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Prescription tablet
PremiumDiscover why a tablet is a must in your gadget arsenal
Over the last two months I’ve tested out the idea that a tablet is just a scaled-down laptop and an overgrown smartphone. Basically, I’ve been testing the theory that the “should-I-really-buy-a-tablet" mind keeps suggesting: The world does not need to own all the screens—from 3 inches on the phone to a ginormous 152 inches (the largest flat-screen TV on the planet). If you own a tablet, you already know that this theory is flawed. But if you don’t own a tablet, chances are you are going to own one sooner than you imagine.
There is an even more compelling reason to believe you will opt for a tablet. Reason? People tend to do things faster than they imagine when it comes to technology. In 2010, 52% of the people in the Oracle study thought their mobile phones would replace their digital cameras by 2015; by 2011, 43% were saying they already had. In 2010, 54% thought their mobile phones would replace their iPods and MP3 players; by 2011, 34% said they already had.
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Armed with my ultra-portable carbon body Sony Vaio VGN-TZ17GN (the device was launched five years ago and though it’s only 11 inches, it’s thicker and heavier than new ultrabooks), the pint-sized, all-business 32 GB PlayBook and the full-touch BlackBerry Torch 9800, I did the following: took a long holiday, attended a board meeting of a technology company that is one the largest workflow implementation partners for a multinational firm, led an ideas session at an off-site for a rural start-up, drove down to a hospital to visit a friend who had met with an accident in an unfamiliar city 140km from where I live, thrashed out the approach to a book on baking I am assisting an accomplished pastry chef write, discussed some business processes with former test pilot and India’s first man in space Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma (who has to be one of the most process-oriented persons in the country—his life depended on it) and loafed around in coffee shops shooting the breeze with friends. Bottom line: The tablet made all of it much more interesting, easy to manage and somehow better to execute (see chart).
I must confess that I am unable to throw my laptop away. It’s old, but it isn’t as if it has arthritis or lumbago. It works perfectly well. It is a great workhorse. It makes me a decent living. I want to see if the new bride in the house, the tablet, lasts five years. That will be its true test. The tablet doesn’t have to make me a living—after all, it costs just a fifth of the laptop. When I bought the laptop, it was in the region of ₹ 1.2 lakh—unimaginable for laptops today! It may also seem strange to see a comparison between a five-year-old piece of technology and a just-arrived tablet. But that’s a real user for you.
Aces and Misses
Some observations over the last two months
• Tablets will quickly replace laptops as the device of choice. But they won’t displace them. As long as you need to be a content producer, a number cruncher or a designer, laptops will be needed. But the tablet is going to be your device of first choice for everything else.
• Tablets are convenient. They help accomplish simple tasks better when on the move. Reading mail, say, in a car or a bus is convenient: The tablet stays steady in your hands and the fonts are bigger than on a phone.
• They’re a great way of making presentations and showing pictures (of your holiday, children, pets…) around a casual conversation. The PlayBook’s high-definition screen makes viewing from all angles better. In addition, its ability to reorient content on the screen is unmatched by a laptop. I am a tad reluctant to hand over my phone—a fairly personal device—to others to even view pictures or a video. The tendency is to “show" the phone to others rather than hand it over. This is not so with a tablet. And, of course, no one wants a clunky laptop to see someone else’s pictures.
• Employees with tablets will have an edge —their productivity will improve as more apps are created with touch-tap-and-pinch functionality. The fact that a tablet is light and can be used in small spaces will be increasingly appreciated in enterprise environments.
• Maybe it’s just me, but I found installing/uninstalling apps on the tablet and the phone so simple that it made me wonder about the installation wizards and geeky dialogue boxes that laptops present. Why do laptops have such complex installations? Ditto with connecting a Bluetooth headset with the tablet. No silly dialogue boxes to deal with.
• Tablets make reading a book or watching a video in bed, in a cab, at a railway station or on a plane so much more convenient than a laptop, a smartphone, even a TV. The caveat is that you need to be watching the video alone.
• Tablets have more lasting power. My laptop gave 3 hours. The PlayBook lasted 8 hours. The power consumption—or battery strength—of tablets has so far been underrated. If your laptop is three-five years old, you will face a similar problem. Of course, the new ultrabooks come with up to 9 hours of battery life.
• It takes my Vaio a good minute to wake up when it is hibernating. The tablet is a swipe of the finger. In an age of instant everything, the tablet has better sociographics. The new ultrabooks take 4 seconds to boot and the Asus Zenbook can be left turned on for days.
Arun Katiyar is a content and communication consultant with a focus on technology companies. He is a published author with HarperCollins and has extensive media experience spanning music, print, radio, the Internet and mobile phones.
Write to us at businessoflife@livemint.com
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