Two things in the news these last couple of days. First, Microsoft sold its last Surface tablet and will no longer be making them. Second, iPhone tablet sales plunged in the last quarter of 2014. What gives?
Well, my friends, this is what gives. Tablets are reading devices. Once the novelty wears off, reality sets in. You can’t use a tablet to get any real work done. Eventually, the question becomes, why carry around two reading devices, a phone and a tablet?
Really, there’s no sense carrying around two reading devices, a phone and a tablet, when what you really need is one device for reading and one device for working. I think that that is what’s behind the dip, if not the full stall, of high-end tablets.
With the advent of super light-weight, high-resolution laptops — with and without touch-screens – people are going to go back to laptops as work devices (for productivity), and always on, easy-to-read, and more powerful smartphones as reading/quick response devices (for news, personal communications, and social media—things that don’t always require precision and control).
According to a recent study published in PC World last fall, you can’t beat a laptop for productivity. Laptops come with a lot of RAM, a lot more storage, bigger displays, and, wait for it, a full-sized keyboard! Sure, there are hybrids, but the key to any laptop is that it should make you productive.
In a December 2014 article, Time magazine reported, “whether you’re writing a document or crafting a presentation, the tablet has yet to beat the precision of a point-and-click mouse or the convenience of a shortcut-rich keyboard. Don’t fool yourself with a flashy tablet demo; even the simplest spreadsheet will become a chore after weeks of taps and swipes.”
“Whether you’re writing a document or crafting a presentation, the tablet has yet to beat the precision of a point-and-click mouse or the convenience of a shortcut-rich keyboard. – Time Magazine”
True, when it comes to battery life, tablets win by a large margin. Tablets are lighter, and usually have displays that are competitive with high end laptops. But the bottom line is that tablets are reading devices. Sure, you can buy keyboards that attach to tablets, but hell, now you’ve got a laptop. For the price, step up!
In summary, the ultimate office, whether stationary or mobile, can be fully productive using one ultra-light laptop and a phone. That’s it. And forget portable printers, external drives, and cables. Those are the things of yesteryear. Save and email documents as PDFs. Use a cloud service for storage. And take advantage of the latest wireless technologies to make connections, including an HD monitor and keyboard and mouse that can transform that little laptop into a full-fledged workstation.
So lighten your load and get productive. Stick to one fast, ultra-light laptop, and one smartphone. That’s all you really need to make your whole world your office.