Best Tablet for Surfing / Word / Excel?

[Deleted]

Time to get tablet for myself. What is best suggestion to do shopping, proboards, facebook, email and budgeting on excel and word for letters and storing pdf account history?

Your personal plus and minus for type and size are helpful!

[Deleted]

I love my iPad, but while I can make do with pages, I am not a fan of numbers... I still have to go to the laptop for record keeping. 

[Lizard Queen]

I have a Google nexus 7, which is good for surfing.  The Surface looks like it would be good for what you list, but with the price, you could get a laptop for cheaper.

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

I have an IPad.

There is no excel-type program that comes with it. You need to download an app.

The other thing with many tablets is a lack of printing functions.

[taz157]

Jan 17, 2015 18:17:11 GMT -5 oped said:

I love my iPad, but while I can make do with pages, I am not a fan of numbers... I still have to go to the laptop for record keeping. 

I also go to my laptop if I want to type a longer post too.


With printing GRG, if you have a wireless printer, you can print to it. DH and I decided to get a new printer that had wireless capabilities for that reason. I found a printer on Amazon for under $60. We've tested it out and it works.

[Happy prose]

The Excel app was free. If you get the iPad, make sure to have a printer with airprint.

[thyme4change]

I don't know why I am the only person that seems to have problems with the iPad.  It won't hook to WiFi unless I shut it completely down, and then reboot the internet, and then reboot the iPad - and even then, I might have to reboot the iPad a couple of more times.  We have 5 other devices that hook to WiFi no problem.  Generally the iPad is the closest to the box.  I've googled it and found a few people that had a problem - but it wasn't exactly the same.  Theirs was usually a one-time thing.  I don't know why I keep fussing about it, because the Apple nazis come out in force to tell me it is clearly something I am doing wrong because Apple technology is flawless and worthy of worship.

When I buy another tablet - I will look for something that is more like the surface - with a keyboard and USB ports.  (And not Apple.)

[Deleted]

I have a Bluetooth keyboard I use with the tablet if I need to type something longer. It is smaller, but now I find I have to adjust if I go back to laptop... So I must be used to it. Seriously use the laptop only for excel and the occasional website that doesn't seem to want to work correctly on my tablet. Mine prints with our wireless printer.

[Deleted]

Jan 18, 2015 8:05:13 GMT -5 Happy prose said:

The Excel app was free. If you get the iPad, make sure to have a printer with airprint.

Cool! That must be a relatively new thing. I swear it wasn't available when I got numbers. Looks like 1.0 came out March 2014. Sigh. Now I have to update my ISO. 

[billisonboard]

Disclaimer: I am not the most tech savvy person in the world. I have an Android smart phone I selected based on it coming in a "roughed" model. When it was time to get a tablet, I decided to stay with an Android system. I occasionally use my wife's laptop which is Windows and struggle with it. 

I have the bigger one (10 inch?).  I use it almost exclusively (except as someone note,  for longer posts it is just easier to go to a desk/lap top). I have a Bluetooth keyboard as well but as I am reclining in my Lazy Boy as I type this, it isn't very practical. 

[Happy prose]

Jan 18, 2015 9:12:20 GMT -5 oped said:

Jan 18, 2015 8:05:13 GMT -5 Happy prose said:

The Excel app was free. If you get the iPad, make sure to have a printer with airprint.

Cool! That must be a relatively new thing. I swear it wasn't available when I got numbers. Looks like 1.0 came out March 2014. Sigh. Now I have to update my ISO. 

Yes, it is new. You can get Word also.

[Tennesseer]

Jan 18, 2015 10:21:55 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Disclaimer: I am not the most tech savvy person in the world. I have an Android smart phone I selected based on it coming in a "roughed" model. When it was time to get a tablet, I decided to stay with an Android system. I occasionally use my wife's laptop which is Windows and struggle with it. 

I have the bigger one (10 inch?).  I use it almost exclusively (except as someone note,  for longer posts it is just easier to go to a desk/lap top). I have a Bluetooth keyboard as well but as I am reclining in my Lazy Boy as I type this, it isn't very practical. 

I am like you. I use my Android tablet 95% of the time and only for fun.

For Word and Excel, I use my desktop computer and regularly backup the data. My previous Android tablet's On/Off switch broke and computer/tablet repair shops said it was irreparable. All information on it was locked inside and unretreavable, including Excel-type spreadsheets and Word documents. I learned my lesson with that tablet.

