Tablet or Netbook? How to Choose the Right Mobile Tech

Tablets, netbooks, smartphones–these days, you arse't buy a microwave without organism upsold on the 4G, touchscreen, app-fund simulation. But when you're picking out your preferred mobile technical school for work (Beaver State even for romp), you can't rely on a features chart Beaver State a list of specs to tell you what you should buy. That's why I decided to try on the job from the itinerant with deuce-ac different appliance combinations–a netbook with a smartphone, a Google Chrome Bone CR-48 with a "dumb" phone, and an iPad with a unarticulate phone–to see which arrangement worked optimum for my needs and my budget.

Outside of functioning at PCWorld, my mobile needs are moderately low-tech. I expend most of my weekdays working at the office or at dwelling house, or on a bus between the two, meaning that I'm usually inside Wi-Fi coverage and I don't very need a smartphone for my daily life. Recently, however, I've been traveling more for cultivate, so I needful gear that was portable, offered mechanized broadband inspection and repair, and could last for a integral day on ace charge.

Combo #1: Netbook and Smartphone

Offse I distinct to try impermanent with a netbook and a smartphone. My colleagues Jason Cross and Ginny Mies outfitted me with an HP Miniskirt 1103 and an Evo Reposition 4G, and I went hit to Los Angeles to work remotely for a week.

I immediately noticed that although the idea of an implausibly lightweight, portable PC was appealing, working on unity didn't really deliver. I was fit to purpose the netbook for everything I had to do in a standardised workday: connecting to the VPN, filing and producing stories in PCWorld's content management system, uploading video and photos, and so on. IT wasn't easy, though.

Using the netbook felt genial of equivalent workings with a Swiss regular army knife: Just because a Windows 7 netbook can do everything doesn't signify it's really good at doing anything. Since it's a Windows PC, you don't have to worry about not existence able to use the applications or World Wide Web services you want to get your bring on done–but you'll have a hard time getting accustomed to using them on a netbook.

For example, I trust on Web apps for most of my tasks, which works fine happening my multiple-monitor office setup. But it's a lot harder to edit a document when I nates see entirely a paragraph or deuce at a time. Flat simple stuff, like Reading a Webpage or a spreadsheet, was downright preventative on the HP Mini 1103's 10.1-inch, 1024-by-600-pixel display. And when I got frustrated, I got less work done.

The Mechanical man smartphone was handy for keeping tabs on my make Gmail and Google Calendar, and Google Maps was valuable in portion me navigate L.A.'s public transit system of rules. Whenever I had to leave the comfort of readily available apps and pilot the Web, however, I'd hold back until I could find a place with Wi-Fi to expend the netbook. I'm so spoiled past my normal dual-monitor office apparatus that when I had to rotate the speech sound and zoom in and come out of the closet just to read small text or to tap the correct link in the phone's Web browser, I definite I'd just DO without. Although I had hoped that the Evo Shift 4G would atomic number 4 sufficient for all my mobile Internet inevitably, I eventually broke down and activated the smartphone's $30-per-month WI-Fi hotspot feature, using the phone lonesome if I was in transit.

I was enjoyably surprised to see that all of my work equipment could fit inside my transport-on bag along with dress and toiletries, but that was about it. Knowing that I could work anyplace felt oddly liberating, but I wouldn't volitionally subject myself to the netbook/smartphone compounding again. IT's nice to have an easily outboard PC, but you land up compensable in usability.

Also, this computer software doesn't come cheap. The HP Mini 1103 was only $300 when it launched in February, but the Evo Shift 4G still costs a pretty penny: Add the $150 first toll (subsidized by a cardinal-yr contract) to $100 a month for Sprint's "Simply Everything" (untrammeled sing/text/Web) plan, $10 a month for 4G service, $30 a calendar month for mobile hotspot serving, and $7 a month for handset insurance. You're looking at spending about $1700 each yr happening cancellated service, plus $450 for the actual equipment before taxes and fees.

The Bottom Line: The netbook/smartphone combination is yielding and versatile, so if your connected-the-go work needs are rather unpredictable, this setup is probably your best bet. IT testament price you soon enough and stress, though, and I institute that I simply didn't get as much work done because the ii devices were sol frustrating to use all over a full workday.

Combo #2: Chrome OS Netbook and Dumb Call

Chrome Operating system netbooks are here, and they foretell to beryllium faster and safer than your basic Windows netbook. Chromebooks don't really have some localized store, however, and the "OS" is basically the Google Chrome browser, so they bring their possess newfangled and exciting netbook issues along with them. I dependable Google's mental testing CR-48 Chromium-plate Operating system netbook from its Jan pilot, on with a basic Nokia dumb speech sound, to go steady how this compounding stacks finished for work.

Naturally, most people WHO want a netbook for ferment don't want to do everything on the Web. I can get away with that, most of the time–I do much of composition in Google Docs, and I can use PCWorld's CMS antimonopoly fine with the CR-48.

But functioning with the Chromium-plate OS for a few years didn't hand down me a good grounds to choose Chrome over Windows. The CR-48 starts up in a few seconds, but the time it takes to associate itself with Verizon's 3G network and your nearby Wi-Fi network slows down the startup process, since you can't do anything until you bring fort an Internet connection.

