Tablet, iPad or laptop

I have a case for mine that props up either at a slight angle for typing or almost vertically. Don't see the problem personally, it's slim and protective and adds convenient features. Best £5.99 I gave to Chinese slave labour since my last case.

I prefer a proper keyboard, for now, and having to use a prop to make it usable is a tad irksome. I wont debate the point further though as I'll probably sell my netbook and replace it with an ipad before the years out! Oh and aren't MAC screens beautiful...

Originally Posted by Taipan

I prefer a proper keyboard, for now...

Originally Posted by Taipan

I prefer a proper keyboard, for now, and having to use a prop to make it usable is a tad irksome. I wont debate the point further though as I'll probably sell my netbook and replace it with an ipad before the years out!

Well, it doesn't make it usable, it just makes it more flexible. And most people will want a case for a tablet anyway, so it's just covering two bases in one. There are all kinds of keyboard options built into soft or hard cases too though.

But I won't go on

Originally Posted by Taipan

Oh and aren't MAC screens beautiful...

Yes. My 27" iMac in front of me is just dandy. And it's just 'Mac', not "MAC". MAC is either Media Access Control o Migration Access Code amongst other things. 'Mac' is just short for 'Macintosh'

quick question simple ans pls. My missus now wants a BLOODY ipad. If you have a DVD how do you get it onto the iPad to watch? We have a mac computer and iTunes and iPhone(!) already

ta

Originally Posted by Slenver

What's wrong with the middle ground of using Kindle et al to download copyright-free books?

Nothing

My knowledge of the different formats is sparse, please expand...

One of the requirements when the wife bought her BeBook (rebadged Hanlin V3) a few years ago was that it should work with as many formats as possible. According to the Hanlin specs it'll play PDF, TXT, RTF, EPUB, LIT, PPT, WOLF, DOC, CHM, FB2, HTML, DJVU, MP3, TIFF, JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG, RAR, ZIP and MOBI/PRC. There are also open source alternative firmwares for it, such as openinkpot, although she's never needed to go there.

It means she can't pass on many of her read books to her mother, the Kindle doen't make a decent fist of anything but mobipocket. They could probably convert formats, but it's easier for the MIL to simply buy the book again from Amazon, which is presumably why there's such restrictive format support on Kindle. That said, it does what it does very nicely, better than the Kobo I set up a while ago.

The experience of reading a book on a 'proper' e-ink device is better than on a glass tablet or phone. But that doesn't mean it's not viable. And surely, using a device you already own to do something else is preferable to spending money on a separate device to do that one thing on, according to the principles of XBox 'n' String™?

I didn't say it wasn't viable, but nor would I buy something like an iPad primarily for reading, even if the two were similarly priced. If I owned one then I'd not buy an e-reader, so the XBnS law still holds The other MIL has a glass-screened Sony e-reader, it kind of loses half of the point IMO, although the touch interface is excellent for looking up words in the dictionary.