Let me explain my new job first. What I do is analyze images and enter data. It can be 100-300 images an hour. Accuracy and speed is important, as with many jobs. I now work from home and make my own hours. However I don't want to stay indoors or at home all the time, or I'll become a hermit. I already feel myself getting lazy because I no longer have to bike to work. (I have a car, but I rarely use it to commute) I was looking for either a large tablet or a laptop. They are both similar in price $500-550 with tradeoffs on specs. I plan to bike around town and find quiet spots to work. I will be tethered to my phone or using wifi if available. The Samsung 12" tablet has a 2560 x 1600 res screen, where as a 15" laptop of similar price has 1920 x 1080. I tried to use my Nexus 7, but the size is not good for what I do and I don't want to zoom images in often, which can waste time. I think the higher res and DPI screen of the tablet will benefit me for the work that I do. I see refurbished Galaxy Tab 12.2" tablets for $450, which make it even more appealing than a laptop. Also I will be using a physical keyboard, but a tablet + keyboard is still lighter than a laptop. Thoughts? I understand that there is a lot of hate for Samsungs bloatware, but at the moment, there are not many other 12" options.
The problem with tablets is there will always be bloatware. Even my ASUS TF701T with the same resolution at 10.1" has bloatware. But I uninstalled most of it, and kept it from running with AVG's Task Killer. I think a Tablet would be best for what you do. A single swipe of a finger can move on to the next image depending on the program you need to use to analyze those images. For this situation I'd go with the Tablet.
On the Nexus 7, I am able to disable any factory app. All my apps take up 3.71GB on a 32GB tablet and I have 27.5GB free at the moment. I think the bloatware would only be a problem on something that is under 8GB, which those days are over. The other option was a touchscreen laptop. I have no idea if those screens are as smooth as a tablet, but it is still limited by the very small 1366x768 resolution.
I think I'm going to back out on the 12" tablet...I feel like it's too early to jump on a big tablet. Maybe when there are more options, or if Google makes one because it will be a reasonable price. I found a new line of fanless 11.6" Acer laptops for $250 that uses an Intel Celeron chip that can go up to 2.4Ghz. Will put in 4GB RAM and a 120GB SSD. The cost for all that will be under $380, and it weighs about 3 lbs. I think that is the better deal, and I'll just live with the smaller resolution.
well there is the surface pro 3, there is no compromise in resolution, size or OS, but the price may keep you away
The 4 hour battery life on the Surface Pro kinda keeps it from being useful outside the house. The 12" samsung tablet has an attractive 13hr battery. I'll most likely be using the entire 5 hour battery on the laptop I'm getting, and hopefully the SSD and low voltage ram I install will extend the runtime a bit.
I'm unsure of the 13 hr claim, it will be like, near minimal screen brightness (not usable outside) and not really doing anything. I know when watching videos on my tablet it will be dead in about 7 or so hours at a reasonable brightness.