06.28
I found myself using my iPad really only for two things:
- Reading – but I since bought a more convenient smaller Kindle that I could read in a wildlife photography hide without scaring off the subject
- Watching a little bit of TV when I went to bed
The reason I bought it originally was to have lots of battery life at conferences. But I couldn’t type with it. The screen keyboard is OK but not fast enough. The attachable keyboards weren’t rigid and you never have a desk at these events. So I ended up buying an Ultrabook.
So my iPad became dispensable. Even though it was an iPad 1, there were no shortage of buyers. And I didn’t even have to advertise it. So it’s not like I’m claiming it’s a dead platform or anything.
So what’s my future on the device front? In my personal lab, it’s a bunch of tower PCs. That’s tied up for a while with work.
My Ultrabook is going strong. It’ll stay on Windows 7 until Windows 8 RTM, and maybe later depending on my work schedule. My work laptop (the Beast) is already running Windows 8 so I can have a mobile Hyper-V base for demos.
My “tablet” for now is the Build slate, a revved up version of the Samsung slate that you can buy in retail at the moment. The Release Preview is running nicely on there. It’s not ideal – it runs hot and the battery life is poor for a tablet style device. Maybe I’ll sell it later in the year before I get a Windows 8 device. Or maybe I’ll sell it as a collectible on Pawn Stars 
I will look at design-for-Windows 8 devices later in the year. I work for a Sony and Toshiba distributor so obviously I’ll look at what they have coming. I haven’t seen anything about Sony’s plans in that space yet. Toshiba have an interesting slider in the but I’d want to try it out. I’m not sure about it as a machine for your lap.
The Asus Transformer goes a more portable route. It’s a laptop and a tablet with an i7 CPU. I like that as an iPad and Ultrabook replacement.
The one making the headlines is the Microsoft Surface. The problem is … what do I want? If I want a tablet, then either the Pro or the RT would suffice. The Pro would be great for things like Photoshop and be dock-able as a normal PC. But I can’t let myself fall into the same trap as I did with the iPad. That keyboard isn’t rigid – so it will suck at conferences and events, constantly flopping.
I don’t know. That’s why I will wait and see.
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This blog post is the property of Aidan Finn (@joe_elway / http://www.aidanfinn.com) and may not be reused in any manner without prior consent of Aidan Finn. You may quote one paragraph from this blog post if you link to the original blog post.
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