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Tablets. I've owned 2 so far, plus fucked around with a third, fancier one that was borrowed from someone else (in case you care: a very old Samsung one, a Xiaomi model from the late 2010s, and a new-ish Apple iPad for the borrowed one).
They suck as smartphone replacements because they are too big.
They lack button inputs, so they suck as gaming devices or as computer replacements.
You can browse the web... But if you decide to type anything, the large size plus the touchscreen keyboard make for an awkward experience (in ways that it's not on a smaller phone)
They have lit screens, so they suck as eReaders.
They're sorta okay as like, personal screens for watching movies or whatever, but like, at that point just use a television??
They can make sorta good drawing tablets, the ones that are pen-compatible I mean... Because I mean, yeah. But the lack of a keyboard is a bummer with how I learned to draw with my other hand on Ctrl+Z, though that's more a muscle memory issue than anything.
In general, every tablet I used felt like a less-good verion of a dozen other devices, yanno?
I use my tablet for 2 things"
Consuming media. Not sure what TV you have but mine would be a little unwieldy for taking it on travels.
Taking notes during conferences, meetings, presentations, etc. So much easier if all the notes are digital from the beginning
Wait, wait, wait. You're telling me people leave their homes?!
In my case it's more that I get car/airsick very easily -- So when I'm out and about, I won't be watching media on a portable screen. At most listening to music or an audio-book.
And if I'm in like. A hotel. Most of them (at least here in my country) have SmartTVs that will accept broadcasting from my phone. :P
As for note-taking, I can see the appeal but refer to my comment about typing in a Tablet being uniquely awful.
Absolutely. I use my tablet almost exclusively as a media device but I do feel it could be so much more. It is nice though to use it while my phone is charging overnight and not wasting battery on the phone while traveling.
I felt like this until I bought a legit tablet, not some sub $100 tablet. it's night and day. and it's not even super high end, just not cheap
Same. I used to make fun of them as they're 'too big' for mobile stuff but too small for computer stuff, but after getting a killer deal on a Tab S7+, it's super useful for casual games, watching youtube/plex, drawing, and web browsing. It's also great to use in the kitchen while cooking or doing other stuff
See, I thought it might have been my tablets being cheap things.
But messing around with that borrowed iPad (possibly a Pro, the person who lent me it was filthy rich and likes premium stuff) made me go "... This is like, a high quality laptop but worse in every way?"
The screen was drop-dead gorgeous, and it was clearly a powerful (if locked down, cuz Apple) device -- but it felt like everything I tried to do on the device was in some major way a compromise to accomodate for a less-than-ideal form factor.
One of the funniest memories from when I was travelling (around 2017) was many tourists holding up their giant tablet devices, fumbling with them to try take photos of things.
I've seen this at Disneyland. People walking around using a fucking tablet to record videos like people do with selfie sticks.