Tablet Help.

[NosRokanaske]

Sorry in advance for the long post.

School is coming around in roughly a month and a half and, if and only if everything works out well, I'm planning to get the Zenbook Infinity and a Corsair Voyager Air or Seagate Wireless Plus. Again if things work out well, I am considering getting a tablet to go with those as well. Right now I'm already decided on grabbing a Windows 8 based tablet just so i can do quick editing on documents or read certain files comfortably. I have a Nexus 7 and it really isn't "productivity" device and more of a "consuming" device as in it can be productive but it was not meant for it. To be a bit more concrete, the Nexus 7 is great for browsing the web, watching videos, and gaming (I don't really play apps even when i had an Android phone didn't play anything) but the Office Variants, PDF Reader, and file browser are definitely not the best. Each seem fairly sluggish to some extent. So i chose Windows 8 as my platform of choice just because it does what I need a tablet to do more effectively. I can't decide between the Surface RT, Acer Iconia W3, and the Surface Pro. I haven't really considered other tablets because I like how the Surface's feel in portrait because they are narrow, so reading feels nicer and fits comfortably in my hands. I'm leaning towards RT, but im hesitant because it uses the same processor as my Nexus 7 and I feel that it may become sluggish like my Nexus 7 and that somehow the office there wouldn't read files in .doc, .docx, .ppt, and stuff like that which is probably not the case. I'm Hesitant of the Iconia because of the smaller display, Atom processor, and poor viewing angles. I'm hesitant for the Surface Pro because of the battery life and price. If that Institution thing at $200 actually extend to students, i would definitely pick it up, but at current prices which would you guys think would be best?

Thanks in advance.

 

[realwarder]

Depends on what you want the tablet for.

If only for web/video/youtube/email/some light games, then Surface RT is fine. Heck it even has Office and Excel for you. And as a student, for $200, a bargain. Go get one.


If you need to use older PC applications, get something with an Atom. But I think you have your laptop for that...

 

[edoug]

I have too many tablets: iPad mini, surface rt, surface pro. On a budget and wanting to he productive, I'd go with the surface rt. It has a long battery life and even with the stutters office works very well. I'd recommend the type cover over the tap cover though. The surface pro battery is good, but not in the same league as Arm-based devices. Have you looked at the Dell latitude 10"?

 

[NosRokanaske]

Realwarder: I'm only really going to be using the tablet as almost an eReader. Just going through some documents making sure they have very little errors, some PDF reading, and the occasional Youtube video. Office and Excel built in is what i really liked about it.

edoug: How bad are the stutters if you dont mind me asking? I used the RT for a bit at the MSFT store, but didn't notice any stuttering that would impeded on the user experience. Is there stuttering mainly opening applications like Word, Excel, and the Browser? Cause if its just opening the programs, i can live with that. The Dell Latitude 10 looks interesting, but the fact that it is priced heavier than even the Pro, I'd probably go with the Pro despite the battery life. I also don't really like the wider form factor. As i think i mentioned earlier, I am mainly going to be doing light tasks like editing documents and reading which i believe the RT should be enough for that. Anything that is "extensive" I'd just pull out my laptop.

Are there any Tablets (Windows, Android, iOS), around the same price range the build quality that are worth mentioning? Or is the RT pretty much the best thing for what im going to use it for?

 

[DBDev]

I love my RT and my touchcover, and I think it should be perfect for your needs! :smile:

 

[edoug]

I only really see stutters with streaming media like Xbox music, and maybe a slightly longer launches/saves to network.

 

[edoug]

My Surface RT had been a neglected device by me since my primary machine is a surface pro (I got an RT on release day and a pro sometime later), but this thread -and some recent app additions to the store, and I've spent this last week working with it more extensively. Here's what I'm finding:

Lags are still there --mostly saving things to skydrive or streaming, but not so bad that the file saves bother me (but music stutters drive me crazy).

The metro/modern apps keep getting better and better and many are full featured enough that I prefer to work that way. Snapping two apps is so useful because the Modern apps adapt when they are the secondary v. primary onscreen app to display the important data.

OneNote on surface can't add video data from the cameras, and that's something I hope can happen in the future.
The rest of the office experience is very good. There are differences (I know there's a document that tells what all of them are), but they aren't in the "Top 80-90%" of features most people use.

Battery life is strong, the RT is much lighter than the Pro and typically gets the job done pretty well.

If I were choosing between this and an iPad and it was just about consuming media/data it would be close, but if it came down to producing mostly Office type documents without the use of VPN's or cellular data, I would probably chose the SurfaceRT.