"More of a toy than a tool" - I read recently that 1 in 5 doctors have or plan on getting a tablet (mostly iPad) for use during patient rounds, and in a few years, 4 in 5 will have one. I've seen people use one during presentations-laptop for the presentation, iPad for taking notes. I asked one guy who was doing this when the meeting minutes were going out, and he replied that he already did. With all the damn security crap and Win7 overhead it takes my year old dual core hp EliteBook about a minute to boot up, and 20-30 seconds for it to recover from hibernate when I close the lid. iPad boot time is 10 seconds, but waking from sleep is essentially instantaneous.
If I want to do intensive computing, or type out long emails, I want a keyboard and large screen. For viewing information, reading and quick replies to emails, and pretty much all forms of entertainment, the portability, long battery life, and instant recovery from sleep makes a tablet much more appealing to me. In a few years tablets will have the power to do what most mid-level laptops can do now. When that happens I probably will never travel with a laptop again, even for business trips. |
