Help me choose a tablet (got one)

[Jered]

I have all of you calculator nerds beat. I have an abacus.

[randy]

The really important thing is, you are far more likely to actually have the 7" in your hand when you need it.

Of course, if you carry a purse the size of Darlin' Daughter's, that 10" tablet is never very far away.

[Greg]

The really important thing is, you are far more likely to actually have the 7" in your hand when you need it.

Of course, if you carry a purse the size of Darlin' Daughter's, that 10" tablet is never very far away.

Yeah there's a reason those purses are so HEAVY.

I have 2 10" tablets, fire sale Touchpads. Couldn't argue with the price, and they've been a lot of fun, but I'm pretty much with Chris on the 7" thing. 10" tablets are just a little too big and heavy to be at home anywhere but on your couch, in your living room. If you want to take them anywhere, 7" is much better and for anything that you really aren't better off watching on your TV or your computer monitor the difference in screen size between a 7" and 10" table isn't that big a deal. (Yes, I'm planning on a Nexus 7 for myself for Christmas, thanks. )

[Weetabix]

I have all of you calculator nerds beat. I have an abacus.

I do, too. Now the real test: can you use it productively?

I used to could. Can't any more.

[Weetabix]

Re: 10" vs 7" (thinking out loud to organize my thoughts and to let you guys shoot at them)

What am I wanting this for? Replacing a laptop as much as possible without having a laptop. Why do I want to do that?

My company has offered to buy either a laptop or a tablet for home use. This is in part because the older laptop I took home from the company because it's obsolete, I had to bring back for a temp to use. I've also brought my side gig desktop in for the same guy to work on my side projects at the office. So I have no computer at home.

If I take another company laptop home, it's subject to recall for emergency. If I buy my own, it's safe. So, I've settled on taking the tablet offer. I think it's less likely to be recalled because it's only productively useful to two people in the office - me and another guy who already has a company tablet.

What do I want to do with it? Mostly, have a smaller-than-laptop device that replaces some (but not all) laptop functions and has other free fun apps on it. Rdp (lower res) sessions for work to review photos, read pdf's, use custom software, write letters, etc. If I have this rather than a laptop, I can take it on business travel rather than taking my office laptop - less weight with a little more flexibility of places to use.

Watch movies? Probably not so much. The smaller an actively lit screen is, the more it bothers my eyes.

Read? No. Nook with e-ink for that.

Email? Yes, but my phone does that, too.

So. What uses am I missing for this that a 7" would be significantly more convenient for than a 10" would? I do admit that I got my wife the 7" specifically for the reasons that Chris & Greg mention - I knew she'd be more likely to use it. (ETA) Thing is, I don't tend to feel a need to keep technology close for impulse use. If I want to use it, I'm OK with going to get it. So, I'm not seeing the argument of size being so important. It's not like this is my carry weapon and my life might be in danger because I left it at home as it was too large to carry conveniently. (/ETA)

I do plan to put an rdp app on her 7" and try working on it a bit just to see how it goes. I still opine that I'll want the larger screen and the larger keyboard, but I could be wrong.

[Greg]

<lots of thoughts snipped>

Hmm. I'd say you're going to want a 10" tablet.

[blackeagle603]

Ebay is your friend. I just bought this one a couple weeks ago complete with cable, case and CD.

Texas Instruments TI-83-Plus Silver Edition
Office Product
Sold by syracusecalculus
$59.95
Item Subtotal: $59.95
Shipping & Handling: $8.47
Total Before Tax: $68.42
Order Total: $68.42

[Weetabix]

Went over to ebay. In HS, I had (still do, I guess) a TI 30. Didn't use it at school, though, IIRC because the rechargeable battery was dead, and I had hardwired the wall cube into it. This is bringing on some calculator reminiscences.

In college, I was the Buildings & Grounds rep for the building I lived in. I got to inventory the furniture after people left. Part of how I paid for school. Anyway, people always abandoned many items at the end of the year. One year a guy left behind a Casio scientific calculator. He had graduated, and I assume was going to upgrade to an HP. Anyway, I used that for years though school and into my actual career.

One day at lunch, I spilled sardine oil on it. Took it to the kitchen for a scrub in the sink, and the right two vertical segments of the rightmost digit quit working. You couldn't tell 5 from 9 or 6 from 8. Being a practical guy, I just set the decimal places to display one more than I needed. Whenever my supervisor came by, I'd set it back to two places or whatever, and I'd ask him, "Is that a 5 or a 9? Eh. Whatever. I'll guess a 5 this time." It drove him crazy because he was certain I was guessing at numbers 40% of the time. I loved that calculator.

Then. Then! Then, Sears had an offer that if you had worn out Levi's jeans with certain defects, they'd replace them free. I had a ton in my closet that I'd saved for working on cars, cutting trees, etc. Fred Meyer (NPR knows that store) began offering that they would take anything in returns if they sold that item in their store even if you didn't buy it there. Marketing gimmick to get people shopping there, I guess. So, I took my old jeans to Sears and traded them in for new ones. Then I took my new jeans to Fred Meyer and returned them for cash. I took the cash and bought an HP 32SII that I still use to this day.

So, in my whole career, I've never paid out of pocket for the calculator I use for work. I'm only on the 2nd one in 24 years. I guess I'll have to get creative when this one wears out.

I need to dig all of those things out and dust them off.

[PawPaw]

ETA: In HS, I used a slide rule for physics. Just for fun.

When I went to high school, computers were huge devices that high schools couldn't afford. I used a slide rule, because that was state-of-the-art. It's what we had. But, I did stubby-pencil physics.

I never saw a portable computer until I was in grad school, and the teacher lugged it into class one day to show us the future. It had two 5.25 inch floppy drives.

[Weetabix]

It had two 5.25 inch floppy drives.

Did you ever see any of the old 8" floppies? Those always made me laugh.