Tablets Are For People Who Hate Computers

TechRepublic’s Jason Hiner says that while tablets may be stealing some of the thunder from traditional PC sales, that doesnt mean theyre for everyone, and if youre already proficient with a PC, you may be disappointed by a tablet.

Hiner says that after working with the iPad since it launched last year, and most of the competitor tablets month after month, he’s come to a bit of a sobering conclusion: If youre already highly-proficient with a computer then you’re probably going to end up pretty frustrated with most of these tablets.

Consequently, he’s come up with a new rule for technophiles thinking about which tablet to buy:

“Tablets are for people who hate computers.”

He also observes that tablets like the iPad are also great for children, but that if you’ve refined a way of doing things on a PC or Mac that enables you to speed through your most important tasks, then you’ll probably be frustrated that a tablet can’t do a lot of the things youre used to doing with a computer, or at least can’t do them fast enough.

Hiner says that with every tablet that he’s tried to use for an extended period in place of a laptop he gets frustrated because it’s slow, clunky, or impossible to do what he wants to do, and he always ends up wanting to put the tablet down and pick up a laptop to speed through the task, concluding that the only real advantage that tablets have is that they are a lot easier to learn how to use and there aren’t as many ways for people to mess them up.

I couldn’t agree more. Jason Hiner’s observations mirror my own impressions after seven weeks of iPad 2 ownership. The iPad can be cool within its narrowly circumscribed limitations, but I find it massivly frustrating when attempting to do anything approximating real work efficiently, and I go scurrying back to my fleet of laptops after a few minutes of that.