Tablets, they looks wonderful but what are the disadvantages?

[lexcat]

Got an old slow computer with a lot of application not working. Was thinking a laptop or may be a tablet. Went to comet yesterday played with both and just loved the tablet. Was thinking the samsung galaxy tab 10.1.

Yes love it but all seen to good or is just I'm so far behind in technology and it really is way the technology is going.

I don't have a tablet, thinking of getting one.

Think the downsides are: not great for huge amounts of typing and also not great for spreadsheeting.

A tablet will not replace a laptop ,yes they ate useful and fun but do not have the speed or capability of a laptop be it windows or mac.

Tablet's are great as an additional computer in the house but totally unsuitable as a primary PC.

In your situation, I'd be tempted to look at a replacement laptop.

As alluded to above, tablet's are great for reading information but terrible for typing. I rarely type on my tablet. Even a short reply for MN I just wait until I'm next on the computer. You can do it, it's just not great.

If you want a tablet, get an ipad2. Even my geekiest friend who is an Android affectionado admits that Android still has a way to go on the tablet front. He's got both an Android tablet and an ipad and uses the latter way more.

Similar in my house. Up until last week, the Android tablet just sat there until it ran out of charge, I'd charge it then that'd be about it until it ran out again. I've sold it now. The ipad? Think the kids would kill me if I tried to get rid of that.

Sorry didn't explain well, yes my home computer is dying but it still fine for most things. So a tablet would be an addition. Plus I what something portable (spend to much time waiting for dd when doing out of school things).

I,ve got an Android tablet,its great for out and about,mine has an 8 inch screen so fits in my handbag,I can catch up with my emails,read the news ,MN and read from my Kindle app whilst waiting for my dd.If I want to curl up on the settee ,I find it more portable than my laptop and I dont have any trouble typing on it.Never thought I could love a geeky item as much as my beloved laptop but I do,I wouldnt be without it now.

For Christmas I bought myself an Archos 7O 7inch 250GB tablet for £150 from HMV. I surf of the wi fi at home and on the train I have access to my entire video collection :-)

It suits my needs more than an iPad that starts at £399 for a 16 GB model. Whether it suits yours is another matter :)

I have a galaxy tab and I love it :)

No replacement for a "real" computer for things like typing articles and essays (although I mn and facebook fine) or doing online banking, but excellent for reading long websites (I study with the OU so there is a lot of that), arsing about on facebook and mumsnet, quickly googling something, reading kindle books, etc.

Mine is wifi only and is in constant use in our house as a music player, alarm clock, book, TV, internet browser, games console, calendar, whatever. I save leaflets about surestart etc on to it so I have a list of events.

I was thoinking that adding an external keyboard would make it fairly usable fo the usual typing of emails etc..

re: old and slow computer - try to find out if you can disable some of the applications which start in the background on start and use up memory, run several free mallware apps and defrag the disc, alco can delete IE temp files for some reclaim of memory

The biggest downside of a tablet, IME, is that it's so easy to spend alot of time online. Since getting my iPad I'm definitely online more because it's always on and takes just seconds to boot up. I love it but...