Ask AnandTech: Tablets at Work, What are Your Experiences?

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• alpha754293 - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link

  We're not allowed to use tablets at work because it doesn't pass the security infrastructure test. There are a LOT of security concerns surrounding proprietary, confidential, and secret information relating to corporate. We don't even have public wifi in our building unless you are using a company-issued laptop. And then there are questions about "what happens if you lose the device?" and it either has (e.g. actively open) or stored proprietary, confidential, or secret information/documents on there. It's a HUGE security concern and too big of a risk. And recent revelations about mobile or portable device security does not help ease managements pains or fears or reduce the impact studied by the risk assessment teams.

• alpha754293 - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link

  Also as a highly technical, engineering company - a lot of the applications either can't or won't run on a tablet. It would be too demanding at pretty much every level, even if it was to remotely log into a VM hosting on a server somewhere else within the company. Tablets are probably most useful for senior executives and managers, but above and beyond that, the rest of the organization, including pretty much the entire engineering community - tablets won't work for us.

• davidbec - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link

  You have software that cannot run on an Intel i5 and so large it will not fit on a 256GB SSD? hmmm

• jackstar7 - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link

  I'm just doing ad traffic, so as DFP Premium is now compatible with Chrome I can use my TF101+dock to actually do work. It's a nice extra option to have on hand.
  
  Then generally, I can keep media or other distractions off my work system, so I've found this to be a useful part of my cubicle setup.

• Pityme11 - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link

  I am an old fart who uses MCAD and FEA software for work. From a historical perspective, it is interesting to me on the mechanical drawing side of things. As reference, my freshman year was the last mandatory slide rule class. I used Arpanet (in the 70s) for doing Fortran runs on a rotary phone modem with a fast 900 Baud connection. I used a drafting table until the early 90s for most of my work. I do use Excel, Mathcad, Word, PowerPoint, MCADs, FEAs, etc. but I wonder about using stylus for MCAD markup like the old Pentel pencils with HB lead. Currently, I use Excel to paste screen shots of drawings and then add comments for markup. I have found Excel the best because of the size of pictures I can markup. I then use Excel to write up and paste relevant markups. Small stuff I modify myself if I have access to software/files etc. It would be nice to go back to the old days of writing markups directly but my handwriting has gotten worse with lack of use and old age and I am not sure it would help. Now stylus with voice control (I.e. horizontal line this location 6 inch right) would be useful but I don't think I will see it in my work lifetime. A tablet obviously is not remotely useful at this time for my work. I do use a large laptop (Sandy Bridge I7 Nvidia pro graphics 16 g 250 g ssd) for travel and some non FEA work at home.

• UpSpin - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link

  I bought a real tablet PC running Windows XP with an active Wacom digitizer (convertible, so with keyboard) six years ago when I started studying mathematics and physics. It lasted 10h without recharge and I took all my lecture notes on it, used it to annotate PDF documets, used it learn, do work, at home placed it on a dock and attached a large monitor and external keyboard, I just did everything with this computer, or better say: tried to
  My experience:
  OneNote is full with bugs, lacks important features (good export, print, CAD like drawing, ...) and it just isn't a valuable tool for heavy note taking with the pen (the bugs regularly destroyed notes).
  Overall is pen input pretty slow. If you have to write plain text, the keyboard is magnitudes faster than the handwriting recognition. It's quite good in Win 7, but still not perfect. It's just like speach recognition, nice, but slow and imprecise, so not usable for work! This also mean, the whole Office suite is pretty much useless on a tablet. MS hasn't changed anything in this regard yet, so it remains useless on a tablet in my opinion.
  Because all my lecture notes were scientifcal I kept them in hand written form (handwriting recognition doesn't support equations) and used Bluebeam PDF Revu as note taking software.
  If I had to write a paper or other stuff I used the keyboard, because, as I already said, it's accurate and magnitudes faster.
  I also tried to learn and do worksheets with the tablet. I digitialized most of my books and created my own digtial library which allowed me to look up informations and search for them. But for learning it's just too heavy, the 12" display is too small, TFTs too exhausting for the eyes, not outdoor usable (my tablet has a very bright outdoor usable AFFS+ display) and just not flexible enough. If I use paper and work on stuff with friends I write stuff everywhere, I place a few papers side by side, share parts of it with friends, ... If I read a book I keep my finger between pages, can compare pages in an instant, not so on a tablet. You have to scroll back and forth, set marks, only have the display as usable area, ... It's just cumbersome. That's also the reason that I printed my lecture notes if I wanted to learn with them. On a tablet it wasn't possible. To read digital media in sunlight and with less eye strain I bought a Sony eReader. But its display is even smaller and slower, therefore it is lighter and the eInk good for the eyes. I use it for simple reads, but nothing complex.
  
  In the end, thanks to the tablet, I have all my notes in digital form and have them nicely ordered. Because it was a convertible I used it for all laptop work too, like writing papers in LaTeX and analysing data with Excel or more powerful data analysis software. I always had the tablet with me. It was an expensive investment, but a good one.
  But using it outdoors was impossible, reading books on it not relaxing, doing paper work on it not possible except notebook work with the keyboard, learning not possible at all.
  
  How to solve it?
  Make a foldable design with two A4 sized Mirasol like displays (fast, color, outdoor usable, easy on the eyes), so you can use it like a book, or fold it like a slate tablet. Also keep a portable keyboard with you, you'll need it. And don't forget the pen, else a tablet is totally useless for work. And we need a good note taking software, none is really perfect yet. OneNote a nightmare, Journal a joke, Evernote no way, PDF Revu requires tricks, Android software is far from that away.
  
