I was originally skeptical of them, as I had an early smart-phone (LG) and a 15.6" laptop which was, for its
time, quite a good performer. It has all the connectivity one could desire and at 250GB, plenty of storage.
At the time, I remember thinking what a royal PITA it would be, carrying a 10" tab around, especially one
as limited as the iPad. I basically filed tabs under 'Nah, not interested' in my mental directory.
Moving along a few years, and the LG is long gone (always wondered what LG stood for), it drowned in a
toilet (???). And the 15.6" laptop's battery, never that great, has deteriorated to the point that about forty
minutes is about all you'll get out of it.
One year ago, I purchased my current laptop initially as a replacement for both the 15.6" laptop and my
aging (but considerably hotted-up) Pentium 4 desktop. As it turned out, they were not replaced but merely
assigned to other duties, but that's another story.
Anyway, the upshot was that I had nothing that was readily portable (this laptop certainly isn't, see my
System Specifications). My Android smart-phone is great, but at only 4" is a bit cramped for some tasks.
My original aversion to 10"+ tabs remained (and still does), and I won't buy fruit at gunpoint, so I began
looking at various 7" Android tabs. I wasn't looking to spend bags of money in case I found no real need
for a tab. Anyway, I bought a cheap Chinese Android 7" with Ice-Cream Sandwich installed. It's not a fire-
breathing dual or quad-core with 64GB of storage, it's a 1Ghz single-core with only 4GB internal storage.
However, at only A$129, with a USB wireless modem thrown in, I wasn't expecting i7 quad-core specs or
performance. It's more than adequate for my needs, though.
Storage wasn't a problem as I installed a 16GB microSD in the slot provided, and so far it's proved to be
more than adequate. MicroSD cards are super-cheap, so having two or more extra isn't exactly the end
of the world. The tab has not had a major impact on my usage of the 'big' computers, and has not come
close to superseding them for most of my computing tasks.
It gets used mainly as an e-book reader, and for casual browsing/entertainment when I'm NOT around my
primary machine. I can (and do) use it for basic computing tasks, but it is definitely an ADJUNCT to my
'big' machines, NOT a replacement. I'm not disappointed with it, and would certainly miss it if I lost it or if
it died. And it's WAY more portable/convenient than a 10" tab.
But it wasn't, and isn't, a must-have. Far from it.