Question for Expert. Can one get a Tablet that...?

Author	All Replies
Kruisey join:2006-12-30 Vancouver, BC	Question for Expert. Can one get a Tablet that...? One can also use wired ? Was looking at Microsofts 'Surface' with its key board . Wondered if we will ever have a dual model wireless plus wired? This could then replace ones laptop.They are so light and handy to travel around with. With the 'Tablets at the moment they are Wi Fi plus data which would belong to the Mobility section of Telus only . Do you think for private use the smart phones and Tablets will replace the laptops ? The use of the desktops and laps will only be used for business purposes?
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-02 12:21:16 ·
Guspaz Guspaz Premium,MVM join:2001-11-05 Montreal, QC kudos:20	It's unlikely that you'll ever find wired Ethernet on a Surface tablet; due to the prevalence of wifi, many laptop don't have Ethernet either, since there's not much need for it anymore. You can use a USB Ethernet adapter with a Surface Pro tablet, but a more practical solution may be a portable access point. These are designed to connect to ethernet in hotels, which is one of the few places you still find wired ethernet on the road. -- Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-02 16:41:42 ·
jarrycanada join:2004-12-02	reply to Kruisey you sure can, it's called a netbook. LOL
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-02 17:13:09 ·

arahman56 join:2011-08-11 Etobicoke, ON Reviews: ·Rogers Hi-Speed	reply to Guspaz said by Guspaz: It's unlikely that you'll ever find wired Ethernet on a Surface tablet; due to the prevalence of wifi, many laptop don't have Ethernet either, since there's not much need for it anymore. Not much need, huh? Wired is, and will be, faster than Wireless, always. Plus, no issues of interference.
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-02 19:39:04 ·
rednekcowboy join:2012-03-21 Reviews: ·ELECTRONICBOX	said by arahman56: said by Guspaz: It's unlikely that you'll ever find wired Ethernet on a Surface tablet; due to the prevalence of wifi, many laptop don't have Ethernet either, since there's not much need for it anymore. Not much need, huh? Wired is, and will be, faster than Wireless, always. Plus, no issues of interference. The argument was that people use tablets for portability. Going hard-wired is not, what's the word I'm looking for, in-line (not what I was looking for, but having a brain-fart moment) for the intended purpose of a tablet. Personally, tablets aren't impressive enough for me to ever want to give up my laptop. I can see the convenience of them, but if I need something on the go like that, I have my cell. For all other tasks that I need, my laptop is the only way to go for me and even at that, I feel limited by only being able to use one screen when I'm not at my desk/out and about.
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-02 19:42:40 ·
Kruisey join:2006-12-30 Vancouver, BC	reply to arahman56 I agree with you wired is much faster with no interference. Also if one is not in a wifi zone one has to pay for data which can be more expensive. In the home I feel its better to use wire which can also give one better security. Thank you all for your replies always a learning experience for me
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-02 23:04:10 ·
dutox101 join:2010-01-02	reply to Kruisey And wired is more secure...
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-03 03:11:57 ·
Guspaz Guspaz Premium,MVM join:2001-11-05 Montreal, QC kudos:20	reply to arahman56 said by arahman56: Not much need, huh? Wired is, and will be, faster than Wireless, always. Plus, no issues of interference. Nobody around here has an internet connection faster than a modern wifi connection, nor is there any content that requires higher bitrates than you can get out of a wifi connection. The only thing that might require higher bandwidth is transferring files around, which is not something you tend to do often on a tablet. -- Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-03 09:12:30 ·
Teddy Boom k kudos Received join:2007-01-29 Toronto, ON kudos:5	reply to Guspaz said by Guspaz: many laptop don't have Ethernet either, since there's not much need for it anymore. I've noticed, it is depressing. Wireless is fine for checking email and browsing web pages. When you want to stream high definition video or play games, wireless sucks! -- electronicsguru.ca
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-03 09:24:09 ·
Teddy Boom k kudos Received join:2007-01-29 Toronto, ON kudos:5	reply to Guspaz said by Guspaz: Nobody around here has an internet connection faster than a modern wifi connection, nor is there any content that requires higher bitrates than you can get out of a wifi connection. What kind of place do you live in Guspaz? People who live in old construction apartment buildings have no hope of anything but SD video and browsing on 2.4GHz wireless. Same for people in "student ghettos". -- electronicsguru.ca
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-03 09:31:08 ·
sbrook Premium,Mod join:2001-12-14 Ottawa kudos:4 Reviews: ·TekSavvy Cable	reply to Kruisey The tablet is great for LOOKING at things, it's useless (without a real keyboard and mouse) for typing things or cutting and pasting. My laptop is HEAVY ... so with some airlines becoming fussy even about carry on weights, I have opted for a tablet for travel. I have turned off all "Syncing" of any and everything on my tablet. That's a nuisance when you have a main system. My tablet is WiFi, not cellular data enabled, so, it's like a superlight notebook. There might be an App for that ... but there are a lot of things I do on a computer that there isn't an app for ... The tablet is also handy in that it's easy to clean up caches and browsing history etc. I treat it kind of like a blank slate. Clean when I travel and cleaned up after I return home ready for the next trip. For technical travel where I'm out on a contract etc, then a tablet is NOT where it's at! For that I need my laptop. Sometimes, under those circumstances, I even take a 2nd screen for my lappy!
