On 13 April, 2013, Joel and Kuro welcomed a sister into their lives. I finally got myself a tablet; the Asus Transformer TF300T in a lovely shade of blue. Here, have an image:
When I brought her home on Saturday, I had a bit of a panic when she wouldn’t charge. Took her back to the Fair on Sunday (that’s why I love going to PC fair on Saturdays; you have an extra day to return if you have to), and as it turns out, it was definitely a PEBKAC issue. The charger comes in two parts which can be disassembled for easy storage. I didn’t assemble them properly, and the salesguy helped me both assemble the charger AND charged my tablet.
I brought Tabitha home, a happy camper. 😀
So how was life been since she came into my life?
Well, as it turns out, Tabitha was much better for Ingress than my poor Kuro is (the boy is starting to show his age, the poor thing). She’s also great for me posting stuff on the go, particularly for Facebook (I’ve removed Facebook on the phone as it was taking up space and was far too distracting).
Because Tabitha came with a keyboard dock that doubled up as a battery, I’ve not had any real worries and issues about battery life. I use her mainly when I am out and about, either to take notes during meetings or to write when the ideas strike me. Springpad and Google Keep on her ensure that I can write notes quickly and efficiently. I use Springpad mainly to write longer ideas in a specific notebook that I don’t want to keep on Google Docs, and I use Keep when time is of the essence.
I also made the mistake of downloading this addictive card game from the Play Store called Valkyrie Crusade. There’s something about this game that has me playing it before and after work. I suspect it could be the “harvest your gold and randomly grind” aspect.
Right now she travels with me mainly to work and back. I don’t usually bring her out unless I’m testing something, or if I’m going to be in a meeting where I know I may need Internet access. Joel (my phone) is great at sharing his Internet connection with Tabitha even though he’s slow in booting up the same application, so I have switched most of the tasks I usually do to Tabitha instead.
The only exception is Waze, Foursquare and Keep. I use Keep when I want to write in the gym very quickly (usually these are my machine workout counts for Fitocracy) while Waze and Foursquare are rather obvious.
I do have a few complaints about Tabitha. However, I’m not sure whether this is an Android issue or if it’s a hardware issue (I’ve noticed similar behaviour on Joel, hence why I’m unsure).
Tabitha’s keyboard tends to take a few seconds to load. If I’m on the dock, I can’t quite type as fast as I do on the PC because there’s a very slight delay. On the tablet itself, I can use the swiping option to type, though it’s not as good as the Swype Beta I had on my phone a few months ago.
The keyboard dock also lags. A long time ago, someone once tried to teach me to use the Shift key to caps things; I instead always defaulted to the Capslock instead. Well, with the lagginess that Tabitha’s keyboard exhibits, I’ve finally decided to learn how to type with the Shift key instead. It got to a point that my fingers were actually confused when I went back to typing on the PC. I actually hesitated with my fingers over both the Capslock and the Shift key. Suddenly I was typing like THis because I’d hit both Capslock and the Shift key right after that.
That said, I really like having a tablet. It’s been quite an interesting experience. However, I’ve taken out my tablet in only very specific cases; I don’t dare walk around with my tablet in hand because I’m too afraid of getting robbed. >< For those who are considering getting the Asus Transformer TF300T, here are some things to note. - If you plan to connect to a lot of cloud services, make sure you get the version with 3G. This is usually called the TFT300TG (the G kinda stands for 3G, I think). Basically this means you just insert a SIM card and switch on the data. - If you have either an unlimited mobile plan that allows tethering, or you're going to be using the Internet only sparingly, then the Wifi model may be for you. - If you're not planning to use the Internet at all... why are you considering an Android tablet again? With that, sleep!