iPads are great for work

Me neither; you didn't exactly make a compelling argument ;)

For some reason, when I share my personal opinion on something, based on my own experience, it is "just me" and that I am "telling people what to do". But when YOU do the same, it should apply to everyone? Who's the one on the high horse? ;)

I primarily use my Touchpad for consumption, this is true. It's still really handy for what I use it for (D&D, internet/game use while relaxing in bed, watching movies, etc.) but I wish it did a few things better.

1) Handle large PDFs (especially those with complex backgrounds) without slowing to a crawl and consuming battery life like crazy. I've had to separate all of my D&D books into individual chapters and remove the backgrounds on them. Hugely time intensive. Also, links within PDFs don't work.
2) Even if I can't make spreadsheets effectively on it, the least QuickOffice could do is work with the Excel files I make on my PC and transfer over. I can understand not supporting macros, but not supporting common Excel functions that have been there since Office XP (and possibly earlier) ? Come on ... On top of that, it's slow as hell on Spreadsheets.
3) Better video codec support. I shouldn't have to buy a media player to be able to play media on a device that's pretty much designed for media consumption.
4) A Netflix app! This would be great, but also a curse for me as I'm pretty sure my GF would take it over permanently.

The Playbook, while certainly having many, many drawbacks of its own, is probably the best when it comes to Spreadsheets, IMO ... Assuming, of course, that you can get past the low resolution and small screen, which makes it horribly inefficient for Spreadsheet usage unless you hook it up to an external monitor.

A netbook or 11.6" notebook would be a better way to go since you can get a real version of Excel, not some crappy knock-off.

Thanks for the Apple.com ipad work link. It doesn't show any hardcore spreadsheet ability though. I'll have to go to a store and look at one in person.

selective reading much? :suspicious:

Your posts have an arrogance to them which makes it sound like your opinion is fact. I give examples to give more context to my opinions so people can see where I'm coming from.

There's a difference between saying

1. Tablets are toys
2. I think tablets are toys because _____.

One is fact, the other is opinion. I guess I'm expecting too much for RS. I also said that I shouldn't have attacked you personally, another mistake on my part for a proper debate.

Either way, this debate is never going to end so... since you only selectively read...

Tablets are toys.

Look at info on their iWorks app. I only ever tried it on the ipad 1, which was far too slow for it to be usable. But it was enough for me to realize that for work apps Microsoft is FTW. It would actually be quite awesome if they made MS Office for ipad. And not web based

I made a statement, then backed it up when needed. I don't have time to go into a long explanation of my opinions on every single post I make. But if someone wanted to know why I thought tablets were toys, all they had to do was ask. Not act like an arrogant dickhead, calling me 'stupid' and saying I am 'on a high horse' just for having a different opinion from them.

Back to the topic,

Asus transformer can read/edit basic excel files but I'm not sure how advanced you want to get.

Eee Pad Transformer Set to Revolutionize the Student PC | ASUS CampusLife

It's useless without the keyboard though. You might want to take a look at the asus transformer slider. Pretty pricey though at around $500.

Asus Eee Pad Slider lands in America, pricing for the 32 GB revealed | ZDNet

uh.... again selective reading

Lets both just agree to quit as it's not adding anything to the original topic anymore.

You don't really wanna use a the slider either. Would be awkward having the keyboard open and trying to use it in hand.

That is unless the OP meant that he had a table or something to set it down on.

Yeah definitely. If they had a tablet that even ran just Office perfectly I think hordes of people would use it. I mean come on, if a tablet can run smooth graphics games I don't see how it couldn't do the math for graphs.

Wait did anyone else not notice he bought an iPad2 for 700 HKD? Typo?

Well there's also the upcoming Windows 8 tablets. The only one out there is the Samsung developer one that has a core i5. But I dunno when that's gonna be out.

Way back in the 70's-80's when computers were just getting popular, if you needed a solution to use at work you shopped around for software first and then bought whatever hardware it ran on. Computers were useless without the right software.

Nowadays you can buy a Windows PC and be pretty much guaranteed that whatever you need to do there will be a software package available for it. People are used to this and are trying to apply this to tablets, which won't work.

Tablets are like computers from the 70's-80's. They are capable of doing a lot of useful things, but the software isn't all there yet. You can't go out and buy tablets for your work and then expect to find something to use them for. You need to see if your workflow would benefit from a tablet, and if it does then you need to see if there's software available for it. Or you can do what larger companies are doing and develop your own software.

^ well said.

since we're talking about asking what we need one for and picking one from that..

i need something that will run open office, view PDFs, email, have a good calendar/scheduler, and some browsing and will sync to my phone. am a BB bold phone user

for the same reasons i own a BB and not an iphone, i dont care about games or much music or movies, etc.


i dont want to spend a fortune.


i am a contractor and plan on using it for jobsite notes, scheduling, reviewing plans and contracts (pdf), communication and invoicing thru email, and some of my other work shit that is in open office formats. and some googling. and maybe some time killing here and there but not much.



k go.

Instead of OO how about Google Docs? All files are cloud'd, and you'll have access to them AND the editors in any web browser. Same for calendar, email, etc.

i made the mistake of getting comfortable with .odt formats with OO and alot of my work stuff is setup with that.

i am not overly familiar with google docs.

You can import them in. Give it a try, you might like it. http://docs.google.com

Going from OO to Docs is sure to be much easier than going from Office to Docs. I can't do it, I need the pretty graphs in Excel for my site

Playbook hands down since you already own a BB phone.
Using Bridge, emails and calender syncs with the Playbook easily. Also you get 3G access anywhere through your BB phone.
PDF is displayed cleanly and support doc, xls and ppt.

BTW, check out my FS thread for the 16GB Playbook in the B&S ;)

I don't know, man....it's difficult to aim an angry bird and strain pinching a loaf at the same time! Lol...

If you're straining you need some FIBRE