Are tablets suitable for you?

Are Tablets good or bad?

I understand that is a subjective question, in fact that kind of questions are the ones you should try not to ask, so, let's change it.

• Are Tablets useful for you/me?

OK, now that is a better question, and the answer is: It depends, and it depends on what you want to do with it, and what do you want it for.

In the last months I was really tempted to buy an iPad, have also been looking at Motorola's Xoom, Dell Streak 7 or Samsung Galaxy Tab, but then I made myself this question.

• What are you going to use it for?

• In my case, the anwser was:

  • To read emails
  • To surf the web
  • To edit documents
  • To travel lighter

You may have different reasons, but as far as I could have seen a tablet is only good for these task:

• Surf the web
• Read emails
• Reply with short emails
• Use social networks
• Play games
• Watch videos
• Listen to music

As you can see in my opinion besides the email part, a tablet is not good for productive task, and only good for leisure/fun activities, activities I can do in my phone (yes smaller screen, but easier to transport too).

In my case I need a computing device to prepare spreadsheets, to access my servers, to blog, to work with documents and create PDF documents, so for me it is better to get a good Laptop instead of a Tablet. At the end of the day I would be carrying two devices (not small ones) with me, I prefer to surf the web and reply to short emails with my Blackberry or Android phone (smaller than a tablet) and use the Laptop for other tasks.

So as Jeff Hoogland says in Why the Tablet Craze?

If you have an extra few hundred dollars laying around and want a new toy - go ahead and pick one up.

What did I buy?

Well, I got a Macbook Pro, yes it is not powered by my beloved Linux, but anyway Android is not Linux :)