Tablets

What a Tablet Is

Here I have a tablet, and this happens to be an iPad, but tablets is more of a generic term and I can use tablets for a lot of different compute things. So this is a computer, but it's set up a little differently than my laptop or desktop.

A tablet is just another type of computer, so it's very similar to this laptop and desktop, it's just in a little bit smaller form factor. So what is the definition of a tablet? It is a portable computer, but the key to it is that we really do most of our interactions with an interactive screen. It's designed to interact with the device through the screen. So what that looks like is, instead of having a mouse and keyboard, we just have this screen that we can interact with.

Now, my iPad that I just showed you does have a little keyboard that actually comes with it, but it's not designed as being the primary interaction for this device. I bought it separate to add to it so that way I could add some functionality and some ease of use with the iPad.

Vendors, Uses and Operating Systems

Vendors for this: Apple is one of them, they have the iPad. Samsung Galaxy Tab is another one. The Kindle Fire is another type of tablet.

A lot of the purpose is for entertaining and for communication, so that's the big one that I use it for and seen it used for. There are apps on it that can be considered productivity, so there's some of the same apps that you have on your desktop — there's versions of it for the iPad or for the tablet. The problem is that they're really stripped down, so they're very basic apps usually with it. It doesn't do like super complicated stuff; for that you need a regular computer.

Some OS that get installed on here: the iPad has iPadOS, the Samsung has an Android, the Kindle Fire has a Fire OS on it. So there's different OSes that can be installed on these, and then there's just a lot of standard apps that can be put on here, so there's a lot of selection on what apps can go on here.

Benefits and Drawbacks

The benefit to this is portability, connectivity — there's a lot of ways you can configure that — and then just the ease of use. It's really handy to have. It's something you can just lay in bed and be able to type and do things on, without having a lot of stuff that you're juggling.

Then some drawbacks. There are some limitations to the apps; it's not super powerful from that perspective. There are some expandability limitations: a lot of times when you buy a certain amount of memory to it, that's what you're stuck with. And they're much more difficult to repair and open up, even a lot more so than even a laptop. And then of course they can be easily stolen, because they're small and they can be slipped into a purse or a backpack really easily.

Hybrids

Just to note, there are some hybrids between a laptop and a tablet, so the lines get a little vague between these two. You have some machines that still have the standard keyboard and a flip-out screen, but maybe then this screen flips around to the other side and now it turns into a tablet. Or perhaps it still has the keyboard, but it's designed to also really interact with the screen as well. So there is some hybrids that are out there that are considered Tablet PCs or tablet laptops.