  So in conclusion: A tablet WITH A PEN is a great ADDITION for a student to take and organize the notes, but it can't replace books and paper. You can't learn with it, can't read books on it, can't use it outdoors and you can't work together with others if you use a tablet.

• nforman - Thursday, July 25, 2013 - link

  I have similar usage cases - I, too, studied math and physics. I'm in academia and would like to read and annotate math articles on the go. If I could do all of this on a primary (mobile) work machine, that would be ideal - perhaps one of the new detachable tablet-laptop designs.
  
  On the tablet side of things, all I really need is a good stylus - which I understand is possible these days - and a nice piece of PDF annotation software. Solid note taking software and an outdoor-friendly screen would be big pluses.
  
  On the laptop side, I mainly need a good LaTeX editor. I mistrust the ability of Android or iOS to provide me with one. I would be happy with a device that supported both Ubuntu and Android software, but barring that, I think I'd be forced to use Windows 8.

• Krafty1 - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link

  I work in an End User Computing group for a company of about 1000 employees. One of my functions is to test new equipment to see if they would have a business use for any of our departments. We currently have 40 or so iPads in the company that serve mainly top level management as a convenience tool to access email since we have a Good server for secure email. That generally works fine for their needs.
  
  I was excited prior to the Windows tablet devices coming out because I thought that they could be a good fit for some of our heavy travelers. My ideal would be that they could have their tablet when they are out on the road and be able to VPN in via a 4G or WiFi connection and get whatever they need. Then, when they come back to the office, it automatically jumps back on the domain via the in-building WiFi. If they go their desk, they could pop it in a dock and have at least one big screen plus the tablet and normal keyboard and mouse and essentially have a regular desktop back environment back.
  
  There are two devices that if mashed together would accomplish this. The Dell Latitude 10 and the Microsoft Surface Pro. The Surface Pro is superior in all ways but two: No good dock (you could use a USB 3.0 dock, but its not nearly as slick as the dock for the Latitude 10) and no TPM chip (for BitLocker encryption - necessary in our industry). Otherwise, the keyboard is great, the processor is way better and overall, its just a better machine.
  
  If Microsoft took the Surface Pro, put a TPM chip in it, improved battery life, and built a custom dock that would fit where the keyboard normally connects (pop off the keyboard - pop it into a dock), that would be the perfect work tablet for me.
  
  The thing that would make that really work would be if the tablet automatically switched into a "desktop mode" similar to Windows 7 when docked, and back into ModernUI mode when undocked. ModernUI is TERRIBLE with a mouse and keyboard (didn't they do any useability testing with non-touchscreen devices?) - I gave it a solid 3 weeks of honest use before I gave up on it and installed ClassicShell. Its fine on a touchscreen device though in general (needs some polish, but it is generally okay).
  
  Office 2013 is better than 2010 for touching...but there really out to be "touchscreen mode" and "non-touchscreen mode" for it as well.
  
  Hope that feedback is useful. If MS (or Dell) can build the device I describe above - they'll get a bunch of orders from us.

• punchdrunk101 - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link

  I am a biomedical researcher, and have both a laptop, desktop and an iPad. I do a large amount of reading/reviewing manuscripts, grants, etc. The ability to read articles and make notes while at home, on the road or in the airplane has made a big difference, such that I use much less paper. I markup a PDF file and sync it to Dropbox. The iPad's ease and convenience, lightweight and long battery life is really valuable. Plus when I cant focus on work, I can swap to a movie, game, or even an easy to read book.
  
  However, it doesn't replace my laptop/desktop. I have spreadsheets with data and statistics; I have manuscript and grants with imbedded figures and reference manager code that cannot really be used on the iPad. I can convert them to PDF and review/edit them, but I cannot create new stuff, in part due to lack of pure Office compatability, and partly because I simply cannot type effectively using the virtual keyboard. I have recently used the voice capture/dictation stuff embedded within the iOS to good effect.
  
  So the iPad is great for reading/reviewing at night and on weekends (or traveling), but I end up syncing it to my desktop and coming in to work to really produce new things or put the finally touches on important documents. I usually bring just the iPad for family trips, but both iPad and laptop on work trips.
  
  I am interested in the Surface tablets due to ability natively run Office, but havent been convinced that they are sufficiently better in other areas (app ecosystem). I am sticking with the iPad for another year or two, but expect that I might jump to something with more productivity focus next time. My vision is the tablet for working on the couch, meetings, and short trips. Large laptop with full size keyboard and gaming ability for longer trips where I really need to work and play, though it stays in the hotel room. And of course desktop at home and work, with all of these syncing between each other. My primary goal is to leave work empty handed, and I am almost there now. I dont bring things home because everything is already syncing between work and home, and can be downloaded easily to iPad.

• bollwerk - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link

  We have a Dell Latitude 10" tablet with Windows 8 Pro to test with.
  I absolutely hate using it.
  It is very slow doing most any "normal" Windows task, presumably because you're trying to run a full version of Windows on a much less powerful proc and with less RAM than a laptop.
  Outlook 2013 doesn't work well (or at all) with live tiles (e.g. to preview emails or see upcoming appointments).
  I also have Dell's 6430u ultrabook with the wireless dock and I find it VASTLY preferable to the tablet.
  I think tablets have potential for business use, but Windows and Office have a LONG way to go to be not just functional, but desirable.