HP Slate

It’s been almost a year now that I’ve been using this mobile device for a good deal of my first draft writings. I’ve drafted essays, memoirs, short stories, articles and pieces of fluff. I had been very good about utilizing the kindle that I had bought myself a year before buying this devise. I had advanced with my kindle to the point where I thought it was time for another step forward. I had been using a purchased notepad application for the kindle too take care of scheduling and small notes. These were the majority of the tasks that I had been using my franklin covey day runner to perform. Since I was using my black and white kindle for more than just reading, I thought it was a good time to make the jump to the ‘next big thing’. For me, it meant a tablet.

Having been around computers for a couple of decades now, I had a good grasp of what my needs were when it came to assessing what capabilities I needed in a tablet. But being new to the whole mobile device subset of computing, there was a spectrum of things that I still need to be educated on, such as 3g/4g wireless infrastructure, Wi-Fi, and hotspots. There was also a whole new software side of things between iPads and androids and apps, another small universe of information to absorb. However, I still went out to take a look at this whole new frontier of devices.

The last time I regularly used an Apple devise, it was a Macintosh. Yes, THE Macintosh, which hit the stores right after the Lisa. It was the machine I used at school. But since those early days, I have since moved squarely into the Microsoft universe of operating systems. But now, I felt strong enough about my ability to learn new tricks, since I mastered my kindle so nimbly, that the prospect of learning a new operating system, such as android, was not that daunting. As I started looking at the new mobile devises I was able to focus on costs and benefits.

Being a naturally thrifty person I do not like to spend lots more money on incremental gains in either ram or ROM. I looked at a bunch of different devises, the Apple iPad, the Microsoft surface, the Samsung Galaxy, the Google tablet, as well as the kindle fire and the enhanced nook from Barnes and Noble. Eventually I worked my way down in price from the five hundred dollar devices, to the three hundred dollar devices, and I was now kicking the tires on devices under two hundred dollars and well within my budget. Which is the right price point for the items on my needs list. It needed to be portable and small. I would not want a device too much larger than the kindle I was accustomed to slipping into a jacket pocket. I need to be able to quickly get up and writing with it. I do not need the latest and greatest in video or game capabilities. But good audio is a priority for me.

So, the device that had the right specs for the right price was the HP slate android tablet with beats audio. Since it was a new entry into the tablet devices, the HP device was twenty dollars less than a comparative kindle fire and Samsung Galaxy. So, I’ve been using the HP Slate for about a year. And my writing has indeed advanced. I find myself reading more, and writing more. So, at least as far as this gadget goes, it has certainly been a benefit. I’ve been quite happy with it. Now, I’m hoping to do more with mobile blogging… gotta keep learning new tricks eh?