A School Swaps Laptops for Tablets... And Regrets It

[Tharic-Nar]

As I had a conversation just this week with someone about the idea of working on a tablet, this cautionary tale at PC Pro immediately caught my eye. It's a story of a school (unnamed) that adopted iPads in lieu of laptops for its staff and have come to regret it heavily. The reason is no doubt obvious, but generally speaking, it all boiled down to the number of work-arounds the school had to take advantage of just to get work done.

You can read the rest of our post and discuss here.

 

[Big Red Machine]

My gripe against tablets in general have to do with their present capabilities. They are far too limited to be considered as a "PC replacement" in their present guise. The lack of an efficient interface (i.e., a keyboard for text input) is a huge negative.

I've long been a cynic when it comes to the iPad (and other tablets), seeing them more as toys whose utility is limited to simple web browsing and media playback (at seriously compromised quality, except maybe in visual terms; the audio side is thoroughly unsatisfactory, in my experience). As the article highlighted, attempting to use a tablet (iPad or not) to "replace" PCs in roles filled by PCs is a risky proposition. Indeed, you might say it's an apples to oranges (pun somewhat intended) kind of comparison between even the most capable tablets and even a relatively meek PC such as an ultrabook or a netbook.

If you want to get work done, use your PC; if you want to show off while you browse the web, well, pay through the nose for your iPad.