A month ago my wife said she wanted to get a tablet for her new business. It had to be Flash compatible though because of the website for the product she sells.
I thought there were three solutions...
1. Android based tablet
2. iPad, convert Flash based videos to mp4 and transfer to iPad.
3. MacBook Air
I decided the MacBook Air was the better solution for her, picked up a refurb for her with a nice purple Tuff-Luv case.
But she's sure she's getting a tablet. Did I make the wrong choice? I figured it's just as portable, fits in her favourite bag du jour, and does twice as much.
I'm giving her gift a week early in case I need to right wrongs.
BTW, the videos in question may be available through an iPad app, so that may eliminate the Android tablet out of the equation, in case I do need to right wrongs.
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Home: 2006.5 iMac 20"
Me: 2010 MacBook Pro 13", iPad Mini Wifi 32GB Black, iPhone 4 16GB Black
Wife: 2011 MacBook Air 11.6", iPhone 4 16GB White
Are you backed up??? If so, why? Psyllium Fibre is not free but will do wonders!
I ditched my iPad 2 for an Air an haven't looked back. I have a few friends with fancy iPad 2 cases that have integrated keyboards, and they're actually bigger than the Air is!
That would also be my choice. The iPad is great but there's so much more you can do with the Air, accounting software, Microsoft Office, etc. Plus she needs to fill out forms for clients, iOS' virtual keyboard is fantastic but a physical keyboard for this purpose would be even better.
However, this is not exactly what she wanted. There's a 50% chance she'll think the MacBook Air is way better than the iPad, and a 50% chance I need to get her what she wants.
However, I may keep the Air for myself if that's the case, I've been dying to ditch my PC laptop. lol.
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Home: 2006.5 iMac 20"
Me: 2010 MacBook Pro 13", iPad Mini Wifi 32GB Black, iPhone 4 16GB Black
Wife: 2011 MacBook Air 11.6", iPhone 4 16GB White
Are you backed up??? If so, why? Psyllium Fibre is not free but will do wonders!
FWIW I just picked up an 11" MBA and am going to give my iPad to my daughter. I found the iPad to be a great tool for consuming, but not so much for creating. Not much difference in size, more creative capability in the MBA, IMHO, but one downside is battery life. The MBA discharges much more quickly than the iPad. But there you go.
Unfortunately she may need to use the iPad for a while before realizing it's not the right tool. Can you borrow one and let her try it for a while (i.e. in real day to day job usage)?
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"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
The exact same decidion I have to make as well.
But I already eliminated the iPad in favour of the Air - question now is if I get the Air do I get the large or the small one - doesn't seem to be much difference in screen size, anything else to consider.
Then also the question to get one that can still run Snow Leopard - I like the illuminated keyoard on the new one ut Lion is an issue.
And finally I'm still thinking of a 13-inch MBp because the CD/DVD drive/burner will e a requirement on occasion.
This is to replace a three year old 15-inch MacBook pro which still runs perfectly and does everything that is required, it just gets a bit heavy carting it all over the world.
Does it have to be portable? You said its for business. Imac, no good?
The ipad is good for web surfing, playing games, checking emails, using apps like weather, twitter, etc... You can always use a bt keyboard with ipad, but that sort of defeats the portability aspect.
I would say its probably better to use a laptop of any kind over any tablet.
Btw, i'm typing this on my ipad. I use my ipad on a daily basis, so i am familiar with its limitations.
...if I get the Air do I get the large or the small one - doesn't seem to be much difference in screen size, anything else to consider.
Then also the question to get one that can still run Snow Leopard - I like the illuminated keyoard on the new one ut Lion is an issue.
I looked at both and got the 13" for the larger touchpad and space in front of the keyboard along with the greater screen size. You also get the SD card reader.
I don't think you can have a stable 2011 MBA running SL. Besides with a laptop you want things like the recovery partition and filevault 2.
You gotta drop the Lion dislike. Soon it will be Mountain Lion and Snow Leopard will loose support before long.
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"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
You gotta drop the Lion dislike. Soon it will be Mountain Lion and Snow Leopard will loose support before long.
It's not that I dislike Lion, I already made a USB stick to install Lion again on the one 13-inch MBp if I need to without going through the down load exercise, the problem are all the Intel and Universal applications that "break" in Lion.
I don't really understand why Apple couldn't have done a better job with compatibility.......I'm not aware of any applications that "broke' when moving from Leopard to Snow Leopard, but with Lion there seem to be tons of them.
Lion was released almost a year ago and there are still lots of applications I use that are not compatible with Lion and there don't seem to be alternatives.
On the MBA I would need to go with the 2010 model if I want to run SL on it.
I figured it's just as portable, fits in her favourite bag du jour, and does twice as much.
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