what exactly is the point of a tablet/iPad?

[Brycie]

As per the thread title really, what is the point? As far as I can see, it does only what my smartphone does, only with a bigger screen. In most cases though, without the capability of making calls? (I stand to be corrected on that & tbh, it's not the main question here). The pertinent point is; apart from keeping up with the Jones's & satisfying gadget fans' need to have the latest kit, what will I actually gain from a tablet that my phone doesn't already do for me, except screen size?

[hughjass]

Advantage:

Bigger as have *hite eyesite.
Playing games for kids
Diagnostics for car
Reading books, car info while on the move.(passenger obviously) it's trickier with phone.
Size compared to laptop.
Good for holidays.
Playing movies/YouTube with headphones on while wifey is watching her crap on tv.(phone limits experience die to size).

Ultimately a phone is more convenient for work, sneaking a txt and so on, but the tablet IMO has its uses.

[Guest 2]

Screen size is the main thing really.

I bought an iPad for my wife a few months ago and I'm the only one that uses it but she likes playing Candy Crush on it when I'm at work.

Main time of use is n the evening and early morning when it's too much effort waiting for the laptop to load .. Just like now! :rolleyes:

[Brycie]

Pretty much what I thought, thanks guys. I was wondering if I was missing some really big advantages.

[aldfort]

Just useful if you are sitting in front of the TV and need to check e-mail or somesuch. good for reading and carrying what would once have been printed marterial about with you that you need to read. Ok for web browsing and useless for anything that really needs a keyboard.
We have desktop, laptop and tablet in our house and all get used.

[man le-mans]

I use the iPad all the time as its nice to have it in front of the TV. I got the wife a nexus because she keeps nicking my iPad. You can use the smart phone And i have a iPhone but the iPad is much better for the web and most things like that.

[Brycie]

I hope you're right about it being worthwhile, because I went up to bed the night before last to find out that the wife had been busy buying an iPad 4. Let's hope the build quality is better than her iPhone 5 as the speaker's stopped working & now the camera's playing up too.

[a8tdi]

Portability and battery life..

[Brycie]

You mean over a laptop? Fair point on portabillity.

Quite looking forward to getting it now, though I won't tell the wife that - I'm still milking the "I can't believe you spent £500 the other night" thing. First purchases I think will be Apple TV & one of those covers with a keyboard inside the front cover.

[Guest 2]

I hope you're right about it being worthwhile, because I went up to bed the night before last to find out that the wife had been busy buying an iPad 4. Let's hope the build quality is better than her iPhone 5 as the speaker's stopped working & now the camera's playing up too.

We know who wears the trousers in your house ;)

[a8tdi]

You mean over a laptop? Fair point on portabillity.

Quite looking forward to getting it now, though I won't tell the wife that - I'm still milking the "I can't believe you spent £500 the other night" thing. First purchases I think will be Apple TV & one of those covers with a keyboard inside the front cover.

Yes, and battery life. You will be hard pushed to find any laptop with over 5 hours battery life. Whereas the iPad 2 i use still gives 8 hours between charges, and thats with constant use. Also remember that tablets cannot multitask.. (Well at least the iPad cant, I cant comment on other models).

[Brycie]

Haha. To be fair she did consult me & was going to go for one of the cheaper ones, but I started getting all tech-geek about it & looking up reviews and said to her, you may as well get the best you can, as you'll have it a long time etc etc. Didn't expect her to commit to buying it right there & then though! Actually she probably knew as soon as she mentioned it, I'd be all over the web getting reviews & comparing specs etc like the geek I am.

To my surprise, it's a lot cheaper direct through Apple than through anywhere else like phones4U or carphone warehouse.

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[Guest 2]

I bought a '2' for my wife and I'm the one that mainly uses it, she only really plays Candy Crush or other stupid facebook games on it.

To be honest, I got it for me and talked her into it beforehand then I presented it and said 'here you go honey, I know you wanted one'. Got me into the good books and a new toy for myself. Use it more than my laptop nowadays.

[Brycie]

Very cunning. Cunning like a woman in fact, wish I could be that good at it.

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[Guest 2]

Very cunning. Cunning like a woman in fact, wish I could be that good at it.

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Always think ahead, it works for almost anything. Before we got the A6 I kept pointing them out and kept asking did she like them, if they say yes or even give a hint of liking something that's a good starting point. Couple of months down the line we had one in our driveway.

But if you get it wrong, it goes wrong bad, you're in the doghouse, she gets moody but you still have the gadget you bought 'her' to content yourself :approve:

Stops the nagging .. For a short time anyway!

[zollaf]

it worked for me, mrs z ended up with 3 nice carp rods.
unfortunately she liked them so much they became hers and i don't get to use them, so this plan does sometimes backfire.

[man le-mans]

I hope you're right about it being worthwhile, because I went up to bed the night before last to find out that the wife had been busy buying an iPad 4. Let's hope the build quality is better than her iPhone 5 as the speaker's stopped working & now the camera's playing up too.

My iPhone 5 has never gone wrong and I've had that a year now. But it is the first iPhone I've had and my iPad which I think is a iPad 2 works as it should so hopefully you will get a good one. The wife's nexus was sent back tho. Maybe you got a Friday afternoon made iPhone

[Brycie]

Probably. You can get a faulty one, no matter what the product. We're taking it to the genius bar in Liverpool on Sunday & apparently if they can't fix it, they just give you a new one. She's really happy with the service they've given her though.

[Brycie]

Always think ahead, it works for almost anything. Before we got the A6 I kept pointing them out and kept asking did she like them, if they say yes or even give a hint of liking something that's a good starting point. Couple of months down the line we had one in our driveway.

The first time my Missus saw the A6 was when I picked her up in it. I just asked what sort of figure she reckoned we could afford per month & went out and agreed a deal on it. Then a couple of weeks later, I collected it & took it to her work to pick her up. Thank God she quite liked it, but she wouldn't have minded - she's got hers & Mine is my choice. So she's pretty good really.

Actually she's never stopped me buying anything for it, I'd just feel guilty going too mad & spending loads of our money on something for me.

[Guest 2]

Probably. You can get a faulty one, no matter what the product. We're taking it to the genius bar in Liverpool on Sunday & apparently if they can't fix it, they just give you a new one. She's really happy with the service they've given her though.

Mine has been fine, no problems. I did take a extended warranty out on it at £60 which protects it for another 2 years. You can do this anything before the first year warranty expires at http://www.apple.com/uk/services/

I might not ever need it but its cheaper than buying a brand new ipad if this one should go wrong. Bit like a extended car warranty in hindsight.

[man le-mans]

The wife went shopping some years ago and when she got back I then informed her I had just bought a new car ( 54 plate mondeo ) 6 weeks old. She said Don't talk daft, after a 10 minute conversation the sales bloke then phoned me back just to confirm a few details. I thought we need a new car after our old 1996 mondeo with 170k on the clock needed replacing

[Brycie]

Brave move that. I was prepared to choose it on my own, but I wouldn't have the kahunas to buy one without her knowing anything about it. Fair play.

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[man le-mans]

Mine has been fine, no problems. I did take a extended warranty out on it at £60 which protects it for another 2 years. You can do this anything before the first year warranty expires at http://www.apple.com/uk/services/.

That seems a good price, does that also include accidental damage

[Guest 2]

That seems a good price, does that also include accidental damage

Here's the uk ipad link - Apple (United Kingdom) - Support - AppleCare+ - iPad (http://www.apple.com/uk/support/products/ipad.html)

Yeah get 2 accidental damage claims but you have a £39 excess on accidental which isn't really too bad.

Btw you need to buy it thru this link - Apple - Support - Check Your Service and Support Coverage (https://selfsolve.apple.com/) and punch in the serial number of the device. You can't buy AppleCare after the expiry date of the factory warranty so best get it done beforehand obviously.

[man le-mans]

That's a shame I would have got that but as I've had mine some time I think I'm a bit to late. But handy to know thanks

[Guest 2]

That's a shame I would have got that but as I've had mine some time I think I'm a bit to late. But handy to know thanks

Try the serial number anyway, you might not have it as long as you think.

Settings->About-> Press down on serial number and hit copy so it saves you going back and forward.

[man le-mans]

Said its expired but worth a try. Think I've had it about 2 years if not more its surprising how fast the months go past

[Brycie]

How do you guys transfer your photos (and I guess other media, but mainly photos at the moment) from your iPhones to your iPads? She has Photo Stream, but it's not exactly intuitive to figure out how to add all your old photos to it.

[Guest 2]

I haven't found a way of adding old (taken) photos from an iPhone to photo stream but new ones are automatically added.

For any other photos I just transfer them iphone-pc and pc-iPad.

Both iPhone and iPad act like a big USB stick and displays as a separate drive within My Computer so you can just drag 'n' drop in and out of either.

Music you'll need iTunes or buy from the iTunes app but I just use YouTube converter and sync normally from iTunes.


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[Brycie]

Oh right, I wondered if we were missing something. So you can't add the old photos from phone to dropbox/photobucket & download from there to iPad? There is an app (called photo transfer app) that the Missus found to transfer between Apple devices, but it's £1.99, so I thought I'd check before buying. Thanks Chris.

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[Guest 2]

Oh right, I wondered if we were missing something. So you can't add the old photos from phone to dropbox/photobucket & download from there to iPad? There is an app (called photo transfer app) that the Missus found to transfer between Apple devices, but it's £1.99, so I thought I'd check before buying. Thanks Chris.

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Yeah that's another way to do it but by the time they upload then download it could take a while. You could iMessage all the photos to yourself which would be quicker than using photobucket plus you'll not lose any quality by using iMessage or doing it thru your laptop.


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[Guest 2]

Btw I have a wee plugin thing that transfers photos directly from a SD card into the iPad/iPhone you can have as I got sent 2 instead of one.


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[Brycie]

She's downloaded that photo transfer app now & it was pretty easy to use. Hopefully they'll not lose any quality. Annoying that it's £1.99 & we'll never use it again as all photos will now automatically synch. Oh well, worth it for convenience & getting some important photos onto it.

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[Trillock]

I am a bit late in joining the party, but I find my tablet to be very useful.

Being a retired old git, I quite often wake in the early hours of the morning and cannot get back to sleep.
I used to get up, make a small flask of coffee, and then push off for a spin to Freshwater, and wander along the beach for an hour or so....hour out, and hour back, and if warm enough, have a bit of a skinny dip as well.

However, these early morning (3.0 a.m.ish) runs ended up costing a fair bit of diesel.
So, last Xmas I invested in a Nexus 7, and have been delighted with it, so that now if I wake up in the early hours, I still get a coffee, and settle back to watch various films or TV episodes of programmes I didn't get around to watching the first time around.

I certainly did not want to invest £400-500 (or whatever they cost) on an iPad when I can use my very much cheaper N7, which does pretty much the same things but on a smaller screen.

I have got use to the small 7" screen which doesn't bother me, and reckon it is one of the best bits of kit I have bought. Also, I don't need to sit about in front of my PC watching YouTube anymore, as I save that for the evenings and early mornings.

I hope I am not the only one.....:)

[man le-mans]

I won't be with out my iPad