Best tablet with detachable keyboard?

Hey all,

So my sister wants to buy me a new tablet/laptop/whatever for Christmas. :slight_smile: I really just need the cheapest thing. This is going to be used almost 100% for nothing more than word processing. (All of the upgrades are going to the desktop because I need so much power for graphics, animation, content creation, etc etc… it just isn’t worth it to try to split it between two computers.)

But it DOES need to have a detachable keyboard. The reason is that the way a laptop is normally set up will eventually just kill your upper back and neck muscles. (I’m a massage therapist, so I know!) It’s impossible to keep the screen at the level it needs to be when the keyboard is stuck in only one configuration, and everyone ends up with a classic head forward position and lots of neck and back pain at some point. I just do not want to do that again. The screen needs to placed much higher than can be done on a standard laptop, and I don’t see any way to do that except a detachable keyboard.

And again, this thing really doesn’t need every feature… anything that will take a program like Open Office, or a plugin that allows docs to be saved in something like odt format…

And everyone here is so smart! I just KNOW that somebody has the answer. :slight_smile:

Moderator Action

Since “best” is more of an opinion thing, let’s move this over to IMHO. The factual aspects of the question (like which models have detachable keyboards) may still be answered there.

Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.

You buy keyboards on eBay ( or your local shop )which will do the trick.
Here is a sample
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-Logitech-920-004440-Bluetooth-Tablet-Keyboard-Lite-for-iPad-and-iPad-Mini-/310772281811?pt=US_Tablet_Docking_Stations_Keyboards&hash=item485b78b1d3&_uhb=1

Almost any tablet will support a Bluetooth keyboard, but tablets make terrible word processing machines in general because of control issues, screen size, and underpowered processors. I can almost guarantee you’d be happier with a cheap laptop (many of which are as cheap as tablets) for that particular task – and most of those will take a separate Bluetooth keyboard as well if you don’t like the form factor.

The best tablet for word processing is anything except a tablet. If you’re concerned about ergonomics, maybe you could get a touchscreen laptop/netbook/ultrabook/etc. that converts into a tablet. Something like this one, but I’m not recommending it specifically. Then you can have a decent keyboard, and not kill your wrist muscles (joints). And Android, and I imagine iOS, have okay Office clones, but MS Office or Open Office or derivatives are better.

Well, I don’t think I really clarified that I’m looking for the cheapest thing possible, so that’s my fault. :wink: But this just does not need to do almost anything but word processing. I could even live without net access for this, honestly. (When that winning-the-lottery plan works out, I’ll definitely get a Thinkpad…:stuck_out_tongue: )

Keyboards are really cheap, though. Without any real searching, I just found this one for under $10 on Amazon, but they can probably be found cheaper. You could plug that into the USB post on a cheap laptop and arrange it relative to the screen as you want. A wireless keyboard should be available for not much more; it does not have to be bluetooth. I am not sure there is any real advantage in it over a wired one, however, for what you want. If portability is an issue, you can get folding keyboards, or even flexible ones you can roll up, for $20 or less. (I suspect the flexible one may not be all that ergonomic, though.)

A netbook would probably give you more processing power for your buck than a tablet - plenty enough for wordprocessing, I should think. It should be a good bit cheaper than a full sized laptop, and will still have a USB port or two that you can plug an external keyboard into. The main downside of a netbook is its tiny keyboard and tiny screen, but if you plan to use a separate keyboard for any serious typing anyway, the first will not matter, and the screen will probably still be no smaller, probably a tad larger, than you would get on a tablet.

There isn’t one, yet. We just got through researching this for Clothagirl’s Xmas present. Wound up getting her a laptop instead. Maybe in the next couple of years, the technology will improve, but it ain’t there now.

Although keep in mind that a tablet may not have a USB A connector, often something else like Micro USB or a proprietary format. Nevertheless, converters are available on Monoprice or Amazon for cheap.

Bluetooth will drain batteries faster to some extent, even if a device is not paired. I agree that a wired keyboard is not necessarily worse and may even be preferable (it’s not a PS3 controller, you can only get so far from a tablet/laptop), but it’s all up to personal preference and how you want to use it

Not the cheapest solution, but I think an excellent solution, would be an iPad paired with a bluetooth keyboard. New iOS devices include the iWork suite for free. iWork doesn’t have the thousands of never-used features of Office, but it is pretty good for all basic tasks. It also now keeps copies of everything on the cloud, and all the documents are editable using iWork for iCloud on any browser (so no need to sync documents manually between devices). Kind of a hybrid between local storage and Google Drive (nee Google Docs).

Pages, the iWork word processor, exports to PDF, MSWord, and ePub formats.

With the new ones just released, you may be able to get a used/refurb one for a decent price right now, though you’ll then have to spend about $10 for Pages or some other text editor/word processor on the App Store.

I’ve traveled with an iPad/Bluetooth keyboard to use for blogging (using the Wordpress app). It’s a nice combo.

If the primary purpose is word processing, then I agree that a notebook system would be better than a tablet PC. I’m looking at the Best Buy website. The cheapest notebook systems are under $300 (including a Lenovo IdeaPad system for $280). There’s an Acer Chromebook for $200, which I think requires full-time access to wireless internet.