My Samsung NC-10 netbook that I have used for the past two and a half years is starting to act up (screen problems), and I do not know if it can be easily and affordably repaired. I have certainly used it extensively, but mostly for looking things up on the web. Other than Ecco, FastStone Image Viewer and iTunes for my old iPod Touch, I never installed much software on it. And, while I am very tempted to purchase Lenovo's new X220 laptop because of its IPS screen, size and performance, it is not inexpensive. I had considered many different Android tablets as I have an Android phone that I am reasonably happy with, but there is too much change in hardware/software right now to not feel like I might be buying an orphaned product. I am not happy that Apple's iPads do not support Flash, but am considering them even though I would prefer a slightly smaller device. It is certainly a device of convenience, but I am wondering if that convenience of size, weight and instant-on have changed anybody's productivity habits. I thought the netbook would make me a bit more productive and organized, but I never seemed to use it quite that way. Boot up times were a barrier, and small and light as it is, it is not quite small or light enough. My Andorid phone is small and light, but the keyboards, both virtual and physical, leave a lot to be desired. I am a bit skeptical because I always wonder if new software will help me out (i.e. CRIMPing), but rarely do I find programs that have made a radical difference in how I handle information. Any thoughts?

--Ken

It certainly is an awkward time to buy hardware, with mobile devices coming out and the cloud rising.

I just dropped $500 on hardware myself today.

My strategy is to not worry about if I am making a mistake and missing the best option out there.
I just buy what makes sense for what I need to do, in the way that I understand how to do it. I take solace in that even if my choices lack street cred, I am doing real work with what I buy.


JasonE

Ken wrote:

It is certainly a device of convenience, but I am wondering if that
convenience of size, weight and instant-on have changed anybody's productivity
habits. I thought the netbook would make me a bit more productive and organized, but I
never seemed to use it quite that way. Boot up times were a barrier, and small and light
as it is, it is not quite small or light enough.

Ken,
I bought an Asus netbook when it first came out for the exact same reason. I thought it would become easier to capture ideas on the go. Also, I wanted to be able to surf the internet on the sofa and in bed. Eventually this remained a dream. While it was easier to carry around than the laptop, the boot times prevented it from turning into a notetaking device and it was still too heavy and the wrong shape to watch anything on it on the sofa or in bed.

Then I caved in and bought and iPad and I never looked back. It delivers on all of the above and more. As I also bought the bluetooth Apple keyboard, there are days when I don't even turn on the PC any more. Since the iPad I stopped using paper notebooks. The killer apps for me are the following:
- the instant-on;
- the built-in Notes app that automatically syncs with Gmail (this is where I capture random ideas);
- CarbonFin Outliner where I add notes into hierchical outlines;
- Mail, the Google app and Safari for email, blogs, and browsing;
- PDF Expert and GoodReader for reading and annotating PDFs;
- BBC iPlayer for watching BBC programmes in bed.

So I don't think you can go wrong with iPad 2. I have iPad 1 and I'm still extremely happy. I did try a Windows tablet and returned it the same day. While my initial preference was for an Android tablet, I just couldn't find the kind of apps I needed. And in the area of apps iPad is far ahead.

Dr Andus wrote:

I bought an Asus netbook
when it first came out for the exact same reason. I thought it would become easier to
capture ideas on the go. Also, I wanted to be able to surf the internet on the sofa and in
bed. Eventually this remained a dream. While it was easier to carry around than the
laptop, the boot times prevented it from turning into a notetaking device and it was
still too heavy and the wrong shape to watch anything on it on the sofa or in bed.

Then I
caved in and bought and iPad and I never looked back. It delivers on all of the above and
more. As I also bought the bluetooth Apple keyboard, there are days when I don't even
turn on the PC any more. Since the iPad I stopped using paper notebooks. The killer apps
for me are the following:
- the instant-on;
- the built-in Notes app that
automatically syncs with Gmail (this is where I capture random ideas);
- CarbonFin
Outliner where I add notes into hierchical outlines;
- Mail, the Google app and
Safari for email, blogs, and browsing;
- PDF Expert and GoodReader for reading and
annotating PDFs;
- BBC iPlayer for watching BBC programmes in bed.

So I don't think
you can go wrong with iPad 2. I have iPad 1 and I'm still extremely happy. I did try a
Windows tablet and returned it the same day. While my initial preference was for an
Android tablet, I just couldn't find the kind of apps I needed. And in the area of apps
iPad is far ahead.

