Keeping Pace with Tablet Computers

The fol­low­ing user sub­mit­ted ques­tion led to today’s entry:

“I am ready for a tablet com­puter — what should I get?”

A sim­ple ques­tion that unfor­tu­nately doesn’t have a sim­ple answer.    How­ever by look­ing at the cur­rent state of tablets and key pur­chas­ing deci­sions — you to can “Keep Pace” with tablet com­puter technology!!

It seems like only  yesterday

Released in April 2010, the Apple iPad has not only estab­lished the stan­dard for tablet com­put­ers, it has forced a num­ber of tech­nol­ogy com­pa­nies to release com­pet­i­tive products.

So what are the tablets cur­rently available?

The cur­rent selec­tion of avail­able tablets con­sist of:

• Apple iPad Tablet
• Sam­sung Galaxy Tablet
• HP Slate 500 Tablet
• Black­berry Play­book Tablet

What tablets are due “soon”

Expect to see more ven­dors releas­ing tablets, but the most inter­est­ing can­di­date is:

• Motorola Xoom (Announced a few weeks ago, avail­abil­ity “soon”)

And what tablets are “rumored”?

Com­pe­ti­tion being what it is, the indus­try is rife with rumors about:

• Apple iPad 2 (The 1 year anniver­sary is right around the corner)
• Google Tablet (No link, but this prod­uct has been rumored for some time)
• Microsoft Tablet (Many rumors exist as well, due to an HP pre­view last year)

With so many choices, what do you buy?

While the “safe” answer is to go with the indus­try leader (i.e the iPad), some things consider:

• When do you want it? —  Are you look­ing to buy a tablet imme­di­ately or are you con­tent wait­ing a few months until the mar­ket lead­ers become clearer?

• What will you do with it? —  Do you have a spe­cific use for the prod­uct in mind, such as tak­ing it on an over­seas trip, tak­ing school notes, read­ing books or watch­ing video’s?

• What is the soft­ware plat­form? — The iOS (Apple) and the Android (Sam­sung, Motorola) are the plat­forms that will pro­vide the great­est selec­tion of appli­ca­tions.   Tablets not based on Android / iOS plat­forms will be sub­ject to the laws of sup­ply / demand which may limit the num­ber of appli­ca­tions devel­oped for that platform.

• Is the device mar­keted for per­sonal or busi­ness use (or both !) — Some early tablets aligned them­selves with the busi­ness mar­ket (i.e. the Black­berry Play­book) so they may not be sat­is­fac­tory in non-business settings.

• How much does the device cost? — Tablets typ­i­cally range in price between $500-$850, and the actual cost is depen­dent on fea­tures such as tablet size and installed mem­ory.   Ven­dors look­ing to gain mar­ket share may use aggres­sively pric­ing tactics.

• Deter­min­ing how it will con­nect to the inter­net?- A tablet is most use­ful when it is con­nected to the inter­net.   Tablets  con­nect to the inter­net in one of 2 ways:
  1. “3G”  - This means the tablet can inde­pen­dently con­nect to the inter­net, just like your phone.   This requires a sep­a­rate data plan for the tablet inde­pen­dent of the data plan you have for your phone.
  2. WiFi — This means the tablet is depen­dent on a WiFi net­work to con­nect to the Inter­net.    Newer cell phones have “hotspot” func­tion­al­ity where the phone can share its inter­net con­nec­tion with a WiFi device (i.e a tablet)
  • NOTE:   Some tablets (like the iPad) come in 2 dif­fer­ent con­fig­u­ra­tions (3G and NON-3G).  If you pur­chase the NON-3G, you can NOT add 3G func­tion­al­ity at a later point in time.

• The cost of the data plan — In most instances, you will need to select a monthly data plan. The cost/configuration of data plans vary by car­rier and cen­ter on how much data will be trans­ferred in a given month.  Because it is dif­fi­cult to esti­mate data usage, this will be the hard­est ques­tion to answer.

How do you Keep Pace ?

As  with any new tech­nol­ogy, expect to see advances in tablets for the next few years — which means some­thing bet­ter will always be “just around the cor­ner” — so no “best” time exists to pur­chase a tablet!

In the mean­time, some things you can do to “Keep Pace”:

• Visit a tech­nol­ogy store (i.e. Best Buy, Sta­ples and Apple) and ask for a demon­stra­tion.  Bring along this guide to help you answer­ing the ques­tions listed above!
• Pick up and work with sev­eral tablets to get a feel for how each works.
• If you have a spe­cific soft­ware appli­ca­tion in mind, con­tact the ven­dor and see if a tablet ver­sion exists.
• Find  friends that have tablet com­put­ers and ask them about their expe­ri­ences with the device.

To “Keep Pace” with future technologies

• Sub­scribe to our “Newslet­ter” at www.keep-pace.com
• Become a Face­book fan at Keep Pace Technology
• Fol­low us on Twit­ter

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Tags: apple, blackberry, galaxy, hp, ipad, motorola, slate, tablets, xoom

Category: Articles