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-03 09:56:11 ·
arahman56 join:2011-08-11 Etobicoke, ON	reply to rednekcowboy I'm talking about laptops. Unless tablets get thicker, I don't foresee any coming with ethernet support- unless, again, there's a mini-ethernet.
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-03 11:15:07 ·
yyzlhr join:2012-09-03 Scarborough, ON kudos:1	reply to Kruisey The Surface has a USB port. You could THEORETICALLY get a USB Ethernet dongle if the manufacturer releases drivers for Windows for ARM processors. I think this would definitely work on the Surface Pro though.
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-03 12:09:30 ·
Kruisey join:2006-12-30 Vancouver, BC	What I like about the 'Surface' is it is so light but has a separate keyboard which other tablets don't have. Did enquire whether one could use Ethernet and the answer was no. Also they didnot mention that the Surface Pro could manage that. Why don't they have a knowledgeable sales clerk amongst strictly sales clerks.
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-03 12:21:58 ·
rosenqui Premium join:2004-05-28 Kanata, ON	I believe some Android tablets work with USB Ethernet adapters, but you'd have to do some Googling to find out which ones have been proven to work. Android 4 has support built in, so as long as the OEM hasn't removed it, the chances are decent that it would work on most Android 4 tablets with USB ports. If you like the idea of the keyboard on the MS Surface, have a look at the ASUS Transformer family of tablets - people are reporting success with USB Ethernet adapters on those, and they have an optional keyboard that also acts as an extra battery.
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-03 12:30:08 ·
yyzlhr join:2012-09-03 Scarborough, ON kudos:1 Reviews: ·Rogers Hi-Speed	reply to Kruisey said by Kruisey: What I like about the 'Surface' is it is so light but has a separate keyboard which other tablets don't have. Did enquire whether one could use Ethernet and the answer was no. Also they didnot mention that the Surface Pro could manage that. Why don't they have a knowledgeable sales clerk amongst strictly sales clerks. The surface pro has not been announced for Canada, and there are no manufacturers of USB ethernet dongles that have drivers for Windows for ARM processors.
