Yes, we still need Laptops

When Steve Jobs said that there was room for a third device between a laptop and a smartphone, I was not in complete agreement. While I used my desktop for carrying out most of the important work and browsed the internet or watched some videos on my phone, there was no compelling reason to buy a tablet.

After a while though, thanks to my employer's generosity and some impluse online shoppoing, I got hands on an iPad Mini. The moment I started using it, my reaction was that of convenience.

I enjoyed the iPad with it's plethora of apps and games to an extent that I thought I could make do without a laptop for my college. Turns out, those days are still quite some time away.

So, using a tablet as a standalone device for computing is fine in advertisements or when companies showcase perfect scenarios where you have ample connectivity. However, in the real world, we demand a lot more from our devices, especially once we term our personal computers. So far, despite pairing a bluetooth keyboard for my iPad, I'm not convinced it can fully replace my laptop for a while. Though I use a humble Dell Inspiron which can some times be considered a netbook, the iPad is not even close when it comes to getting work done. Work can of course be subjective and range from content creation upto photo and video editing.

For one, the storage on the iPad is highly limited. Though one can buy higher storage options, they are not really sufficient to be primary computing devices. Come to think of it, unless you can dump all your content onto an external drive and vice versa, no amount of storage can be deemed sufficient. In any case, a decent amount is expected to carry your media, apps, etc., wherever you go. Second and my biggest gripe is one of the whole concept of touch on a computer.

Yes, the iPad is great to watch, share and enjoy content, but creation requires the precision of a pointer and one simply cannot live with the constant swipes onscreen. Though you try to get used to the whole concept of convincing yourself that the investment was worth it, I'm sorry, it just does not work. For now, it's good to carry the iPad for 'instant on' scenarios, one where you probably don't need to get any serious work done, like writing this article. Not to mention, you will sooner or later get tired of the lack of serious power to multi task on such mobile devices. Everyday, tech blogs publish numbers claiming falling sales of PCs, but to put it simply, we still need our laptops. Microsoft beautifully put it, 94% of iPad owners also own a personal computer of some sort (desktop or laptop). No matter what Apple or others tell me, for now, my laptop will remain my primary computing device, keeping my phones, tablet and other devices running. Sorry guys, the cloud is simply not so easily accessible yet, nor are these fancy, good looking, unnecessarily expensive mobile devices remotely close to a full fledged computer in terms of upgradability, repairability or flexibility. We're just not there yet. I'm sure margins on such devices are great and a there are huge marketing/advertising budgets going in to making people buy into expensive phones, but it remains that they are obsolete much earlier than an entry level PC.

So the next time you splurge your money on a 'flagship' phone, think twice, thrice. You are buying into something that will soon be replaced by something that promises to be better. Not sure laptops can be marketed that way though. Let's see, maybe the next case study for my studies!