I have an Acer netbook we bought a couple years ago, and we barely use it anymore. It was more for travel and my wife's personal use, however over Christmas we got a new full-size laptop which replaced it. She's certainly not missing the smaller keyboard or relative lack of horsepower, and none of us are missing having to lug around a power supply that's almost as voluminous as the netbook itself.
This past week, I had a presentation to make for work and got ahold of the office's (wifi only) iPad 1 to demo our software products for a client; I ended up keeping it over the weekend. Turns out that the tablet WAS pretty useful for casual browsing around the house - whenever we needed to know something, it was right there, ready to do with a quick unlock (and no wait to boot up).
Similarly, since the main desktops are in the basement it was great to have us able to watch the TV or whatever and have the tablet handy. I ended up being able to quickly check my Facebook status (quicker than on my smartphone) and as we were watching Harry Potter and the Something of Whatever on ABC the other day, we were able to pass the iPad back and forth easily while looking up facts. The thing wasn't noticably heavy or cumbersome (even with the leather case it was in), we were mostly holding it on our laps anyway (not with one hand) so as a portable internet browser a tablet DOES have value.
My wife has a small business so a small and functional device like this may be useful in the field (moreso than a smartphone as she prefers the bigger screen) and with some productivity tools like access to spreadsheet software she can update (though not necessarily create) her business information on the fly and on the road. She's also finding potential use for a tablet with a camera so she can quickly take pictures of certain field conditions to send to her clients (the iPad we tested had none).
As for me, I would certainly like using this thing for my commute should I stop driving to the office; I currently have a non-Apple MP3 video player that fills this niche, but I certainly wouldn't mind the bigger screen either. And I'm sure my almost-toddler daughter would get into certain kiddie apps as the advertisements suggest; as a side question do any of us HAVE younger kids who use tablets, and what for?
Anyway, the upshot is that between test-driving a tablet and your comments here, I think we're on the plus side of grabbing one before the year's out (and with any luck, selling off the netbook to someone who doesn't mind the outdated specs). Now, the next challenge becomes WHAT to get. The iPad was fun, but frankly beyond the aforementioned browsing it wasn't all that useful. The more I look at Android, the more I like it, though I've only spent a few minutes with any of them.
However, the (typically) lower price point, generally better options for connectivity (we often hook my wife's laptop up to the big TV to watch perfectly legally downloaded movies), and SD card expandability are big sellers for the little green bot to me. While I only hooked up the iPad to the wall socket on the test drive, I'm told that people who actively manage their movie and music files on an iPad really need iTunes on their desktop in order to do so; if this is the case, then Android gets another point from me as I don't want to be connected to another unit like that to manage my media (and at least one Android tablet comes preloaded with software that can essentially take over your desktop remotely and even play media directly to the tablet - pretty cool). This is likely fodder for another thread though, since I've observed Apple vs. anything threads get rather heated even here (I own no Apple products, mostly because of the price).
Thanks all,
Mark
