen. Especially when a given website doesn't happen to have a mobile version.
 
I love my iPad and Kindle and use them both frequently. There are few items that I really need, but that doesn't make them useless.
 
Having a cell and then leaving it off most of the time does seem odd, unless virtually no one ever calls you.
This is the crux of it. I don't need to be that accessible. For one thing when I'm not at work I don't want to hear from or about work. I have coworkers with smartphones who get all sorts of thoroughly stupid messages from work that could easily wait until the next day. And that is them telling me that. If my supervisor needs to tell me something he sends me an email that I'll read sometime during the evening when I got to my computer.
 
I've avoided the Kindle or Nook simply because I'm a devotee of Samuel T. Cogley as represented by Elisha Cook, Jr. - I have no idea whether our STC uses an ereader or not. :lol:

I don't think I'd enjoy my three-hour Sunday breakfasts with the NYT half so much if it weren't real newsprint.
 
I do not have a tablet, nor do I need one. I might buy one someday if I have the extra money and feel the compulsion to buy myself a new toy, but I certainly don't need to have one.

My cellphone...well, I need that. My parents wanted me to have one when I started driving just in case of an emergency, so they bought me one for that. However, I didn't really need one until I went to college, again, mostly for my parents to be able to call me.

Since then it's just been silly to set up a home phone service since I already have a cellphone. Having both is not only a waste of money; it's inefficient. If someone wants to get a hold of me, why should I complicate the process by having multiple phone numbers? It doesn't matter if I'm home or not; just call my cell.

Most people with home phones these days are middle-aged and older who simply haven't gotten rid of them yet. I'd be very surprised if many younger people even bother setting one up.
 
Since then it's just been silly to set up a home phone service since I already have a cellphone. Having both is not only a waste of money; it's inefficient. If someone wants to get a hold of me, why should I complicate the process by having multiple phone numbers? It doesn't matter if I'm home or not; just call my cell.
Candidly I do see this as the future. A mobile phone will simply trump a land based line. But I'm not so sure land based lines will disappear anytime soon.

I don't think I'd enjoy my three-hour Sunday breakfasts with the NYT half so much if it weren't real newsprint.
I don't mind scanning some things off the screen from different news outlets, but it doesn't replace that Saturday and Sunday morning experience with the actual hardcopy daily paper.
 
I have coworkers with smartphones who get all sorts of thoroughly stupid messages from work that could easily wait until the next day. And that is them telling me that.
So don't give your co-workers your cell phone number.
 
I have coworkers with smartphones who get all sorts of thoroughly stupid messages from work that could easily wait until the next day. And that is them telling me that.
So don't give your co-workers your cell phone number.
I don't get any stupid messages because they don't have my number and I don't have a smartphone with texting. The management only has my home number. And no one complains about me being inaccessible.
 
I've avoided the Kindle or Nook simply because I'm a devotee of Samuel T. Cogley as represented by Elisha Cook, Jr. - I have no idea whether our STC uses an ereader or not. :lol:

I don't think I'd enjoy my three-hour Sunday breakfasts with the NYT half so much if it weren't real newsprint.

I avoided the Kindle until my husband bought one and I'm smitten with it now. Sure it doesn't have the same smell or feel of a book but it also doesn't have the bulkiness or other things. I understand that some people may never like ebook readers but I do encourage people to really try one before making up their minds. And not just poking at buttons on one in a store, but actually reading a whole book on one.

Newspapers may be a different story.
 
The worst thing about eReaders is that you can't display your books on a shelf. Otherwise, they're awesome.
 
My roommate and I have a long running joke about what one actually "needs" these days.

Rent, food, bills, gas, etc... these are "I need" items.

An iPad, while very nice and fun and probably a very good utility to have at your disposal, is not quite an "I Need" (or, iNeed, if you prefer :lol: ) yet.

That said, I've never felt persecuted (somehow that seems like too strong a word for a topic like this) because I don't have one.

Whatever floats your boat. :shrug: I do wish though that my career afforded me the ability to go offline for extended periods of time. As it is, I'm expected to be available most of the day (even when I'm not at work sometimes) and so the iPhone has been a boon in assisting that particular requirement of my job. I'd much [rather adopt a philosophy more in line with what Dennis was describing, but for now it's just not in the cards for me.
 
