![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
softpawI've considered getting a tablet on numerous occasions in the past, but whenever I get something new, I ask myself these questions:
-Will this fill a need or perform a task that my existing possessions can't fill or perform?
-Is filling that need or performing that task worth the cost of the item?
Whenever I've looked at tablets, the answer to question 1 has always been "not really", with question 2 being "not even close". This is because I've always worked from home full-time, and had access to my desktop PC pretty much 24/7. So, I don't own a tablet.
However, with the new job, and subsequent lifestyle changes, this no longer works well. I'm out of the house upwards of 9-10 hours a day now, without access to my desktop PC, and given the nature of what my agency does, I don't dare do anything personal from the network at work. This leaves my phone, which had previously been just an occasional gap-filler in my mobile communication needs. It sat on my desk without being touched for days at a time, and the only times I used it were for evenings out of the house, or weekend trips. And my phone fell significantly short compared to what I use my PC for, but it was ok for short periods. Nowadays, what used to be a relatively rare occurance - using my phone all day - is now my daily life, and it's rapidly highlighting just how much I hate doing anything on a smartphone. Call me weird, but I don't find my phone the slightest bit convenient for anything except phone calls and GPS. Twitter, email, financial data, IM conversations, time scheduling/calendar, note-taking, and general browsing are all things that I'm very unsatisfied using my phone for, largely because the ways I do those things on my PC are leaps-and-bounds more time-efficient than the way I do them on my phone.
What I really want is a Windows 7 tablet. I know Windows 8 is out now, or is about to be, but there's way too much about Windows 8 that I don't like. And Win8 RT is a dealbreaker due to its inability to run full desktop applications. I've looked at Android and iOS tablets, but since they're basically my phone in a larger form factor, they don't solve a single problem I have with my phone. It's not the small size that makes my phone unappealing, is that I can't find software I like to accomplish the tasks I need to. At best, I have software that's tolerable for short to moderate periods of time. In a number of cases (especially banking/finance), I can't find anything I can even tolerate.
I've had my eyes on the HP Slate for a very long time. With the Slate 2 available, I really like what I see in it. It's a low-power PC, true, but it would perform the tasks I want it to. I'm open to suggestions, though. Here's what I want/need, partly in case anyone has recommendations, partly to sort these things out myself.
Hardware Requirements
-Preferable small enough to fit my purse (the Slate does)
-Must have at least 5-6 hours of battery life under normal use
-Must have at least one USB host port
What I Want To Do With It
-For email, calendar, task management, and Twitter, I use Outlook 2010 very heavily. Few applications do any of those tasks better, or with as powerful organizational tools, and nothing does all of them. I've especially never seen a Twitter client I like better.
-I use Quicken to manage my finances, and all the other tools I've seen require the application's accounts to be tied directly to real accounts, making it difficult to track things like savings for varying purposes.
-I use Opera as my web browser, which is awesome because it runs on most platforms.
-I use Trillian for IMs, but mostly because it's the multi-protocol client I hate the least.
-I likely won't be doing any serious photo work on a tablet, but being able to open RAW files from my camera would be a big plus.
-I'm not interested in multimedia consumption capabilities. If I want to watch TV or a movie, or listen to music, I'll use a TV or stereo.
-Similarly, I'm not interested in games, although being able to run some of the really old ones I like would be a plus. I can imagine playing Sim City on the train home from work every day :-P
-Being able to do small-scale web work would be a HUGE advantage. It's something I've had a lot of trouble trying to do on Android. I wouldn't do any heavy-duty coding from a tablet, but being able to fix something and FTP it without jumping through a bunch of hoops would be nice.
Connectivity
I'm not getting a mobile data plan for this device. The available WWAN card is 3G-only, and I'm having trouble finding info about what carriers it's compatible with. Plus, adding a data plan for something like this to my existing cellphone bill would be around $40-50/month extra. So wifi-only is quite fine.
-Will this fill a need or perform a task that my existing possessions can't fill or perform?
-Is filling that need or performing that task worth the cost of the item?
Whenever I've looked at tablets, the answer to question 1 has always been "not really", with question 2 being "not even close". This is because I've always worked from home full-time, and had access to my desktop PC pretty much 24/7. So, I don't own a tablet.
However, with the new job, and subsequent lifestyle changes, this no longer works well. I'm out of the house upwards of 9-10 hours a day now, without access to my desktop PC, and given the nature of what my agency does, I don't dare do anything personal from the network at work. This leaves my phone, which had previously been just an occasional gap-filler in my mobile communication needs. It sat on my desk without being touched for days at a time, and the only times I used it were for evenings out of the house, or weekend trips. And my phone fell significantly short compared to what I use my PC for, but it was ok for short periods. Nowadays, what used to be a relatively rare occurance - using my phone all day - is now my daily life, and it's rapidly highlighting just how much I hate doing anything on a smartphone. Call me weird, but I don't find my phone the slightest bit convenient for anything except phone calls and GPS. Twitter, email, financial data, IM conversations, time scheduling/calendar, note-taking, and general browsing are all things that I'm very unsatisfied using my phone for, largely because the ways I do those things on my PC are leaps-and-bounds more time-efficient than the way I do them on my phone.
What I really want is a Windows 7 tablet. I know Windows 8 is out now, or is about to be, but there's way too much about Windows 8 that I don't like. And Win8 RT is a dealbreaker due to its inability to run full desktop applications. I've looked at Android and iOS tablets, but since they're basically my phone in a larger form factor, they don't solve a single problem I have with my phone. It's not the small size that makes my phone unappealing, is that I can't find software I like to accomplish the tasks I need to. At best, I have software that's tolerable for short to moderate periods of time. In a number of cases (especially banking/finance), I can't find anything I can even tolerate.
I've had my eyes on the HP Slate for a very long time. With the Slate 2 available, I really like what I see in it. It's a low-power PC, true, but it would perform the tasks I want it to. I'm open to suggestions, though. Here's what I want/need, partly in case anyone has recommendations, partly to sort these things out myself.
Hardware Requirements
-Preferable small enough to fit my purse (the Slate does)
-Must have at least 5-6 hours of battery life under normal use
-Must have at least one USB host port
What I Want To Do With It
-For email, calendar, task management, and Twitter, I use Outlook 2010 very heavily. Few applications do any of those tasks better, or with as powerful organizational tools, and nothing does all of them. I've especially never seen a Twitter client I like better.
-I use Quicken to manage my finances, and all the other tools I've seen require the application's accounts to be tied directly to real accounts, making it difficult to track things like savings for varying purposes.
-I use Opera as my web browser, which is awesome because it runs on most platforms.
-I use Trillian for IMs, but mostly because it's the multi-protocol client I hate the least.
-I likely won't be doing any serious photo work on a tablet, but being able to open RAW files from my camera would be a big plus.
-I'm not interested in multimedia consumption capabilities. If I want to watch TV or a movie, or listen to music, I'll use a TV or stereo.
-Similarly, I'm not interested in games, although being able to run some of the really old ones I like would be a plus. I can imagine playing Sim City on the train home from work every day :-P
-Being able to do small-scale web work would be a HUGE advantage. It's something I've had a lot of trouble trying to do on Android. I wouldn't do any heavy-duty coding from a tablet, but being able to fix something and FTP it without jumping through a bunch of hoops would be nice.
Connectivity
I'm not getting a mobile data plan for this device. The available WWAN card is 3G-only, and I'm having trouble finding info about what carriers it's compatible with. Plus, adding a data plan for something like this to my existing cellphone bill would be around $40-50/month extra. So wifi-only is quite fine.