A new era of Tablet PCs has come! These portable computers are the perfect tool for business, fun and especially for learning. If you’re trying to decide on the right student tablet for you, this article should help you decide.

Why choose a student tablet instead of a PC?

Maybe you’re still not sure about why you would need a tablet PC? Let’s think about some of the benefits of using a tablet instead of the old-fashioned desktop or laptop. Although the laptop is portable to an extent, it’s still nowhere near as portable and easy to carry as a tablet PC.

When you have a tablet, you can easily get it out during lectures without disturbing everyone around you, and you can make notes direct on the screen with a stylus, in your own handwriting. Once you get home, you can convert those notes to digital text, which means they can be indexed and searched from the device. Go back at any date and search on particular terms – much easier than leafing through endless notepages!

Apart from this, you can use your tablet to look up information or sources very quickly – much more quickly than waiting for a PC or laptop to boot up. You can prepare presentations on your tablet and run them directly from the device. You can also use your tablet as a book reader – and it’s much easier to carry one tablet with a multitude of books, than to carry five or six different textbooks around!

Which Tablet Should You Choose for College?

Your best bet will probably be a slate tablet (that’s a flat one, such as the iPad or Galaxy Tab) so that it is as discreet as possible in class. You can lay it on your desk or your lap when you’re not using it. When you are using it, it won’t be disruptive, and you can set the tablet to be completely silent in use – no more clicking key noises!

That aside, it’s a question of what specs are important to you. If you’re already used to a certain operating system on your smartphone (for example, Android or Apple iOS), you might want to stay with what you know for your tablet – that way it will be a quicker learning curve. The iPad may be beyond your pocket however, but there are many lower-priced options available.

Android operating system has a great range of tablets, some costing under $200. They might not be as powerful as their more expensive rivals, but they can certainly do a great job of taking notes, connecting to the net and using email.

Thinking of using your tablet for movies and music? Make sure you get the biggest storage size you can afford (tablet PCs commonly come in 16gb, 32gb and 64gb options) and look for a tablet with an additonal Micro SD or USB slot for extra capacity. Also remember to check the relevant app store to make sure the apps you require will run on that tablet.

Do You Currently Own A Desktop or Laptop?

Student tablet computers weren’t originally designed as standalone systems – they were aimed at people looking for a secondary, more portable device. However, the gap is rapidly narrowing between tablets and traditional computers.  The Asus Eee Pad, for example, has a unique Transformer keyboard dock which transforms the tablet into a netbook computer. So you can use it as a tablet when that suits (e.g. in class) but make it more like a standard laptop when that is more desirable – for example, when you’re at your desk writing essays.  The great news is that most tablets have optional keyboard and/or mouse docks, so with this functionality, there is no need to have both a tablet and a laptop – you can sell your old laptop or desktop to raise a little extra cash!

Selecting the right student tablet isn’t really that difficult  – you just need to do a little investigaton and comparison before you buy. You don’t need to blow a huge wad of cash to start seeing the benefits of using a tablet at college!

Filed under: Student Tablets

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