They say misery loves company, but I would not exactly call using my netbook misery. Nonetheless, it sounds like we had similar experiences. I would buy an iPad2, but they are harder to find than hen's teeth! I had considered Samsung's 7 in. Galaxy Tab because its about half the size of the iPad, but I am not certain if it will be immediately "orphaned" with all of Android's OS updates. I hoping that my netbook will hold out a bit longer, but I hate to have it go before I have a replacement in place.

--Ken

I forgot to mention that its good to hear that a change in hardware helped your situation.

--Ken

Ken wrote:

I had considered Samsung's 7 in. Galaxy Tab because its about half the size of the iPad,
but I am not certain if it will be immediately "orphaned" with all of Android's OS updates.

Quite right; Android 2.x was aimed at phones, period. Android 3.x has been developed for tablets.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Ken wrote:
>I had considered Samsung's 7 in. Galaxy Tab because its about half the
size of the iPad,
>but I am not certain if it will be immediately "orphaned" with all of
Android's OS updates.

Quite right; Android 2.x was aimed at phones, period.
Android 3.x has been developed for tablets.

As always, the rule is: buy the product for what it is now, not what it might become.

I am delighted with my Galaxy Tab. Android 2.x works just fine. The Tab is the perfect size for general portability (I cannot imagine carrying an iPad everywhere with me). The screen is excellent, and I've been pleased with the range of apps. The Tab is also the perfect airplane video player!

The Tab and my Kindle live permanently in my 'manbag', and weigh less combined than the iPad.

JohnK wrote:

I am delighted with my Galaxy Tab. Android 2.x works just fine. The Tab is the
perfect size for general portability (I cannot imagine carrying an iPad everywhere
with me).

The Tab and my Kindle live permanently in
my 'manbag', and weigh less combined than the iPad.

That's true, you wouldn't want to carry the iPad everywhere. But this is where iPod Touch (or iPhone, which I don't have) comes in. In many cases it has the sister apps of the iPad. So the iPod can be used to capture notes and ideas on the go, which then syncs (in most cases automatically or at the touch of a button) with the apps on the iPad and with the cloud (Gmail, or CarbonFin website etc.).

So if you go for the iPad, I also recommend the iPod Touch and the bluetooth apple keyboard in order to turn it into a more productive system (if that's your requirement).

I'm fortunate enough to have a netbook and an iPad (with BlueTooth keyboard). The latter is by far the most fun, but the former is, in certain respects, more practical. Much depends on what you have to work on and how you like to work. The disadvantages of the iPad include the fact that you can't work on documents side by side (there are some ingenious pseudo-solutions to this, but they only really work with web pages and a limited number of utilities). One solution to this is something like the new OmniOutliner for iPad, which does allow you to create multiple columns, and of course all the Apple apps allow you to create multiple columns or text boxes. But if you regularly write complex documents while referring to PDFs or other office documents, you're going to find an iPad irritating. It's possible, but it's messy (not least because of the clunky multitasking approach Apple uses - the more you double-click that Home button, the more you think to yourself: "this is not really thought-through").

On the other hand, netbooks have some significant disadvantages: they're not very powerful, and the screens aren't very big. Personally, I went an Asus 1101HA (which has an 11.2" screen, just like an X220, but costs significantly less). Initially it was ridiculously slow, but I added a second gigabyte of RAM and it made a huge difference. So: a good screen is essential, but for a netbook I would argue that a good battery is just as important (something Asus does particularly well; the 1101HA usually lasts 7-8 hours, even in fairly heavy use).

The combination of both devices is quite cool, because there are applications which allow you to use your iPad as an extra screen (on your Windows PC or Mac). This is actually quite cool. The app I've got works extremely well. So you can enhance your netbook by adding the iPad as a second screen! In practice, I tend to use the iPad alongside the netbook so I can put notes, calendar events, tasks, random thoughts etc. onto the iPad while working on something completely different on the netbook. These then get synchronised across via DropBox, so the two devices effectively act as a single platform.

Make your hardware choice based on the way you like to work! If I only had one device, it would be the netbook, because despite the iPad's desirability, the netbook is actually more versatile. But then I always work with multiple documents open. There are some solutions on the iPad (including a large number of very good multi-tabbed web browsers), but at the end of the day the iPad isn't optimised for multiple documents - it's just not part of the concept. On the other hand, if I spent most of my time "just writing", I would use the iPad by preference, because it's versatile enough, and there are some very, very good writing apps out there.

Just a few thoughts!
Best of luck,
Bill

My apologies for using the phrase "quite cool" twice. Once is barely acceptable - twice is... well, twice is not good.

Nevertheless, using your iPad as a second screen - even though it's a ridiculous waste of ?400/$500 of hardware - is definitely "quite cool"!

