The Transformer is essentially a netbook with a removable keyboard. In other words, if you attach it to its dock, you can use it just like a traditional laptop, while still having the option of detaching it and using it as a tablet. Check one out sometime if get the chance .

(Yes, I'm another fan of Asus' line of products . Don't have one myself, but it's what I would get if I were looking for either a tablet or a netbook)

I had one of those early tablets - Fujitsu Lifebook, if I remember correctly - in high school. I was part of this pilot program that used tablet PCs for class. It had a screen you could twist around and lock above the keyboard/trackpad. It was cool for some things, but to be honest after the first few months I almost never used it like a tablet. That's no biggie, except it cost twice as much as a regular laptop, and that was with the bare essentials.

Though, it's been seven years. Don't know how much they cost now compared to a laptop.

I looked into the Kindle Fire but 7" just isn't big enough for what I'd want to do with it. It's handy and I could carry it about in my handbag but until I have a play with one (they're not out here yet...) I'm not sure. Think it would seem small quite quickly tbh..

I have an Asus Transformer Prime. I don't use it when I'm home so I end up not using it much.

It's fantastic for traveling. If I was gonna go stay in one place for awhile, like 2 weeks+, I'd prefer my laptop. Otherwise my tablet.

When I do use it I play games (I don't have nearly enough, especially not enough landscape oriented ones) and browse the web. No music. Rarely movies/anime.

I ate tablets.

...

Sweetest thing there is

My girlfriend has an iPad for mostly medical purposes (it can be a great, small and pratical bundle of information). I don't have a specific use for it, but have used it to search for something on the internet from my couch instead of getting up.

I use the Logitech Touchmouse app so I pretty much don't have to get up at all, even to use my PC

7 in tablets ftw

Don't need a keyboard either. Luckily, the default on screen keyboard fits perfectly. And when i mean perfectly, I mean I'm very lucky that it coincidentally does. (Default keyboard when its turned sideways).

also I keep my cam covered always, unless I'm cam chatting. Some of my friends say I'm paranoid. I say I'm just in the know.

Isn't that the best use?

Medical? Definitely, beats those huge books.

Just a heads up, the Fire is on sale today $139 refurbished (as opposed to the usual $169 refurb price, and 199 new). I got my girlfriend a refurbished one during their last sale and it looked and worked just like my new one. Just thought I'd share if anyone was on the fence that's a pretty nice deal.

I don't see the point in them really.
If you have a smart phone and a Desktop or Laptop your set.

If it's refurbished, I'd hardly consider that a deal, especially for something of such mediocre hardware

Refurbished tablets in general sounds like a bad idea to me, even moreso when talking about a tablet where every penny was squeezed down on to make it contain the cheapest hardware.


After you use a tablet, you realize just how inferior is pretty much every single imaginable way laptops are. Also, watching movies, reading for prolonged periods of time, or doing actual work on a smartphone is tedious to borderline infuriating because of the small screen.

Amazon is pretty good about the refurbished thing from my experience. Like I said if you put my girfriend's Fire and mine side by side you would not be able to tell the difference. The refurbs come with the same warranty as a new one as well. It's a very solid device, I doubt there's a lot that would go wrong with it.

Besides Amazon is really good about quality service. When I had a 3G kindle and it had a problem they actually sent me a new Kindle (refurbed) before I even sent the malfunctioning one back (I just had to take the new kindle out of the box, put mine in, slap a sticker on it and put it in the mail). Also they shipped the replacement via next day air, for free.

So I have a lot of faith in Amazon, they have great customer service.

I mean if you divide $139 over the time the warranty covers (so about $10 a month) that's a darn good deal even if it only lasted that long, but I'm pretty sure it could easily last 3 years if you wanted to hang onto it that long. I'd upgrade by then, but it's a really solid feeling device like I said. Really sturdy.

What about a desktop?

I've never used a Phone for reading, watching movies or doing crap on facebook.
I'm more of a Power > Portabilty guy.

I can access my desktop from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection, and then have both all the power and all the portability I could want.

Do people other than PC gamers and the elderly still use desktops? You can barely find them in stores anymore. I think the first thing to die is going to be the desktop with the laptop following closely behind. I wouldn't use a desktop if it were free, they're so bulky and ugly.

People use laptops because they don't know better. Desktops are superior to laptops in every way that matters anymore. The one aspect that laptops were superior was portability, which has been marginalized by tablets and smartphones. It's always been funny, because most people I know who use a laptop and have no desktop just leave their laptop plugged in 100% of the time, kill the battery, and effectively make it a limited desktop with a significantly shorter lifespan.

Desktop remains as tool for software development and other jobs which require hardware which is only available on desktops.

And when it comes to tables. Yeah, I have Wacom Intuos 4 tablet and Android smartphone is that counts as one.

What can a desktop do that a laptop can't? (Besides gaming). Desktops are archaic, it's like owning a tube TV or a pager. Only gamers and people who want to cling to the past use desktops.

There's nothing a desktop can do that a laptop can't, desktops are just more advantageous.

Price advantage, hardware advantage, reliability advantage, peripheral advantage, locked down (corporate and parental control standpoint) advantage, and productivity advantage (psychological fact: a desktop has a fixed place and therefore when at it association happens that makes you in the productive mindset through operant conditioning). Many others as well. The one advantage laptops had was portability, which has been heavily marginalized by smartphones and tablets, not to mention the fact that most people using laptops treat them as desktops anyway. Laptops serve no purpose in the modern world for the majority of people. A desktop at home and a tablet on the go is many times more efficient and effective than a laptop

It looks interesting at a glance, but still not robust enough I think.
I want a DVD player, the ability to install my own O/S and do quickie photo editing. So until tablets let you do that (?) I think a small laptop would be best for me. I do like the size of tablets/netbooks, however. To me that's their main appeal...even small laptops can be a pain to carry around for long periods.

I think my only use for a tablet type device would be to surf the web/post on forums while watching TV or sitting in the yard, and I'm not paying $200+ for that.

DVD player? http://phandroid.com/2012/04/26/samsung-introduces-tablet-ready-dvd-drive-with-android-compatibility/ (not to mention many others since the transformer has usb)

Install your own os? http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/ASUS_Eee_Pad_Transformer/How_to_install_Ubuntu (heck if you want you can emulate an x86 cpu through qemu and then run windows, though that's fully for brushing rights)

Do photo editing? Heck, pretty much every tablet can do that.

If I'm understanding the first link right, it's a separate plug in unit, yes? I don't want that.
2nd link - Don't want Ubuntu/Linux? Can it do Windows?
Photo-editing - with something like Photoshop? I'm not talking about just cropping/compression a photo from a phone so I can upload it to Twitter or a blog. I do some semi-pro type editing stuff and it'd be nice to sometimes be able to do it on the fly, after I take a series of photographs, rather than wait until I get home.

Even if tablets can do that stuff the screen is bad for anything pro. Colors too saturated.