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-03 13:45:04 ·
Guspaz Guspaz Premium,MVM join:2001-11-05 Montreal, QC kudos:20	reply to Teddy Boom said by Teddy Boom: said by Guspaz: Nobody around here has an internet connection faster than a modern wifi connection, nor is there any content that requires higher bitrates than you can get out of a wifi connection. What kind of place do you live in Guspaz? People who live in old construction apartment buildings have no hope of anything but SD video and browsing on 2.4GHz wireless. Same for people in "student ghettos". Then don't use 2.4 GHz wireless? Most 802.11n devices sold today support 5 GHz. There are exceptions, of course, and there are some slightly older products that don't. My iPhone 4S does not, for example, but this is increasingly rare. And all of these new tablets DO support 5 GHz. I know that in my apartment 2.4 GHz is saturated enough to cause issues. Nintendo DS/3DS multiplayer gaming is impossible (any game will lag/time out during play because of the 2.4 GHz saturation). This occasionally causes issues for things like Netflix (on devices that only support 802.11g, anyhow). But on 5 GHz, there is so much more spectrum available, it's just not a problem. I use a three-tiered approach to the problem. For fixed devices that do support ethernet (PS3, 360, PC), I have my apartment wired with ethernet (I run ethernet cabling around the perimeter of the apartment). Then I have a dual-radio access point, which gives me both 2.4 GHz 802.11n and 5GHz 802.11n. Older devices that only support 802.11g use the backwards compatible mode. Middle devices that support 802.11n only on 2.4 GHz use that (and tend to have much less problems because even when saturated, more bandwidth is available). And newer devices use 5 GHz. If you're talking about a Microsoft Surface tablet, they support 5 GHz, so there are basically no problems. -- Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-03 14:13:19 ·
Gone Premium join:2011-01-24 Fort Erie, ON kudos:3 Reviews: ·Start Communicat..	said by Guspaz: Most 802.11n devices sold today support 5 GHz. There are exceptions, of course, and there are some slightly older products that don't. My iPhone 4S does not, for example, but this is increasingly rare. And all of these new tablets DO support 5 GHz. You're way off base there. Most off-the-shelf 802.11n hardware still doesn't support 5GHz. Same with most Windows-based mobile computers, as I haven't encountered a single off-the-shelfer that had anything more than the cheapest piece of shit 1x1 2.4GHz 802.11n card with no out of the box 5GHz support in the last six months, and I've had multiple Dell, Lenovo and Acer machines that I've had to deal with. In the case of the Dell and Acer machines I always swap them out for an Intel adapter. Lenovo machines are more complicated as they bios lock by PCI-ID, but it's not anything I couldn't get around if I didn't want to. So odd too, because practically any Dell system sold before the 2010s that had 802.11n came with a dual band card. Now, having said that, getting dual band 802.11n equipment isn't hard to do, nor is the price premium high enough to hold people back, but the vast majority of the stuff out there is still single band 2.4GHz 802.11n. Swapping a single band mPCI-E card is either stupidly easy or a royal pain in the ass depending on the specific model of machine and/or the manufacturer. You're not going to see dual band become the de-facto standard until 802.11ac is everywhere for no reason other than 802.11ac runs in 5GHz alone with the 2.4GHz layer just for G/N fallback. I will say this though - once you go 5GHz 802.11n with 40MHz channels running in Greenfield mode and have no issues streaming 1080p media across a wireless link, you'll never go back to anything else and wonder how you ever lived without it.
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-03 22:42:24 ·
Guspaz Guspaz Premium,MVM join:2001-11-05 Montreal, QC kudos:20	reply to Kruisey Out of curiosity, I looked up a few new devices that came to mind Supports 802.11n over 5GHz Wii U: Yes (gamepad only) iPhone 5: Yes iPad 4: Yes Nexus 7: No Nexus 10:Yes Galaxy Nexus: Yes Nexus 4: Yes Surface RT: Yes Surface Pro: Yes Transformer Prime: Yes Macbook (all): Yes Zenbook Prime: Yes iPad mini: Yes PS Vita: No I could keep trying to think of recent devices, but the answer seems to be that the vast majority of recent devices have 5 GHz support. -- Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-04 00:05:41 ·
Gone Premium join:2011-01-24 Fort Erie, ON kudos:3 Reviews: ·Start Communicat..	There's more to Wifi than phones and tablets, Guspaz, not to mention the fact that the list you did provide is a mere fraction of the products in use right now and not everyone throws away a phone every six months to buy another. All of this talk of 5GHz is completely useless if the router bought from Future Shop is single band, too. No one is denying that it is getting far more popular and is the default standard with 802.11ac, but it's not quite there yet. Furthermore, for every Mac sold with dual band wifi, there are hundreds of Windows PCs sold that are single band. It's easy for one's perspective to become skewed when they're on the bleeding edge, but come on now. Vast majority? Not even close. You also forgot the Galaxy S3 from your list of 5GHz devices, and even the Bold 9000 had 5GHz support - albeit, in the form of 802.11A.
	to forum · permalink · 2012-12-04 00:50:41 ·

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