Kindle or iPad 3?

[BraveSirRobin]

Well, I finally made a decision; the gym equipment I've been saving for has to take precedence. I've been using it as an excuse not to exercise for too long. Things like iPads and Kindles can come later, when I'm fit.

Good choice...tablets are a luxury. A tablet can act like a TV, gaming console, desktop, laptop, smartphone and ereader, but unfortunately doesn't replace any of them completely. You would have been much better off buying a good smartphone than either the ereader or tablet.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Thanks. This now also begs the question about keyboard. Can I type on a touch screen as fast as I do on a regular keyboard, or would I need to buy a compatible keyboard? And how much screen real estate of an iPad is taken up by the keyboard?

It depends on how good you are. I type 115 wpm on a standard keyboard and can probably only manage about 40 without the tactile feedback. (Something, incidentally, that touchscreens are supposed to be getting in some fashion in the next few years. The future is cool.)

The keyboard takes up about a third of the screen in portrait mode, a bit more in landscape, although it can be split in two for people with smaller hands to use.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Well, I finally made a decision; the gym equipment I've been saving for has to take precedence. I've been using it as an excuse not to exercise for too long. Things like iPads and Kindles can come later, when I'm fit.

If you've got a smartphone (or even a desktop computer), the Kindle software uses the same cloud-stored files everywhere, and synchs to all devices. So you can read as you run (or whatever gym equipment you pick up). And when you do eventually get a Kindle or an iPad, your books will already be there, waiting for you.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

I have a bluetooth keyboard (about$60) that use when I'm doing longer writing projects on my iPad -- it works quite well. I don't usually carry it around with me, though, unless I'm doing something like going to a coffee shop specifically to write on the ipad, etc -- so it's pretty much a deskbound appliance. But it does allow me to have a more satisfying typing experience.

 

[Janx]

Well, I finally made a decision; the gym equipment I've been saving for has to take precedence. I've been using it as an excuse not to exercise for too long. Things like iPads and Kindles can come later, when I'm fit.

as a science experiment/motivator, would you mind posting back here 6 months after your gym equipment purchase and declare how well it worked out.

If nothing else, you being motivated to keep at it to avoid hearing me say "I told you so" would probably be good for you.

I'd rather you be successful than be a statistic, so good luck.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I type 115 wpm on a standard keyboard and can probably only manage about 40 without the tactile feedback

Yeah, the virtual keypads slow me down too. Odd fact, though: the virtual keypad on the iPads actually have faux blisters on the "F" and "J" keys. You can't feel them, and you can only see them if your hands aren't over the keys...and yet someone got paid to render them in code.

 

[Kzach]

If you've got a smartphone (or even a desktop computer), the Kindle software uses the same cloud-stored files everywhere, and synchs to all devices. So you can read as you run (or whatever gym equipment you pick up). And when you do eventually get a Kindle or an iPad, your books will already be there, waiting for you.

I'm not sure what you mean but I'm pretty sure I can't hook anything up to a freeweights set

I'd rather you be successful than be a statistic, so good luck.

Eh, I spent seven months saving up precious pennies and a total of $1,315 on a quality freeweights set. This is the culmination of an effort spanning several years (trying to find the right exercises for lifelong change) of research and experimentation. I know within myself that having the kit at home (and having spent so much money on it) will be motivation enough to make it happen; I abhor wasting money.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You would have been much better off buying a good smartphone than either the ereader or tablet.

Give me a tablet & a dumb phone any day. I currently own an iPod Touch, an iPad2 and a brand new LG smartphone. I hate the smartphone.

Like the iPod Touch, it's screen is too small for time consuming tasks to be pleasant. And for whatever reason, I'm finding its software 1) adds steps I don't have to take with my Apple devices, and 2) has been interacting poorly with many of the websites I visit often. And some things intake for granted it simply doesn't seem to do. I took a movie of my mom's dog & her new puppy (both Border Collies from the same breeder) on my iPad. It was too big to send, but it automatically gave me an option to send an edited version of it, and let me choose the length and portion. A similar exercise with the LG yielded only a "too big to send" message- I've yet to find a way to edit the film to an emailable length.

Worse, even though it has many hardware advantages over the iPhone- screen, expandable memory, etc.- it also has some nasty hardware issues I've yet to encounter on my Apple devices. It's very touchy about recharging, for instance. Using a brand new car charger acquired from Verizon when I got the thing, it refused to charge one day, even after several previous successful uses. Instead, it tried to overheat- it was nearly painful to touch, and had an "Unplug NOW!" type warning message. So I did so, and plugged it in on it's own charger at home, where after 3 hours, it went from 45% charged to 12%. After rechecking all the connections- all were tight- I tried again. This time it charged properly.

Unlike my previous dumb LG phone, it also sucks as a cellphone. It takes up 2x as much space and takes more time and attention to answer the phone than my previous model. Instead of a simple physical button push, I have to move a virtual slider a few inches. Much harder to do when your attention is divided.

In fairness, some of these issues may mean I hae a defective LG. I know this, and plan on having a tech look at it pretty soon. However, some of the issues have already been looked at and been shown to be just "how the machine works". And some, like the phone functions, are not unique to what I'm using, but are pretty common across most smartphones. IOW, I'm not claiming I'd be any happier with an iPhone (though if I can't get the LG to play nice, that may be my next option).

Part of this is because smartphones are compromise devices, and like a lot of compromise devices, corners get cut. It just so happens that, for me at least, they're cut where I least want them to be.

 

[Kzach]

Worse, even though it has many hardware advantages over the iPhone- screen, expandable memory, etc.- it also has some nasty hardware issues I've yet to encounter on my Apple devices.

As a long-time Apple fan this is one of the hardest hurdles to get over when talking with PC/Windows fans. Apple tends to have the ideology of, "Make it user friendly, even if that means less power," whereas PC vendors tend to have the mentality of, "More, MORE, MOAR!!!1!"

It's one of those things that is hard to argue because on paper, the PC is 'better'. It's the intangibles and personal preferences in the user experience that make the difference and that can be very difficult to explain, especially to tech-heads who think size matters more than how you use it

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not sure what you mean but I'm pretty sure I can't hook anything up to a freeweights set

Whatever device you use to read a Kindle book, your place (and notes) are saved across all devices. I can read the same book on my phone, my iPad and my desktop computer, and it stays synched through all devices.

So even if you don't have a Kindle or an iPad now, there's no reason to not buy and read books now, and just read them on your computer or phone. (The Kindle reader software is free.)