One Unnecessary (Tech) Thing that I Can’t Live Without
When talking about tech that we use every day, we often think of important things. Smartphones, computers, television, and even things like fridges and washing machines that are now considered as a technology. One similarity of the things mentioned above is all of them are important in some sense. There is no debate that everyone has to have a communication device and for some people, having a phone is essential to their life. In this article, I want to give my experience about using a tech (a crappy one) that I have to have even when it seems unnecessary.
Tablet PC. A few months after getting my first laptop, I saw a Tablet PC that would be the iPad. Suddenly, I became fascinated and dreamed of owning such things. A thing that could act as a computer, without a keyboard and mouse, and with a huge touchscreen screen. It was 2010; by then, the 9-year-old me still used a Candybar phone. A touchscreen felt like a distance away. I really want an iPad but don’t know if I will ever have one.
Fortunately, a year later, everyone started creating their own Tablet PCs. A touchscreen phone is also much more mainstream. My parents are also able to buy those things for me. At first, it was a crappy Chinese iPad knock-off, which ran Android 1.6 (Donut). I can’t do anything on that tablet except for simple web browsing. A few months later, my dad bought the iPad 1, and by mid-2011, I was gifted a Galaxy Tab P1000 as a present for completing 4th grade. Before the year’s end, we also bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, arguably the best Android tablet of that year. It’s a year full of Tablets in this house.
After using them though, I don’t really see the appeal of a tablet. Steve Jobs famously said that a tablet is only for surfing the internet on the toilet. I have computers (a desktop PC and a laptop (later, a light 11-inch MacBook Air)) and an Android phone. I used my tablet to play games and nothing else. Even though it was not a cheap tablet, it still lags and lacks the performance of a laptop. I felt that I couldn’t do something important using a tablet (By the way, it’s still my trait, that I can’t do something important without a computer. Even buying movie tickets must be done on a computer).
In 2014, I was gifted with an iPad Mini (the original one from 2012). Even though it was already 2 years old, I feel like it’s more capable than all of my Tablets previously. The ability to surf the web smoothly and not carry a huge screen was great. It’s still a gaming device, but I use it every day not just for gaming. It’s great for browsing Instagram, Twitter, previewing my photographs, surfing the web, and most importantly, reading eBooks.
That iPad Mini started to lag in 2016 and I was searching for a replacement. But I know that my parents will not give me one, because I am already old enough to understand how hard it is to make money. In early 2016, the screen broke because I was putting it in my backpack. By mid-2017, as a result of that broken screen, the touchscreen completely died. I ordered a cheap eBay screen and attempted to replace it, failed and broke the iPad entirely. I was left with no tablet.
Living without a tablet was hard. I saved up money every day to someday buy a tablet. Even when I have a light laptop, using the iPad every day and suddenly not having it, makes me miss it. I want to lay in my bed, surfing the web, and reading books, without a keyboard and mouse. Even when my phone is more capable than the old iPad, I still miss the much bigger screen of a tablet and being able to do things without it interfering with my “professionally” personal device.
In 2019, when my laptop broke, I opted for a Lenovo IdeaPad that has a touchscreen and can be flipped because I thought it could solve my longing for a tablet. As it turns out, it was a gimmick and did not solve the problem. Don’t get me wrong, a touchscreen laptop is good, but it’s not an iPad replacement. It’s still a heavy 14-inch laptop, with a keyboard and trackpad attached. It further pushed me to buy a tablet.
A month later, I honestly didn’t have enough money to buy the tablet that I wanted (the cheapest iPad) but came across a Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0 (2019) which was the cheapest Samsung tablet, costing under $200. For a few short days, I contemplated that decision. Whether I should settle for a cheaper tablet and if I should really buy a tablet at all. I decided to buy it for 2 reasons: First, I can still sell this tablet when I need to upgrade and Second, I recently got a Galaxy S9+, which was my most expensive phone, and felt like not using it that much because it is too precious for me.
My first impression after buying that tablet was it felt really cheap. It was my cheapest tablet (excluding the Chinese iPad knock-off) and after using more premium tablets, I noticed the downgrade. It was also very laggy. It only has 2GB of RAM and even back then, it started to lag when I played YouTube above 720p resolution. But, I don’t really mind it. I use it every day, even to the point that my phone battery will still be at 85% at the end of the day because it is fun to use a tablet.
While I still think that a tablet will not be as good as a computer and I agree that a tablet is just a thing to use on the couch and toilet, I feel like it’s one of my most important things. I am glad that with this cheap tablet, I can read books more frequently, I can surf the web more comfortably rather than on my phone, and it can be my guinea pig for testing random apps. Using a tablet, with its bigger screen also helps my eyes, even though my phone is just 2 inches smaller. Using a cheaper tablet also helps me to not be too careful with a device. I often throw it in my bed and managed to only crack it once, last year. That’s 3+ years of rough use.
Not having a tablet for 2 years and having it again made me realize that sometimes, it’s not about the most expensive or the most necessary. People often say, “We buy with our heart, not our brain”. There is no point in me having to have a tablet. Today’s smartphones are capable enough and not as tiny as it was in 2010, but I still take my tablet with a crappy screen for watching a YouTube video. And while a laptop is much more capable than this tablet (and arguably more capable than the most expensive iPad), there’s this sensation of surfing the web, reading articles in the bed, that cannot be beaten by a laptop. Do I need a tablet? No. I can probably still live without it. But, do I want to do that? The answer is still No.
5 years later, this cheap tablet has started to reach its end of life. It’s still fine and very usable for me, but the battery has degraded (initially can last for 2 days, now it’s barely lasted a full day) and the performance is very slow (surfing the web has been increasingly laggier and I don’t enjoy scrolling TikTok on it). Yet, I have this dilemma about replacing this tablet. It’s still good enough and like a washing machine, it probably won’t get replaced until it’s completely broken.
However, in a few years, I will ask the same question: Should I still buy a tablet at all?
