Tablet or lightweight laptop?

[sasguru]

But completely over kill for what the lady said she would be using it for!

See my previous post

[fullyautomatix]

What did you buy? In the market for something myself at the moment with the same requirements as the OP. I need to use Photoshop so that rules out a tablet - was thinking of an ultrabook of some description.

I bought the Toshiba Protege Z830. Its a basic ultrabook but I wanted a light laptop for travel and to just run Visual studio whenever I wanted.

For Photoshop you might want to look for one with a bigger RAM and SSD, there are ultrabooks with 256 GB SSD and 8 GB RAM costing about a grand.

[wurzel]

I bought the Toshiba Protege Z830. Its a basic ultrabook but I wanted a light laptop for travel and to just run Visual studio whenever I wanted.

For Photoshop you might want to look for one with a bigger RAM and SSD, there are ultrabooks with 256 GB SSD and 8 GB RAM costing about a grand.

Yeah, looks alright. Don't really need anything too high end on the spec front as I'm only using PS for simple web graphics. It's just that the requirement for PS precludes me from buying a tablet.

[mrdonuts]

windows surface tab will be out shortly

[suityou01]

Going to be travelling rather a lot and wondered what others use.

Looking for something for surfing and general admin (odd spreadsheet,docs, plans), so not something heavy duty.

Current laptop is a tad on the heavy side, great for working from home but not lugging about the place. Not sure whether to go with a tablet (android preferably) and bluetooth keyboard or laptop. Been looking at the Nexus 7, not sure about laptops, possible Acer or Asus.

Recommendations for anything mac related will be studiously ignored.

I was staunchly anti-mac until I got my iPad. Great for surfing and you can get a Kensington case with built in wifi keyboard. I'm posting on the little devil as we speak.

That said the spreadsheet apps are wank, the word processing app isn't too bad. Using google docs is a chore.

Not the answer you wanted, sorry, but for a surfing machine I can check emails on, take meeting minutes and play angry birds on it's brill

Perhaps I am not using it properly though, and there's a ton more stuff I could be doing on it. Most sites have apps (Sky, IGIndex etc) so there's always some new gadget and something to learn so it satisfies my inner geek.

Best of luck with the lappy hunting, hope you get what you want.

[Gentile]

Going to be travelling rather a lot and wondered what others use.

Looking for something for surfing and general admin (odd spreadsheet,docs, plans), so not something heavy duty.

Current laptop is a tad on the heavy side, great for working from home but not lugging about the place. Not sure whether to go with a tablet (android preferably) and bluetooth keyboard or laptop. Been looking at the Nexus 7, not sure about laptops, possible Acer or Asus.

Recommendations for anything mac related will be studiously ignored.

Depends whether you're going to use it mainly as a consumption or as an interaction device. Tablets are great for lying in bed having a surf, or sitting on the train reading a book. But anything you need to type for, they've got their limitations (although some hybrid devices like the Asus Transformer are closing the gap, since as you said they have an optional detachable keyboard, as does the iPad). The minute you mention spreadsheets and documents, though, I'd be thinking micro laptop if I were you. Tablet devices simply don't handle that level of interaction at all well yet (and may never do).

Whatever option you choose, I hope you enjoy your new toy.

[suityou01]

Depends whether you're going to use it mainly as a consumption or as an interaction device. Tablets are great for lying in bed having a surf, or sitting on the train reading a book. But anything you need to type for, they've got their limitations (although some hybrid devices like the Asus Transformer are closing the gap, since as you said they have an optional detachable keyboard, as does the iPad). The minute you mention spreadsheets and documents, though, I'd be thinking micro laptop if I were you. Tablet devices simply don't handle that level of interaction at all well yet (and may never do).

Whatever option you choose, I hope you enjoy your new toy.

A well thought out post, and succinctly put. Are you, me?