I've been pineing over a tablet device for sometime now. When Motorola offered a free blu tooth keyboard and two day shipping with the purchase of a Xoom it was all the incentive I needed to get me off the fence. We barely managed to get our order in before the deal ended a few days ago, and today they arrived. We were a little disappointed with Fed Ex as they gave the packages to someone standing in our driveway who informed them that they did not live here. Luckly the person was a friend of ours and that aside they arrived in good condition.
We were excited and eager, as is anyone with a shiny new toy. The device is lightweight and yet solid enough that it doesn't feel flimsy or cheap. True the reviews it is a fingerprint magnet! After you the initial setup and "ohhhhh ahhhhh" phase I found myself thinking, "Now what?" I have this thing now what do I do with it? Of course I immediately tried to run Frontierville. At first attempt it loaded but did not seem playable. Afterwards I was impressed when I noticed that Android had already brought over and installed many of the apps that had been using on my phone.
The interface is smooth and responsive but suffers from an issue that seems indicitive of all tablets (even the Ipad). A hot topic seems to be how the different platforms handle multitasking. To my mind neither of them currently do in a true sense. Both OS's support uses multiple applications, but only one at a time. If you are in your browser and you get a message, you click a notification and now you are no longer looking at your browser as the chat window has filled the screen. When you finish your message you switch back yet again to your browser window once again leaving the chat window behind until you receive another message. I hesitate to use the word "window" but you need to be able to resize apps or set them on top of or behind other apps. I want browse the web and have my messages appear in a semi transparent window that I can respond to by clicking in.
I need to have patience however as the medium is still young and developing. I really like the "app model" of distributing software. For the most part apps are priced in the right range. $1, $2, $5 etc is more than reasonable for most apps and even in the event that you do purchase a dud your only out one or two dollars instead $30 or $40.
I've seen a number of posts asking whether or not a tablet could replace someones laptop or desktop pc. The answer of course never simple yes or no as it really depends on what you are using your machine for. As a developer it can't replace my work machine, but I have been intrigued by the idea of replacing my everyday use platform with a tablet. I think that with right configuration and applications a tablet could in fact be a viable alternative. I'm feeling confident enough that I am going to try it and see how it goes!
The challenge: Utilize the tablet in place of a pc or laptop for everyday use as appropriate. *Disclaimer, usage pertains to where it would be appropriate. ex. My work requires the use of development tools that are not available on most mobile platforms.
No comments:
Post a Comment