I use a similar solution. I have a ridiculously small netbook -- the Sony Vaio P -- that is perfect for note-taking in libraries. (I'm a writer/scholar.) At times the screen feels uncomfortably tiny to me, but it's actually functional (the Vaio P runs Windows 7 very smoothly), and it's a pleasure to carry around -- about a pound and a half. When I'm going to be away from home for an extended period of time, I hook it up with either a monitor or my iPad (using the MaxiVista app) and a bluetooth keyboard -- and at that point it becomes a reasonable substitute for a desktop computer.

I assume that in the future we'll all be doing something like this, though I suspect that the central device will be a smart phone or a tablet rather than a netbook, and much of our data will be in the cloud. You can get close to that experience right now by using Evernote and an iPad (with an external keyboard), but Evernote seems to me still rather klunky on the iPad.

The other Bill

My apologies for using the phrase "quite cool" twice. Once is barely acceptable - twice is... well, twice is not good.

If anyone finds a stylebook-in-software that can detect patterns in writing and offer valid critiques on grammar and usage, please recommend it here. My bad habit is to start with a perfectly good sentence, add another element, and fail to notice that I've edited my way out of subject-verb or possession agreement.

If it were me, rather than carrying around and paying for an iPad and a netbook, I'd just go with the 11" MacBook Air. Close to the same cost, no Windows operating system to deal with. Practically the same rapid start up time. Far more robust applications to choose from (than the iPad). In fact, I'm almost talking myself into it as I write... Talk about hardware CRIMP!

Steve Z.

WSP wrote:

I assume that in
the future we'll all be doing something like this, though I suspect that the central
device will be a smart phone or a tablet rather than a netbook, and much of our data will
be in the cloud.

At least two companies agree with you:

The Atrix smartphone fits in a 'lapdock':
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/smartphones/367423/motorola-atrix

And there's the new 'Padfone', still at the prototype stage:
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/mobile-devices/2011/06/01/asus-demos-hybrid-padfone-prototype-40092939/

Your point seems reasonable, but let me add that (a) I bought the iPad primarily for pleasure and have only gradually realized that it could also be used for work -- e.g., as an improvised external monitor when I am traveling; and (b) I admire Apple products tremendously and would like to make the switch, but changing over would make a zillion of my programs, old files, and fonts unusable. (I've been using DOS and Windows computers since the mid-1980s.) I just can't leap over that precipice.

Bill

--------------------

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

If it were me, rather than carrying around and paying for an iPad and a netbook, I'd just
go with the 11" MacBook Air. Close to the same cost, no Windows operating system to deal
with. Practically the same rapid start up time. Far more robust applications to
choose from (than the iPad). In fact, I'm almost talking myself into it as I write...
Talk about hardware CRIMP!

Steve Z.

Sorry if it sounded as if I was trying to tell you what would work for you. I don't like to do that. I was just daydreaming, based upon thinking about where the thread was going!

Steve Z.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Quite right; Android 2.x was aimed at phones, period.
Android 3.x has been developed for tablets.

True, but in some ways, this is not all bad (except for being left behind as new versions of the OS are released). With 2.x on a 7 in. tablet, it is almost like an enhanced PDA rather than a tablet. Granted 2.x does not offer what 3.x and beyond do, but sometimes simpler is better. However, the way that software is updated on Android devices, this could be an issue. If the Galaxy Tab were $50 to $100 USD cheaper, then it would be an easier purchase as my investment is more limited.

--Ken

JohnK wrote:

As always, the rule is: buy the product for what it is now, not what it might
become.

I do not disagree, but the way that they update Android devices, it may be a bit more frustrating experience, as developers are often releasing new versions of their programs quite frequently. I would be concerned about a release that both corrected bugs, but required a newer OS.

--Ken

OK, since we're daydreaming, let me elaborate on my favorite computer fantasy. As I said before, I'm especially preoccupied with the problem of carrying laptops or netbooks to libraries and taking notes there. I like to imagine that in the future my computer will be the size of a smartphone, connected at home by bluetooth (or some similar wireless technology) to my keyboard, monitor, scanner, and printer. When I want to spend a day at the library, I will walk out of the house with my phone-sized computer in my pocket, and when I arrive at the library, there will be various wireless monitors and keyboards available in the reading room; I'll simply connect my own computer to whatever peripherals I need there.

This doesn't seem like science-fiction technology. Our smart phones are already miniature computers; all we need now is compatible monitors and keyboards in public places like libraries. Or maybe monitors will be supplanted by some sort of projection capability in the computer/phone.

Bill

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

If it were me, rather than carrying around and paying for an iPad and a netbook, I'd just
go with the 11" MacBook Air. Close to the same cost, no Windows operating system to deal
with. Practically the same rapid start up time. Far more robust applications to
choose from (than the iPad). In fact, I'm almost talking myself into it as I write...
Talk about hardware CRIMP!

