Ask AnandTech: Tablets at Work, What are Your Experiences?
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 12, 2013 3:13 PM EST
The tablet market has grown tremendously over the past few years. What started as a content consumption device for consumers has transformed into a device that has started to pull sales away from traditional notebooks. The obvious next step for tablets is towards the enterprise and business users.
As my usage models tend to be a bit unusual, when tasked with finding out how people use tablets for work my initial thought was to go to you all directly. So, how do you or could you use use tablets for work? What possibilities do you see for tablet use in work going forward? Respond with your thoughts in the comments, a lot of eyes will be watching this discussion and you could definitely help shape design decisions going forward.
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Ikefu - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
As an Process Controls Engineer, I use a Surface Pro as a mobile HMI (Human Machine Interface) terminal while working in a factory setting. I have a travel router I can plug in to an industrial network and then run the HMI software on the Surface as I move from area to area around the plant. HMI Terminals are traditionally stationary and are not always next to that which I am trying to troubleshoot so being able to run full software on a truly mobile platform is huge. I can also keep the PLC code up on the Surface and do code tweeks on the fly. Much easier than carting around a full laptop. I've very interested in a Surface Pro 2 for the battery life gains.In personal use, beside content consumption I use it for a lot of remote control of my various hobby robotics/circuits projects. I'm use to Visual Studio programming so its very handy to have that easily on a tablet.
tweaver113 - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
Bought a tablet to use as an ultra-portable music player for teaching line dances. I take it to the venue, plug it into the main stereo system. There's an app that searches for and plays songs. Best part is it slows down the tempo of the song without affecting the pitch, really important for learning dance steps. Used to do this with Windows Media Player on a netbook, until it died. Oh, and it changes channels on my Comcast cable box, that's cool. Oh, and the battery lasts three times longer than my netbook ever did. And now that WiFi is showing up on trains and airplanes, we'll be swiping and tapping more than ever.lmcd - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
While many people bagged on them this generation, I see sliding tablets having the most potential (for me personally). I could see sliders like the MSI being particularly effective, with a fan opening (or two) under the slide for an equivalent to AMD's "Docked Mode." I'd enjoy using something like Silverstone's GPU solution, but I think more exciting options than TB2 need to come out for this to be viable.I'd enjoy (as a developer) a Surface Pro-type device with a (cheaper) Knight's Corner optimized for use with TB3 as an accelerator for Visual Studios.
darwinosx - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
The Microsoft tablets are mediocre junk which is why nobody buys them.chizow - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
There's nothing wrong with the build quality, they're just too expensive. Pro needs to be in the RT/iPad price range, RT needs to be in the Android price range. If that happens, they'd sell like crazy.Aegrum - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
I use an iPad and zero client as my primary work devices. I much prefer using the VMware View client on the iPad, over the regular client running on an x86 Elite Pad 900. The iPad just works better for that function. Windows 8 just isn't touch friendly enough.Most of what I need to do, I can do via apps, but if I need to access something like Active Directory or Group Policy editor, I just load into my VM running in our data center, and I can quickly do just about everything I'd need to.
thor1182 - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
I have a Dell Latitude 10 with 4G. I normally have the Microsoft BT Wedge keyboard, and the Razer BT mouse handy if I need them.I have all my .NET dev tools on it (VS 2012 & SQL MGMT 2012) plus office and I can use it to do quick coding changes during a meeting in office or at client. With the 4G I don't need to be chasing down a wifi connection. My work computer is a laptop, but with the tablet I can leave it in the dock in my desk most of the time.
I use OneNote for all my note taking needs, the digitizer if I need it, and access to these notes on all my Windows 8 devices.
Once Bay Trail is out I will start pushing for the Sales and marketing people to start carrying Windows tablets over laptops + ipads. They will be powerful enough to replace their laptops, and can be docked for larger screens and keybaords, and can run office, making them more useful than the ipads.
Conficio - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
Currently? No!Potential? If things get an integrated UI. What do I mean with this? I want my tablet and it's apps become an integrated part of my workstation when I dock. I could think of it as an extra monitor, that I dedicate to e-mail and task management and document viewing/web browsing.
But I'd need to dock it in my workstation (Thunderboald or USB 3) and be able to control it from there. Ideally all data is mirrored/backup+sync, so I can add todo's, write e-mails, etc. even when I don't have the tablet docked.
By the way the same applies for the phone.
I want one address book, one set of bookmarks, one set of documents, one set of todo tasks, one set of notes, which I can take with me (even if large parts of documents are in the cloud - think the Apple super drive (or what it is called) kind of often used docs on the SSD (tablet/phone) and the rest in the cloud or on the workstation but accesible with a time delay (Siri, I want to read the last company speech of our companies president - yes sir, can you wait 47 seconds, I go and fetch it).
Oh and make tech that allows a bunch of colleagues in a single room to wirelessly show their display (and negotiate which one is shown) - conference room anybody? That off course with a display mode, that cleans all the personal stuff and reminders at least from the external display!
yougotkicked - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
I use my tablet for taking notes and searching the web during meetings. However, I think it has a lot of untapped potential; I do some network management at work, so being able to connect an ethernet line to the tablet to test connectivity would be helpful. Obviously I don't think tablets need to ship with ethernet ports, but with a USB port on the device I could easily use an adapter.I generally think of my tablet as an extension of my desktop, and I think this is fairly representative of how the tablet should be used in the business world. When you're at your desk there's not much reason to use a tablet, but for meetings, business trips, or just job duties that take you away from your desk, tablets are much more convenient than laptops.
P.S. I see a lot of people discounting tablets for reasons that can be solved by a remote desktop app (i.e. compiling code), tablets can do everything desktops can when you use them to control a desktop remotely.
davidbec - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link
Try a Gigabyte S1082. It has Ethernet built in.