Should my tablet match my phone or my laptop ecosystem?
April 10, 2013 7:18 AM   Subscribe

I am getting a Tablet for work, either a Nexus 10 or an iPad. I'm pretty well versed on the features and drawbacks for both, and I feel like if my other devices were either all Apple or all Google/Windows I'd make the choice based on matching my current device operating system ecosystem. BUT right now, each device I use has a different OS, so is there a better device to match my tablet operating system with?

An android phone will be my next smartphone. I used to have an old iPhone 3G and liked iOS, but decided not to stay with iPhones because money.

I still have an old MacBook as a home computer, and I am pretty committed to OSX operating system for that purpose.

Also, at work I will be using windows, naturally.

The work I'm doing on the tablet will almost entirely be reading and annotating PDFs and Google Docs. Although I like holding the nexus better, it sounds like people prefer the PDF apps for the iPad better.

Since most other feature comparisons are similarly a wash, I wonder if there is any benefit of having both my mobile devices in the same ecosystem? Or is there a benefit from having my tablet be in the same ecosystem as my laptop? Or does it even matter?
posted by midmarch snowman to Computers & Internet (5 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
My experience is that tablet matching phone is probably your best option--not least because if they're not, you've just committed to buying all your favorite apps twice. If you can get the Nexus 10 and a Nexus 4, I'd totally jump for that.

Also, as a data point, I read lots of PDFs on my Nexus (using the default Adobe PDF handler and Moon+ Reader Pro) and don't have any complaints.
posted by MeghanC at 7:38 AM on April 10, 2013


Personally, I think there's much more value in having multiple mobile devices in the same ecosystem, without worrying about your desktop OS. At least this way, you only have to buy an app once and can use it on multiple devices. No matter which way you go, you still can't use those apps on your laptop, so that shouldn't even be a factor in your decision.

Also, you say you'll be using google docs a lot - which certainly should sway you toward Android as well. Although there may currently be feature parity between Android and iOS in the Google Drive/Docs apps, Android will most certainly get upgraded features first in the future.

I'm not as familiar with PDF apps, but there are so many choices (and more coming out all the time) that you are bound to find one you can work with effectively on either platform.
posted by trivia genius at 7:38 AM on April 10, 2013


I use GoodReader on my iPad and it's incredible. Not available on Android though.

I have an Android mobile phone and an iPad and don't really have any problems that I'm aware of. I tend to stick to free apps for the most part though.
posted by leopard at 8:29 AM on April 10, 2013


If your data and email are the Google ecosystem, your best bet is to buy the Google tablet.

I've played with Nexus and Amazon Fire tablets and found them wanting with respect to performance with PDFs, but I read a lot of scientific journal articles that can contain complex figures. Text generally renders okay. Figures, not so much. Just my experience. If there's a new Nexus tablet coming in the next few months with better performance, and you read complex PDFs, you might want to wait for that.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:45 AM on April 10, 2013


Buy the device that does what you need it to do. Having a device that doesn't do its job the way you want it to is worse than having a device that doesn't play as friendly with your other devices.
posted by gjc at 4:05 PM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]


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