Steve Z.

I had considered the 11" Air, but for the price, I could look at an X220 laptop or tablet from Lenovo.

What I am finding frustrating is that my different work styles lend themselvs to different pieces of equipment! I like my smartphone because it always has a wireless signal, and I can receive notifications or information almost anywhere. A 7 in. tablet would make an excellent PDA, but I do not wish to pay for 3G or 4G service at this time. An iPad would be a great device for consuming information when I am not necessarily on the move, and combining it with a keyboard makes it a nice alternative to larger hardware when note taking is required. A small laptop like the Air or the X220 is truly a portable office, but its size, weight and cost are not close to something like the Tab. I do not wish to own one of each, but I have yet to find the right combination of hardware that will come close to meeting my needs. I should just hold off a bit more to think about which golas are most important, and how I can get there without spending a small fortune on equipment. A very frustrating subject, but all of your help and advice has been most useful.

--Ken

Alexander wrote:

Android 2.x was aimed at phones, period. Android 3.x has been developed for tablets.

Ken wrote:

True, but in some ways, this is not all bad (except for being left behind as new versions of the OS are released).

Just to clarify: my point was that, since Android 2.x was _not_ aimed at tablets, it is quite likely that software that takes advantage of the tablet format (size, readability, touch resolution) will only appear for Android 3.

At the same, the devices themselves, apparently built against Google's advice, may eventually be unsupported.


JohnK wrote:

As always, the rule is: buy the product for what it is now, not what it might become.

Ken wrote:

I do not disagree, but the way that they update Android devices, it may be a bit more frustrating experience, as developers are often releasing new versions of their programs quite frequently. I would be concerned about a release that both corrected bugs, but required a newer OS.

Consider this: we have often discussed here about older powerful software that cannot be run in newer operating systems. Yet Windows is only in version 7 and most software runs in several versions. With Android (and iOS I imagine) the OS release cycle is much shorter, and already there is software that needs Android 2.1 or 2.2 in particular.


Anyway, my aim was not to discourage anyone from using these wonderful devices, just to caution about the potential shortness of their useful life. Easy come, easy go, as the song goes.

Currently there's only one solution: re-read stuff, carefully.

Grammar checkers etc. can do quite a good job of alerting you to a potential issue - the Word grammar checker is actually quite good - but no software I'm aware of is capable of the structural analysis required to improve your use of language. Full-scale semantic analysis is the Holy Grail of e.g. machine translation developers (not to mention speech recognition developers, although they seem to be having more success with fuzzy phonemes), so grammar checkers too are awaiting more sophisticated AI that might be capable of in-depth linguistic analysis.

Meanwhile, your brain has a remarkable number of built-in pattern recognition routines, and they will do the job if you let 'em!

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Just to
clarify: my point was that, since Android 2.x was _not_ aimed at tablets, it is quite
likely that software that takes advantage of the tablet format (size, readability,
touch resolution) will only appear for Android 3.

At the same, the devices
themselves, apparently built against Google's advice, may eventually be
unsupported.

This is a potential concern for me. As the 7 in. table is neither fish nor fowl, I am not certain where it will be as time goes by. I know there are going to be a lot of phones that will not be upgraded beyond 2.2 or 2.3, so that version of the OS should have some life for a while. But, this is a tablet, and some of the software recognizes it as such, so there very well may be some confusion as to what future updates of apps will or will not work on the Tab's OS. Yet, somehow I am strongly drawn to its size. I just wish the cost was less so I would not have as high an expectation for the device's longevity. Oh well.

--Ken

May I ask why you don't use the Kindle application on the Galaxy Tab?
I am not so happy with my iPhone 3 - the batteries are awful and I don't really use it to make calls anyway - so I am considering switching to the tab for minor surfing, mail and reading my books on the tab - then I could stop lugging the Kindle around.
So I would be interested to hear why you don't use the Tab as reader,

thanks,
Susanne

Susanne wrote:

May I ask why you don't use the Kindle application on the Galaxy Tab?

Simple answer -- the screen. Reading for any length of time on an LCD screen makes my head hurt, no matter how good the screen, and the Galaxy Tab's screen is excellent. Browsing or reading emails is fine, but reading a novel for a lengthy period is different.

An LCD tablet is okay for 20 minutes' reading on your commute, but for lengthy reads it's unsuitable, in my opinion.

Before you consider buying a tablet as an e-reader, borrow one from somewhere and read a novel for an hour or two. You'll see what I mean. Your eyes will tire quickly. The Kindle, on the other hand, really is just like reading on paper. It's a great product.