Tablet Purchase

[[JiF] General WarHawk]

I'm contemplating buying a tablet computer, or perhaps a laptop.

I've always used a Desktop for everything, but may need something portable to get work done, and keep in touch on Facebook.

Does anyone have any knowledge of what to look for in both a laptop and especially a Tablet computer?

[[JiF]Mike]

Couple of questions, then some thoughts...

Are you looking for something that can run windows programs, or something really portable and fairly cheap that can run apps?

If you want to run Windows programs I would highly recommend the Yoga 2 from Lenovo. I set one of these up for a client a few months ago and he really likes it. For him to "like" something is saying something with this client lol. It runs Win8 Pro, very quick, and very light. Not a gaming machine, but a great portable work pc replacement.

If a tablet would meet your needs, I just bought a Nexus 7 a few days ago and I love it! It's a great size, like a small pad of paper, and does just about everything. It is of course Android so you won't be running windows programs but there are tons of apps.

If you prefer Apple products you can't go wrong with an iPad, but they are considerably more than an Android tablet and don't do nearly as much. Apple will tell you what you can and can't do with their tablets.

The Lenovo Yoga 2 was around $1000.
The Nexus 7 32GB model is $269.
The iPad mini 32GB model is $499.

So it really boils down to how much do you want to spend, and what do you want to do with it?

[[JiF]Uncle Stinky]

I bought one of these for my wife last Xmas - Best Buy was selling them for $250.

It's a laptop not a tablet, but is very lightweight with a touch screen. My wife loves it, using it mainly for e-mail, internet and watching videos. It has Windows 8, but you can easily get it to desktop mode which works like Windows 7.

http://www.amazon.com/VivoBook-X200CA-D ... b_title_ce" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[[JiF]MiniBadger]

I agree with uncle stinky, thats a good one.

[[JiF]Brick]

Unless you want Windows:

If you have an Android phone, get an android tablet (my wife loves her ASUS Eee transformer with keypad).
If you have an IPhone, get an IPad.

Makes things a lot simpler.

[[JiF]ALargeWoodenBadger]

This one is capable of both ink and pencil input, multilingual, wireless and expandable. It uses an older OS but on the good side it's incredibly stable. The graphic capabilities are directly related to the users skills and it's able to faithfully reproduce every colour in your crayon box. Note the convenient pen holder!

[[JiF]Mike]

Also never needs to be charged! Don't rely too heavily on the spell check though, depending on the user it could be useless.

[[JiF]Uncle Stinky]

LOL. In my current job I do a lot of interviewing of candidates for jobs. We have standard sets of questions, complicated score sheets. One of my co-workers - who worships at The Church of Apple - was pressing for us to replace our clipboards, score sheets and pens with i-Pads. We had to point out that pen and paper technology, for all its faults, never needs maintenance, never breaks down and is considerably cheaper. Not to mention that some of my co-workers still struggle with things such as minimizing a window - I can only imagine how well they'd do with tablet technology. In the end, we did not end up buying what in essence would have been $500 clipboards.

[[JiF]Mike]

We're in the midst of looking at a document management system here. I work in Health Care so the amount of paper we still have, even with an electronic medical record(EMR) system, is incredible. We have one of those giant storage containers in the parking lot just because we have run out of room to keep records as long as we are mandated. Oar goal is to eliminate all of it, by getting it into an electronic system. It will also help us stream line many process that require shuffling paper around now. The quote is $19,000 including training. That's not bad considering some of the big players in the field. The price we were quoted for the system that integrates directly with our EMR system was $95,000! We're just not big enough to justify that kind of expense.

I hate paper. I am really looking forward to working on this project. They are even going to loan us an $8,000 scanner to get through all the old records we have. I can't wait to get my hands on that lol!