What are you reading this on?

[Dr Lobster*]

I'm writing this post on a Nexus 10. Nearly all my leisure surfing is done on a tablet now.

I use my desktop PC for "proper work", where I need a big screen and real keyboard, I can't ever imagine going back to a laptop now, trying to balance this great big cumbersome thing with crap battery life on my knee whilst slouched on the sofa. A tablet is just so much more convenient.

And do you think in time the traditional laptop/PC will be consigned to enthusiasts and business users with most casual users lumping for a tablet?

[Nick Harvey]

You probably wouldn't believe me if I said a mainframe, would you?

[Critique]

I still like to print websites out and read them on paper...

I'm reading this on my iPad, and indeed most of my casual surfing is done on it. It's so much quicker to access and much more portable than a laptop or desktop, and is just the right size for surfing the Internet, checking up on Twitter and so on. If I'm using my laptop (I don't have a desktop), I will continue to check up on Facebook and the like on the computer, but I find myself more and more having the tablet with me too, with Facebook being open on that so I use the laptop only for working.

I do think the tablet will be the port of call for most casual users in the future, but I can't see a computer disappearing outright, as tablets are generally still limited in quite a few areas.

[woah]

I must say how jealous I am of your photography skills Dr Lobster - how you turn a tablet and a tree into something amazing like that is beyond me.

Tablets always tempt me but I'm still on my trusty laptop. I worry that I'd buy one (out of a limited money pot) and then it would sit in the living room doing naff all, because I'd be wanting all my old desktop programs. My S3 does a great job out and about anyway so I worry it would be a waste of my money.

I absolutely agree that tablets will become a more popular casual browsing tool, but a proper PC will always have a place for professionals and offices where a tablet just won't cut it.

[lukey]

I'm reading that and writing this on a MacBook Pro thingy. I get the idea that for most people, they probably don't really need a PC-shaped box to do what they want to do, but it's a struggle to remind myself that most people's idea of computing begins and ends with Facebook and Hotmail, and that a tablet will probably serve them well for that. I use mine for reading more than anything - an iPad is probably the nicest way to read a two-column PDF without *gasp* printing something out, as well as the usual Netflix, games, etc. etc. I had a grand ambition to do things more useful with it but it didn't really work out. I don't particularly enjoy browsing on it, and beyond mindlessly browsing through reddit on the bus, there's not much more browsing I would do (my hands occluding the screen while typing is a bit meh).

I still use my laptop for everything. I trundle it to work every day, and I bring it home to - do more work, or game, or pretend to do both. I entertained the idea of trying to get a beefy desktop and offload as much fluff to an iPad as possible, but it turns out I still like having a god box which is just about good enough for anything I'll throw at it. You'd have to pry it from my cold, dead hands and I doubt that'll change anytime soon.

[cwathen]

I still prefer to use a desktop wherever possible. I don't do anything particularly high-powered any more to need one, but I find a full size machine more comfortable to use. I like to be able to sit *at* a computer rather than having it sit on me, I prefer to use a mouse over other pointing devices and I like a full-size keyboard with full travel keys, along with a decent size screen. A laptop plonked on a desk just wouldn't do it for me.

For portability, I still use an ageing Asus EEE901 netbook for portable computing (now about 5 years old). It has a footprint smaller than many tablets, it isn't too heavy and it's built like a tank with it using an SSD for storage and having a nice sturdy casing. It's survived many knocks which would have finished off a newer machine.

I wouldn't want to go to a tablet, as I still like that the EEE provides a traditional computing experience, running Windows and having a keyboard. I've thought many times about getting a new netbook, but newer models are huge in comparison to mine, many are heavier, they aren't very well built and most now use conventional hard drives which won't survive a knock. Every time I think about which way to go on this I've ended up drawing the same conclusion: the EEE must soldier on.

A conventional full-size full-power laptop hasn't been part of my computing arsenal for a good few years now - when the screen died, I thought about replacing it but then realised that pretty much everything I used it for was done better by either the desktop or the netbook and so I never bothered.

Personally, I believe the tablet will end up becoming a niche product with the mainstream popularity they are getting now being a passing fad. From a performance point of view, many mobile phones are right up there with them, they only lack in screen size. But many phones are now being pushed a little larger to have 5" screens whilst at the same time smaller tablets are now being introduced to be more portable, suggesting them meeting in the middle. When that happens I think phones with larger screens will take over most of the tablet's user base, with full size tablets continuing to be bought only by those who truly need a 9"+ screen.