Can You Use a Tablet Instead of a Laptop in 2017

Tablets have come a long way since Apple intro­duced the iPad in 2010. Before then, esti­ma­tors in the field all had to use a hybrid tablet which were basi­cal­ly a full com­put­er that allowed you to write on the screen with a tablet pen. (exam­ple: Motion Com­put­ing or Toshibas). When the iPad and Android tablets hit the mar­ket, it forced users to get used to built-in apps only. This was a real chal­lenge if you were try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate with your MS office servers or cloud pro­grams like Google Apps, or even to save files to cloud ser­vices like Dropbox. So the ques­tion I’ll answer in this post is, as of August 2017, can a small busi­ness own­er or your field employ­ees get away with using a tablet, like an Apple iPad or a Sam­sung Galaxy. as their main com­mu­ni­ca­tion device? In most cas­es, I would say that the tablet can become the pri­ma­ry device for your com­pa­ny. In recent months, the iPad has real­ly been a stand­alone device to do things like: email, tex­ting, com­mu­ni­cat­ing, draft­ing pro­pos­als, esti­mates, tak­ing pho­tos, stor­ing and even sav­ing files. The biggest draw­back in years past was the sav­ing and stor­ing of files. You could use ser­vices such as Drop­box and Google Dri­ve for sav­ing and stor­ing, but it was a lit­tle clunky. It is now much eas­i­er to work with emails and attach­ments using a stor­age sys­tem. When the newest iOS arrives in Sep­tem­ber for the iPhone and iPad (11), it will be even more impres­sive: file sav­ing and shar­ing will be a cinch. How­ev­er, lap­tops or desk­tops are cru­cial for cer­tain tasks such as com­plex spread­sheets, esti­mat­ing, account­ing, draft­ing, graph­ic design and so forth, so keep­ing those com­put­ers on hand is a good idea. Some of those func­tions can be a bit chal­leng­ing on a tablet. Spread­sheets on Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets on the tablets are not as easy as using a desk­top com­put­er. Yet the func­tions as I write this blog make MOST basic and mod­er­ate for­mu­la spread­sheets work­able on the tablet. If your spread­sheet is heavy with for­mu­las and plu­g­ins, you will still need a stand­alone com­put­er. I’m curi­ous to hear how you all are using tablets in the field. What func­tions do you like and what are you miss­ing? How are you using desktop/​laptops to accom­plish what you can­not on a tablet?