5 thoughts on “Going Mobile”

1. You will be assimilated 🙂

   It’s interesting, I also spent my life in DOS and then Windows. I still have Windows on my desktop. But I like the iPad (and iPhone).

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2. I’m used to Windows’ bubbles popping up to explain what an icon does if you hover over it.  No such luck with Ice Cream Sandwich.  I just point and shoot and hope for the best.

   Good thing I still have my PC to fall back on.  Even though the virtual keyboard pops up pretty much whenever I need it, the design forces me to hunt-and-peck.  I’ve been a touch typist since 8th grade, so it’s a little tedious for me.

   I’m still used to pushing icons.  The sweeping motion is nice, but simply unlocking my screen took me a trip to Best Buy and having one of the Geek Squaders show me 🙁

   Reading email and ColPols is great.  But I haven’t figured out how to cut and paste, so commenting in the blog and embedding hyperlinks is beyond my capability at the moment.

   Also, I kept looking for the ‘close’ button for the various apps.  From my research, apparently, you have to download an app for that — bizzare!

   But the screen really is great for reading the newspaper and magazines.  I’ve used it most of the day, and the battery is still about 40% charged.

   Gave up trying to find the Sunday comics.  But I get GoComics for $1/month, so that’s a lot easier anyway.

   The daily comics are sort of readable.  But the navigation with zoom enabled gets funky — jittery and all of a sudden I find myself in a whole different section of the paper.  At least I did find the table of contents, so I can navigate to any section of the Post whenever I want.  Then I step through each article at about the same speed as if I were reading the paper version.  Somehow, I also managed to get both the E-edition and the Replica edition simultaneously.  No idea there.  The quad processor and 32gb of memory makes running multiple apps a breeze, better than my 2x4gb PC actually.  Blame Vista and IE9 probably.

   But the tablet is addictive, so yes, I’d say the assimilation has worked 😉

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3. I’m sticking with my laptops and desktop/server until the tablets mature more.

   I opposed using Apple back in the 80’s too, but my vote was overridden by a higher power. At home I went the route of build my own, except for laptops; which is nothing considering I was a computer engineer/software engineer. The best o/s has been IBM OS/2 but, they lost out when they did not get game companies on board in the late 90’s. At the time IBM had an opening to beat Windows due to MS ineptitude in releasing a new o/s.

   Now Android/Google is hot and MS is still showing ineptitude releasing a new o/s.  

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   1. It’s a nice reader, but only passable for heavy interaction.  I may have to look into voice to text apps.

      But with mobile apps and devices outselling laptops, and smart TV’s and gaming consoles staged to replace home PC’s, Apple and Google could easily knock off MS, just as MS outflanked IBM (which made the fatal error of designing the PS/2 as a closed system in a futile effort to dominate the market. — thus forcing  clone makers into the welcoming embrace of MS)

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4. I figured that I should complete this diary with my impressions of owning a tablet by comparing it with the alternatives — a laptop and/or a smartphone.  It’ll make a convenient hyperlink in the future, should anyone ask.  Hope this helps anyone out there looking to decide which is best for them.

   (apologies to the Guvs if I am selfishly abusing their hospitality by blogging about a non-political topic — but we’re all family, right? 🙂

   In Summary:

   Why did I buy it?  I wanted to stop getting the hardcopy daily paper, but still be able to read all the local news, opinion and comics.  Also, it opens up the availability of any other newspaper, magazine or book that interests me, whether I’m at home or on the road.  I didn’t want to be confined to my desktop PC, and a laptop would be too bulky and difficult to juggle on my lap while laying on the couch, sitting in most comfy chairs, or while spending time in the “library”.

   The tablet is a compromise between a laptop and a smartphone.   Costs are about the same, so a comparison is in order.

   Tablet Pros:
   
   1.  Extremely light weight and easy to handle (if you get the optional carrying case — $40)

   2.  10.1″ screen is very easy to read — most mobile apps are designed for teeny 4″ screens, so the 10″ hi-def display makes it super easy to read, but you don’t have to be Mr. Magoo, either.

   3.  Battery lasts all day

   4.  Very fast performance — web browser is much faster than Windows Internet Explorer

   5.  Can monitor (and reply) to email and blogs

   6.  Small size allows me to have it on my desk with my work PC (I work from home)

   7.  Makes Skype a Killer app (once it become common to your friends and family) — free video and voice phone calls

   8.  Android app downloads are fast and convenient (and so far, free for the ones I want)

   9.  You really can watch Netflix movies and TV shows, etc. on this size screen (sound isn’t very impressive, but you can upgrade if you really must)

   10.  Ditto with YouTube.

   11.  I read the daily and Sunday paper in about the same time as with the hard copy version

   12.  Using my finger as the mouse is easy on the wrists — no ache after hours of scrolling through articles and jumping around the various apps.

   13.  I can continue using a “dumb” cellphone because the tablet provides all the incremental functions of a smartphone.  I can go for up to 3 weeks between recharging my dumb cell phone, not daily like my iPhone- (but iPad-less) loving wife.

   Tablet Cons:

   1.  While great for reading, it’s virtual keyboard is tedious.  I use two forefingers to type email or blog replies.  50x slower than my PC (upper case and special characters require extra keystrokes).  Optional keyboard/docking mount alleviate this, but then it’s no better than a laptop, and you could have bought a really nice laptop for the total price.

   2.  Still can’t figure out how to cut and paste for blog and email replies.  Just to be able to grab a URL and paste it would be nice.  Guess I’ll have to Google that info

   3.  Learning the UI was tough at first.  Thought I’d bought a lemon because the screen kept going black on me after a minute and even when I did get the login screen, it wouldn’t unlock.  Turned out the “On/Off” button I was hitting was the volume button, and you don’t “push” the unlock icon, you “swipe” it.  Sheesh!

   4.  Out of the box, the super-thin, lightweight tablet is a slippery little sucker!  I almost dropped it several times the first day.  My dry old hands against the sleek metal and glass finish make Teflon feel like sandpaper in comparison.  The optional leather carrying case ($40) solved that issue.  It feels like a slender hardcopy book, and even flips around to become a 3-position stand to let you set it on a desk or table for easy hands-free viewing.

   5.  It’s not a smartphone replacement — well, you can I suppose — using Skype and an extra-cost calling plan to cell and land line phones.  But it’s too big to be convenient for carrying around at all times to handle day in, day out calls.

   So the bottomline is, you could get all the functionality of a tablet through having a smartphone and a standard laptop.  Or you can have all the functionality of a laptop and smartphone with a tablet (with optional docking keyboard) and a dumb cell phone.  Total costs between the two choices are about a wash.

   There you have it —  Enjoy!

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