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Let's settle the tablet thing once and for all

InsanelyApple

InsanelyApple

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 26, 2010
449
0
Okay, with the flood of new tablets and some of them being very hard to categorize. I thought this might work well.

5 inch or smaller; can make phone calls: Smartphone (Dell Streak)
5 inch or smaller; can't make phone calls: PDA (VILIV)
6 inch or bigger: Tablet (iPad and Galaxy Tab)
6 inch or bigger; built in keyboard: Touchscreen laptop (IdeaPad)

Any suggestions or comments?
 
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For about a decade now there have been names for various touch devices. Basically, along these lines:

  • Tablet = touchscreen with physical keyboard ("convertible" if transforms from laptop)
  • Slate = touchscreen w/o physical keyboard
  • Webpad or pad = smaller slate, meant for browsing, viewing media, and some apps
So a few years ago we'd have called the Samsung Tab and the Apple iPad, slates.

All the Microsoft tablets and convertible laptops are tablets. (Really small ones are called UMPCs.)
 
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kdarling said:
For about a decade now there have been names for various touch devices. Basically, along these lines:

  • Tablet = touchscreen with physical keyboard ("convertible" if transforms from laptop)
  • Slate = touchscreen w/o physical keyboard
  • Webpad or pad = smaller slate, meant for browsing, viewing media, and some apps
So a few years ago we'd have called the Samsung Tab and the Apple iPad, slates.

All the Microsoft tablets and convertible laptops are tablets. (Really small ones are called UMPCs.)
Click to expand...

This is correct.
 
OK....

iPods = iPods
iPhones = iPhones
iPads = iPads
Non-iOS devices = s@!%

did i miss anything? :D
 
davidlw said:
Wish that I had a 7 inch 3G iPad on Verizon. Perfect for my needs.
Click to expand...

I used to think that. Then I measured it out. Take an iPad, cover half of it, look at the screen....

It seems too big to be easily pocketable, too small to be more useful than the iPod.

I don't know, maybe it could be done and would change my mind, but right now it just seems an awkward size.
 
shen said:
I used to think that. Then I measured it out. Take an iPad, cover half of it, look at the screen....

It seems too big to be easily pocketable, too small to be more useful than the iPod.

I don't know, maybe it could be done and would change my mind, but right now it just seems an awkward size.
Click to expand...

You make a good point, for a long time I wanted a 7 inch, but not so much now. Having the ipad in it's current size is much better all around. But if by some chance they did come out with a 7 inch with 3g I would likely buy it. I just don't think it will happen. For many reasons but the first would be pricing. A low end 7 inch would cut into the ipod touch market. Just my 2 cents. :D
 
Tablet = something to take when you're ill
Slate = tiles on your roof
Smartphone = phone that automatically blocks calls from your mother-in-law
 
davidlw said:
Wish that I had a 7 inch 3G iPad on Verizon. Perfect for my needs.
Click to expand...


A 7 inch device, for where I do not want the 9".

Mounted to the handle bars of my motorcycle.

Voice command would make it even better, so I could encase it in a waterproof unit and run it via bluetooth voice command.Simple commands, for motorcycle use.

Full USB capability so I could fully interface it to the motorcycles monitoring systems. Then I could remove the Speedometer / Warning lights and use the smaller iPad as a " Digital Dashboard "!
 
Dragoro said:
Need a better name for 5 inch without phone.
Click to expand...

From A Buick 8 said:
useful ?
Click to expand...

Fixed that for you...

I had used PDAs for years. Way before the smartphone was invented. I would hardly call a PDA useless.

shen said:
I used to think that. Then I measured it out. Take an iPad, cover half of it, look at the screen....

It seems too big to be easily pocketable, too small to be more useful than the iPod.

I don't know, maybe it could be done and would change my mind, but right now it just seems an awkward size.
Click to expand...

But that is only for a seven inch WIDESCREEN, a 4:3 screen wouldn't be.

spinedoc77 said:
Lol, I got a laugh out of this. How true, same goes for the 7".
Click to expand...

I got a laugh out of it too... But I was laughing AT y'all, not with. I have made tens of thousands of dollars using a PDA, and so have a few others.
 
I keep seeing in Star Trek, any series, then using 7" or rather tablets that can be held in one hand whilst they are moving round this ship, doing other tasks.

In other words, they have a flat device, easy holdable in one hand, leaving the other hand free to do other tasks.

Can the members of this forum who think they are wrong, please get into the freezer, so that in a few hundred years time, then can defrost themselves and tell the crew on the space ships that they are using the wrong sided devices :D
 
Piggie said:
I keep seeing in Star Trek, any series, then using 7" or rather tablets that can be held in one hand whilst they are moving round this ship, doing other tasks.

In other words, they have a flat device, easy holdable in one hand, leaving the other hand free to do other tasks.

Can the members of this forum who think they are wrong, please get into the freezer, so that in a few hundred years time, then can defrost themselves and tell the crew on the space ships that they are using the wrong sided devices :D
Click to expand...

Star Trek, while entertaining, is not real. The iPad like devices they hold in one hand are not real, but stage props. They also set them down before doing any 'real' make believe work.

Did you measure the make believe screen on the make believe device ?

iPad = real
Star Trek Pad = make believe

I have NO problems holding the iPad in one hand.
 
MrWillie said:
Star Trek, while entertaining, is not real. The iPad like devices they hold in one hand are not real, but stage props. They also set them down before doing any 'real' make believe work.

Did you measure the make believe screen on the make believe device ?

iPad = real
Star Trek Pad = make believe

I have NO problems holding the iPad in one hand.
Click to expand...

Awwww, don't tell me it's not real :eek:

Seriously though, it does tell you something that Years, Decades before the iPad was launched many many people had decided the size of a useful handheld tablet device.

If you watch they do also have larger devices, but many of the thin slates they use in all the different series are of a size to hold in one hand.
 
Piggie said:
Awwww, don't tell me it's not real :eek:

Seriously though, it does tell you something that Years, Decades before the iPad was launched many many people had decided the size of a useful handheld tablet device.

If you watch they do also have larger devices, but many of the thin slates they use in all the different series are of a size to hold in one hand.
Click to expand...

I like the idea of the Eye Phone like they had in Futurerama. Seriously (Yes, I am being serious, and yes, I am a little 'different' than most people), how cool would it be to have a display implanted in your eye ? We could call it, wait, here it comes, a Retina display.
 
Piggie said:
Awwww, don't tell me it's not real :eek:

Seriously though, it does tell you something that Years, Decades before the iPad was launched many many people had decided the size of a useful handheld tablet device.
Click to expand...

It's not like the prop designers actually did usability studies on different size tablet devices. Yes, a device you can hold in one hand does seem useful, and that's why a lot of people want that size, and a lot of manufacturers are coming out with that size. Me, I started out by already having an iPod touch. I think if I had had the choice between a 7" and a 9" device back when the iPad came out, I think I would have picked the larger size, because the smaller size is just too similar to the Touch. Or I would have just replaced my Touch with the 7" device instead of using both the Touch and the iPad like I do now.

But in any case, I think the iPad is really a case of not knowing you need one until you have it. Before I saw it, I would have said any size that is bigger than the Touch would be an improvement. But the iPad with its nearly full size keyboard in landscape is a HUGE improvement in usability that I hadn't predicted beforehand, but having used it, it's like "Duh, of course you want a full-size keyboard!"
 
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