Thought I would start up a new discussion on the current, and near future, state of computer tablets we're seeing. My real reason is to hear what people think to help talk my father out of a Blackberry Playbook, which I'm sure he'll end up getting any day now. I keep telling him not to spend my inheritance but it's no use.

Joking aside he wanted my honest opinion on it when I saw him last weekend and we were looking at it in-store and I said it seems decent but the screen is too small. He then got mad at me and told me it had better specs than the iPad2 but I said it didn't really matter if it was 10 times better because the screen size would be a deal breaker for me. Even the iPad's almost 10" display is on the low end of what I would want to be honest.

We left the store without getting it but I wouldn't be surprised if he just ran out and got it sometime this week even though I'm fairly sure he'd regret it when the new crop of Honeycomb tablets start coming out...


ANYWAY, my personal thoughts on tablets is I don't think they are as amazing as some people say, but for the past year or so I figured from now on I would have a desktop computer and then something very mobile as well for the internet. Right now I have a desktop and a laptop but the laptop isn't portable enough really. I figured I would have a desktop and a netbook but I can see a tablet being as good as a netbook so it would be one or the other really. Other than that no tablet has really impressed me much seeing as they do about the same as a netbook, but usually cost twice as much. When the prices come down a bit more I'll be more interested.

So who all here owns a tablet and what are you're thoughts?

Lack of apps.
Weight is too much for it's size I felt.
Screen is a tad too small making it moreso uncomfortable to see.

I would do an Ipad ANYDAY over any of the others. Seems the I pad had a good handle of how a tablet should be.

Well the lack of apps will supposedly be solved in a month or two when it gets access to the Android Market or whatever. I'm not sure if there will be compatibility issues or not but it is supposed to get that.

That brings up a good point though. I think these apps are terrible. I have a couple of friends with smart phones (iPhones and Android-based ones) and they are always showing me "cool apps" which are "meh" at best imo. In 2 years I haven't really seen one app that made me want a device other than maybe AngryBirds, but even then it was just to play it for a couple of hours and then go back to being bored with apps.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought the display size was too small on the Playbook though. My dad does a lot of e-book reading (he already has a Sony E-Book Reader so I told him to just stick with that) and while we were there he opened up a book and turned it vertically for reading and even I, without glasses and great vision, was like "that's terrible".