Erst it is online, the Chromebook is great at handling the Web (better than the iPad), but in my tests it wasn't flexible enough for me to rely on American Samoa a primary work machine, especially if I ever needed to work with photos and video. And since I was dependent on the CR-48 as my mobile Internet twist, my spirited candy-bar dumb phone couldn't pick up any of the slack.

On the plus side, this apparatus costs importantly less, thusly if you travel on twenty-four hour period trips for work and can address a proper laptop or desktop PC later to finis your projects, you might privation to consider a Chromebook. The initial purchase will monetary value you active $500 for Samsung's 3G Chromebook, and you fetch 100MB of 3G data per month for released for the first two years. If you take more data (and you probably will), you can prefer to buy a prepaid monthly-manipulation plan at a rate of $20 for 1GB, $35 for 3GB, or $50 for 5GB; or els, you posterior pay $10 for a one-day unlimited-use legislate. The toll of the phone and cell project is fairly reasonable: I pay $30 each calendar month for a postpaid T-Mobile programme that gives me 1500 minutes or text messages.

In add, if you went for the $50 data be after, you'd be looking at $80 per month (including taxes and fees) for service ($960 a year) plus $530 or indeed to buy the Chromebook and phone–great compared with combo #1.

The Inferior Line: If you canful get by with working only along the WWW, the Chromebook isn't unfavorable. It costs too much for what it offers, though. Unless you'Ra operating on a invariable budget and your monthly mobile Internet necessarily can fit low the free 100MB ceiling, you'll belik want to choose a pill or a Windows netbook for your important mobile gadget.

Combo #3: iPad 2 and Dumb Phone

The legendary iPad-versus-netbook rivalry has destroyed online friendships and finished article commentary threads, permanently reason: They're both very good devices, but they're meant for two very different kinds of people.

Like most Orchard apple tree products, iPads don't fare advisable in comparison charts of features and specs. Describing a netbook in terms of its component parts is easy, only doing the same for a tablet that defined its family is not so simple. Yet the legal age of my fellow PCWorld editors are toting iPads these days, not netbooks, and I had to have it off wherefore.

At first, I was skeptical of the iPad's "magic" because I could easily envision using a netbook for quotidian work, but I couldn't icon myself writing a story on a touchscreen keyboard. After all, I normally work in a tabbed web browser with at least half a dozen tabs open: two chain mail accounts, Google Calendar, the Google Docs homepage plus one operating theater cardinal documents, and Pandora. I only couldn't imagine using an iPad to work like that.

As IT turns impossible, I was right–but that wasn't necessarily a bad affair. See, the style I solve comes from the PC world (pardon the pun), where screen space, bandwidth, and central processing unit cycles are well endowed. Disagreeable to replicate my half-dozen-tab arrangement on the iPad would follow thwarting since the tablet simply doesn't multitask as a full-fully fledged PC can. Instead, I had to conform to the iPad, which meant changing my running habits a bit: I decided to utilize Evernote as an alternative of Google Docs for my on-the-go work, and to devolve on iOS's built-in Mail and Calendar apps, plus IM+ for my messaging needs, to cover the bases.

The acclimation process is kind of a pain. Although I can comfortably set up a new PC to double my ideal workflow in 30 minutes or soh (thanks mostly to RockMelt and Ninite, which make information technology easy to transmigrate my WWW bookmarks and settings, atomic number 3 well atomic number 3 to batch-instal my preferred apps), I'm still working on fitting my life around the iPad. I can't multitask the way I coiffure on a PC–chatting with a coworker while working on a written document is tough. Simply I have noticed that I'm fit to center much longer on a single job.

Whole, the iPad ISN't better or worse than a PC–it's precisely better and worse at different tasks. Writing is surprisingly play on the iPad, even without a Bluetooth keyboard. Redaction a text document with a touchscreen is a bit more troublesome.

Surprisingly enough, the iPad/dumb-telephone set jazz band costs just about the same as the Chromebook/speechless-phone jazz group: $600 for a 16GB iPad 3G, plus $50 per month for the 5GB data plan. Add the said T-Mobile $30-per-month paid program to your vizor, and you're looking at about $630 for the initial expense (not counting task) and $960 annually for your Mobile River Net and phonation/text service–non much of an Apple assess here.

The Bottom Line: People World Health Organization say you can't get "rattling act" done on a tablet are wrong. You certainly can, but you might need to take over a while to figure kayoed the best way to do it. Once you do, nevertheless, it's far easier (and less frustrating) than nerve-wracking to work with a Windows or Chrome OS netbook. I also found airborne broadband to be often more useful on the iPad's relatively roomy display than it was on the Evo Transmutation 4G in combo #1.

If you need Windows-just applications to do your job, you don't have much of a choice: Consent a slick ultraportable like the Samsung Series 9 over a netbook. The laptop may cost more, but the usability is worth the investment. (You also might cost able to get by with a tablet and a good VNC practical application to approach your home/work PC remotely, if you Don't require those applications often.)

Otherwise, I highly recommend the 3G-pad/dumb-telephone compounding. Employed with a 3G tablet is a wholly different experience from working with a PC–and in my sheath, information technology's preferable.

Patrick Miller is PCWorld's how-tos and HDTVs editor. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter.