Back in April 2013 I ordered an Android 4.1 Proline Smart AK888-13 9.7″ Dual-Core Tablet from Loot.co.za. Of course, when it arrived I was very excited and played around with it, showed it off, and generally beamed with pleasure.

In the nearly two years since then, Android has gotten much, much better, hardware specs have greatly improved, and you know what – I seriously doubt that I’ll bother replacing my tablet.

As it turns out, owning a tablet seems rather… well… pointless.

Man using tablet computer at station

Here’s the problems I sit with:

  1. The 10 inch tablet is relatively large, meaning it is not something that is going to go everywhere with you – unlike your phone which you pretty much sleep with.
  2. It’s not really useful for work without a physical keyboard, as onscreen keyboards are relatively slow and painful to type long strings out on. If I add a physical keyboard to it, then I’ll probably be sitting down at a table – which in that case I would much rather be using my far more versatile Windows 7 Fujitsu laptop for the job.
  3. With most major websites now catering for small screen mobile displays, web browsing on my phone is pretty pleasurable – and the phone fits much nicer in my hand than the tablet (plus it’s always on me). So again, why would I bother fetching the tablet to browse the web?
  4. My Android phone is as powerful as my Android tablet, so I tend to play mobile games on my phone if I don’t want to switch the XBOX 360 on. And if I do want to sit down for a proper gaming session – well, then I’ll go and turn the XBOX 360 on.
  5. For watching media, the phone works better because it is smaller, lighter to hold, and if you are watching something up that close, well then screen size tends not to matter all that much anyway!

So that’s five reasons as to why my tablet has pretty much sat next to my bed gathering dust for the last two years. Jess will probably get to play on it pretty soon, and if it breaks – well let’s just say I see no real need to replace it.

In fact, there is only one thing thus far that I have found the tablet to be absolutely awesome for: reading comic books using Komik Reader before going to bed. The screen size more or less matches that of a physical comic book, meaning the two just go hand in hand! (Of course, this is completely negated if I switch to the Comixology app with it’s guided view technology that works perfectly fine on a phone’s small screen.)

The problem is though, if I had a real paper comic book, I’d much rather pick up and read that!

So for me a tablet turns out to be a not such needed device after all, which begs the question – do you still make use of your tablet then?