So many choices! We are one of the few shops on Oahu who offer “free” no strings hardware diagnostics. And unfortunately, that means more than a few times, we have to break the news to customers that the computer we are repairing is simply beyond its worth, and not cost effective to fix.

Laptop or iPad? iOS or Android?

This often leads to a conversation with the customers as to what kind of new computer they should purchase. They ask if a laptop is worth it, or a tablet-style is good or… In general, it just really depends on how you use the computer and of course, what is your budget?

We were seeing a trend with customers making a lot of purchases towards the netbook style format. These cute little laptop replacements are not too bad. I often take one with me on my trips. It’s much lighter than a regular laptop, has wireless access, its running on a Windows platform (mine is on XP) and can basically do everything I need it to do when I am out of the office. It makes travelling a heck of a lot easier, and to be honest, it works. For the price of a unit under $400, it makes sense. It doesn’t make sense to keep repairing one of these units, so once the manufacturer warranty is out and something bad happens to the machine like spillage, screen damage and such, it’s generally not worth repairing.

But there are tradeoffs to making the netbook small, lightweight and inexpensive. They don’t run as fast the typical laptop or desktop. The processors typically aren’t the most powerful thing in the world… and the graphics card? Fuhgetaboutit! Do I want to watch a movie with it on the plane? Unless I preload the movie on the netbook, good luck. There is no internal DVD/CD player, so it means having to take an external one to plug in. This also means a bigger draw on your battery life. The keys are often a skosh smaller than the standard keyboard, so it also means that you have to make your hands small! The mouse (touchpad on most) is smaller too, and it makes it difficult sometimes to move between applications or doing a lot of editing. Is it worth it? Again, what do you use it for? If you do simple things like email, surfing the web, and you won’t be too abusive with it, then why not go for it? It’s a great inexpensive solution as an alternative computing source next to your desktop/laptop!

Tablets. Windows did these a few years ago and launched a big party at a nerd-technology conference called COMDEX many moons ago. I remember watching Bill Gates give the keynote holding a laptop with a monitor that would invert and he would start drawing on it and with the handwriting recognition, basically do a ton of things we haven’t seen before! A ton of OOoooo’s and Aaahhh’s! Amazing stuff. Never got traction and now, there are only a couple of manufacturers who are still making the Windows style tablets.

Now let’s fast forward to 2010. Last year, Apple came out with something we all heard about called the iPad. This was a stripped down laptop… wait, make that … This was something entirely new! This thing blew away the industry. Steve Jobs had done it again. A lot of Ooooo’s Ahhhh’s and 14 hour waits in line, 6 week backlog on orders and a huge jump in the value of Apple (AAPL) stocks. Since Apple was already playing around with 4 generations of the iPhone, it was simply a larger version and so much more! With the apps flying in one after the other on iTunes and everyone trying to make a buck, it was a developer’s dream, a user’s experience and everything else in between! BUT, like all good things, there was a catch too. Besides the differences in hard drive space, there were two versions. One with WIFI and the other with WIFI plus 3G. The additional drive space and 3G capability cost more, plus, there was the cost of the 3G service. It also didn’t support Flash. Sometimes, with no other means, it was impossible to catch sports clips on Sportscenter or play a game of Farmville while waiting in line. You could download Pandora to listen to music but couldn’t do a thing more since it didn’t allow for the ability to do multiple things at once.

It’s been a year since the iPad debut and now there is an iPad 2! In addition to all the available downloads and add-ons, the iPad 2 encompasses a built-in camera for applications like FaceTime and many other software improvements. It runs smoother, faster, is thinner with a longer battery life. I only get about 6 hours of good life on my iPad but the iPad 2 is closer to 9 hours! That’s a great life considering a long plane ride!

But let’s talk about the practical applications for the iPad and what it can do. iPads are amusing tools. They can offer you TONS of interactive media experience and also give you more games than you can imagine. The browser is called Safari, and with the help of your iTunes account, can integrate seamless with your laptop or desktop. The emails are easy to use and it’s simple to add/delete accounts. You can adjust your own security settings and everything works great.

Now, let’s look at two of the more commonly used office applications. There is an application for the iPad called Pages. This is very similar to Microsoft Word. Not quite the same but similar. I use this application on an almost daily basis and to be honest, it’s not too bad. But editing this thing is tough. The keyboard is virtual. Meaning, like the iPhone and many other smartphones now, this is on touch technology. Tough, tough, tough, for this old man to type fast. I think I can type faster on my blackberry with my thumbs than I can with this. Because I have fat fingers, it makes it even harder for me to even try and copy and paste or drag and drop or even edit documents. I just think of doing work on the iPad as… good luck!

Another popular application is called Numbers. This is the Microsoft Excel equivalent, and it’s tough, tough, tough, to play around with and even try to put in formulas. I can see what I want to see and it makes it easy to make nice cute graphs and charts, but for me to sit there and just hammer away formulas and input numbers? Not fun. There are a few ways to work around this though.

A popular addition that many have purchased with the iPAD is the Bluetooth keyboard. This makes it soooo much easier to type. If I know that I have a ton of work to do, and all I have is the iPad, I’ll bust out the keyboard and go for it. The big question is, what do you need one of these for? Work? Play? To look cool? If you want to have the cool factor in this, then the iPad is one alternative. Remember that there are a bunch of other tablets coming to market as we write this article. There are alternative operating systems driving this now, and the one in the lead is the Android operating system. Take a look at what feels comfortable in your hands, what you plan on doing with it, and most importantly, what your budget is.

Happy Surfing everyone! If you have suggestions on what you want me to cover for May, then shoot me an email and click away over there where it says submit email!