[Tennesseer]

As for tablets?  I use a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, 10-inch screen. I do not like the smaller screens.  I like it very much.

[billisonboard]

Jan 18, 2015 11:11:55 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

As for tablets?  I use a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, 10-inch screen. I do not like the smaller screens.  I like it very much.

Mine is the 2014 edition.

Only problem is I can't hear video clips anymore. I can copy the URL and paste it into another tab and hear it. The avatars disappear also but don't really care about them.

[Tennesseer]

Jan 18, 2015 11:22:02 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Jan 18, 2015 11:11:55 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

As for tablets?  I use a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, 10-inch screen. I do not like the smaller screens.  I like it very much.

Mine is the 2014 edition.

Only problem is I can't hear video clips anymore. I can copy the URL and paste it into another tab and hear it. The avatars disappear also but don't really care about them.

When you say you cannot hear video clips, do you mean video clips posted on this board? If yes, I was having the same problem here too for a while. But the problem eventually resolved itself. It may have fixed itself with the occassional software upgrade done by Samsung.

You may or may not have problems in the future with your Samsung's wi-fi connection going out. I was having a problem, and still occassionally do. But I got some paid, professional technical support on how to fix the problem. Three graduated ways to fix it up to factory restore If you would like a copy of the instructions for a potential future wi-fi outage tablet problem, lettme know and I will PM them to you.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

I have an iPad, that I love for surfing and tapping out small messages....like this.  However, even if you get a Bluetooth keyboard, it is incredibly frustrating to do anything else on it.  For longer emails, I go to my computer.

I just bought a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro for school.  It is light, has a decent keyboard to work on, it has a couple of USB connections (my iPad does not), and it has a touch screen so it works like an iPad.

I chose the Yoga, but the Surface Pro also has similar qualities....some of my classmates have these and they love them too.  It has a smaller screen, a smaller processor and memory, but is sufficient or most things.

ETA.....9/10 times, I have to go back and correct these messages.  Autocorrect really makes no sense.

[billisonboard]

Jan 18, 2015 11:39:01 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Jan 18, 2015 11:22:02 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Mine is the 2014 edition.

Only problem is I can't hear video clips anymore. I can copy the URL and paste it into another tab and hear it. The avatars disappear also but don't really care about them.

When you say you cannot hear video clips, do you mean video clips posted on this board? If yes, I was having the same problem here too for a while. But the problem eventually resolved itself. It may have fixed itself with the occassional software upgrade done by Samsung.

You may or may not have problems in the future with your Samsung's wi-fi connection going out. I was having a problem, and still occassionally do. But I got some paid, professional technical support on how to fix the problem. Three graduated ways to fix it up to factory restore If you would like a copy of the instructions for a potential future wi-fi outage tablet problem, lettme know and I will PM them to you.

Yes, ones on this board. It is limited enough that I can cope. Hope it does get resolved though.

I haven't had any wi-fi problem. Or I should say no problem since I did a serious upgrade on my router. I have done some major changes in my home technology recently. The guy at Best Buy shook his head, chuckled, and responded "Yea" when I asked if maybe it was my N150 router that was the problem for my two smart TV's, two smart phones, satellite receiver, printer, laptop, desktop, and two tablets not working well. But I would still love to get that PM just in case. I thank you in advance.

[justme]

I have a surface. I got it because at the time only Windows tablets supported external hard drives. I'm not sure if that's still the case? I like that it syncs with my Windows laptop that has Windows 8. Having the full version of all the office programs is nice.

My mom has an iPad air. I hate it, but it does sync nicely with her iPhone (I also hate those). My dad has a galaxy tablet. I really like it, but I also have a galaxy phone. If I didn't need the external hard drive I would have gone with an android because the apps sync up with my phone.

[billisonboard]

Jan 18, 2015 12:00:15 GMT -5 justme said:

... I would have gone with an android because the apps sync up with my phone.

I need to update my phone for this to happen but I love everything else about my phone (and just don't want to spend the money).

[Deleted]

I've done papers, husband does proposals, invoices, kids do papers on our tablets. It's probably individual preference. 

I'll say this... Make sure how your documents are backed up! Mine and husbands got connected somehow, and I deleted things off mine that automatically deleted off of cloud and his... It was not a happy time. 

[TheOtherMe]

I love my iPad and don't have any problems getting on wifi with it except at one place.  There I can't get on wifi with the iPad or iPhone.  

I have the free Word and Excel apps but do most of that on my laptop.