Laptop and tablets: the best two in ones

Hyderabad: Let’s face it, we applaud developments like phone-tablets or phablets, but in private we believe, a PC is still a PC, a phone is a phone  — and the twain shall not never meet.

And if we need to travel regularly, there is something to be said if your connected work companion weighs in, at well below  half a kilo. The virtual keyboards that we are forced to use when working with a tablet’s touch screen is not for those of us who need a tactile ‘kickback’ to know we have hit the right key.

Also, tablet makers see a small but lucrative line of business in  wrapping the bare-boned tablet with livery that  makes it look and feel like a laptop. This is mainly a keyboard, connected either through a hinge — or in the pricier models, wirelessly via Bluetooth. The keyboard usually  includes a touch pad that mimics a mouse.  Intel is one company that has been promoting what are being known as 2-in-1s, that is tablets with detachable keyboards.

When you want to work as you would with a laptop, you snap on the keyboard and click away productively — the  tablet will have provided an office suite, probably Windows 8.1.
And when it is playtime, you discard the keyboard and hold up the tablet, to view a movie, see some pictures or browse social media.

Among the more affordable tablet 2-in-1s are HP’s Slatebook X2 which runs on Android, fueled by an NVIDIA Tegra mobile chip, 2 GB of RAM and 64 GB on onboard storage. With two cameras and a 10-inch full HD screen... the X2 is among the most affordable double-duty tablets from a mainstream maker at a street price of Rs 25,000.

Also with a 10-inch screen, the ASUS Transformer Book T100 costs just a bit more at Rs 28,500, but comes with  a Windows 8.1 OS and is powered by a quad core Intel Atom processor. It has less storage at 32 GB and the same RAM as the HP Slatebook — 2 GB. It comes with a single 1.2 MP camera  — but for my money, it  has one huge advantage —  a USB 3.0  port, twice as fast as USB 2. Samsung has a product in this class — the ATIV Smart PC. This Windows 8.1 machine has a more powerful Intel Core i5 processor; the screen is among the largest for tablet 2-in-1s — 11.6 inch — and the storage is 128 GB, for an asking price of Rs 70,000.

Dell too has a whole family called the Venue 11 series,  with price ranging from
Rs 45,000 to Rs 65,000 but I would not class them as true 2-in-1s because the keyboard in these is  among a host of accessories that you have to order extra.
All these tablets are WiFi-enabled, but none of them have thought to include a 3G SIM for direct Net connectivity.  I’m guessing, they will be forced to add this feature, kicking and screaming, once the Chinese and Indian brands begin to compete in this category.

Finally, last week, Intel released a model of its own, targeting students — with a 10-inch screen, 2 cameras, 32 to 64 GB of storage and with WiFi, 3G connectivity. And yes, it is student proof — you can drop it from 70 cms without risk of damage! And if the price is anywhere near Rs 25,000, that is being whispered, I might go back to school just to qualify for one!