My wife won an Ipad on a local radio station here and while it's a nifty little gadget, I honestly have come to the conclusion that other for a few gaming apps and watching netflix, it serves no more purpose than my Ipod Touch.

Give me something I can run MS Office on, throw up a power point presentation and easily print my Office generated news releases from (for work computer compatibility purposes), I might be interested. However, until the prices on other tablets start coming down, I'm happy not to have to buy one.
 
throw up a power point presentation and easily print my Office generated news releases from (for work computer compatibility purposes)

The ability to mirror the screen to a projector wirelessly would be fantastic, actually.

Printing is possible already, although it requires a wireless printer.
 
Well "need" is sort of the wrong word to use. I don't "need" any phone, or a TV, or a computer, or any of my gaming consoles, or any of my books, or my camera and assorted equipment or any of the other things that occupy my hobbies and free time. I don't even "need" anything but the most basic and functional clothes. All of those are "wants" and if I can justify the purchase price to myself then there's no worries. Very few people actually "need" tablets but so what? If they want them and they can afford them then good for them.

Personally, I have a Nook Color that's running CM7 which makes it a (nearly) fully featured 7" tablet. It's just missing a few hardware features (GPS, screen is just okay, slower CPU/GPU...). I've found it's great for web browsing when I don't feel like pulling out the laptop and really nice for not being bored on long plane flights. I certainly don't need it and my life would go on just fine without it, but so what? People have spent money on fancy toys and entertainment forever.
 
I've been using an iPad (now iPad 2) for the last year at work. Its a great little thing, I'll give em that. But I much prefer working with the Bosch supplemented by my ZTE Light. And I prefer Android instead of iOS and I own an iPhone as well. But to be frank, I couldnt live without my tablet.

My dream would be a tablet with a dual core Cortex, the design of the iPad and as sturdy as the Bosch, running Android. :drool:

And the fact that iPad (iOS) is and extremely closed system just adds to the negatives. My ZTE is running with the following specs: 600@825mhz Qualcomm, Android 2.1 (Eclair)@Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread). When will the iPad be overclockable, I wonder? Since the Cortex-A9 that the Apple A5 is based on is roughly specced for 2000mhz.
 
I avoided the Kindle until my husband bought one and I'm smitten with it now. Sure it doesn't have the same smell or feel of a book but it also doesn't have the bulkiness or other things. I understand that some people may never like ebook readers but I do encourage people to really try one before making up their minds. And not just poking at buttons on one in a store, but actually reading a whole book on one.

Newspapers may be a different story.


Amazon claims you can browse the internet w/ their wifi kindle. is it handy for that? a lot of reviews I saw said it's really klunky for browsing. I've been contemplating one but only if it does more than the e-reader thing very well.
 
Amazon claims you can browse the internet w/ their wifi kindle. is it handy for that? a lot of reviews I saw said it's really klunky for browsing. I've been contemplating one but only if it does more than the e-reader thing very well.

I haven't used a Kindle for it, but in general I find web browsing on an e-ink display is an incredibly subpar experience. No color and the slow refresh rate is fine for books, but pretty bad on content rich web pages.

E-readers only do one thing well, and that's reading books. But that's reflected in the price. The cheapest Kindle is $120, almost 1/5th the cost of the cheapest iPad.
 
Amazon claims you can browse the internet w/ their wifi kindle. is it handy for that? a lot of reviews I saw said it's really klunky for browsing. I've been contemplating one but only if it does more than the e-reader thing very well.

I haven't used a Kindle for it, but in general I find web browsing on an e-ink display is an incredibly subpar experience. No color and the slow refresh rate is fine for books, but pretty bad on content rich web pages.

E-readers only do one thing well, and that's reading books. But that's reflected in the price. The cheapest Kindle is $120, almost 1/5th the cost of the cheapest iPad.

Yeah, I can't imagine browsing on one. I like it because I think of it as a book. I'm not distracted by email or anything, it's just a replacement for my book and I treat it the same way.
 
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