# College student trying to find a good tablet to buy
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [October 29, 2012, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183 "2012-10-29T03:05:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Atman8r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atman8r)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2012, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/1 "2012-10-29T03:05:04Z")
Hi,
I’ve just started college and I want to buy a tablet that’s good for taking notes amd what not but under 300$. Help?
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### Author:  [@Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stark_Raven_Mad)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/2 "2012-10-29T19:01:08Z")
Recent college grad here - don’t bother. Spend the money on a cheap laptop and grab OpenOffice or Evernote or something. You simply can’t type as fast on a tablet as you can on a keyboard, and while there are some pretty great notetaking apps for various OSes, it can’t beat simplicity of a word processor, which itself is often outclassed by simple pen and paper, especially if you need to do diagrams or illustrations.
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### Author:  [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2012, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/3 "2012-10-29T19:26:42Z")
Further suggestion: You will find that with many lecturers, especially in the less arty-farty subjects, there’s very little point in actually making your own notes at all really, except for trivia. You can get the info from books.
And in a lot of cases, which you will get a feel for, it is probably a better idea to lie in bed than to go to the lectures.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2012, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/4 "2012-10-29T19:41:54Z")
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#):
>
> Further suggestion: You will find that with many lecturers, especially in the less arty-farty subjects, there’s very little point in actually making your own notes at all really, except for trivia. You can get the info from books.
I tried this. I wanted to learn chemical engineering. So I signed up for a course on the subject but then I decided to save time by reading _The Lord of the Rings_ trilogy instead. Surprisingly, I failed the final. Apparently, the lectures in the course were more relevant to the content of the course than I had anticipated.
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#):
>
> And in a lot of cases, which you will get a feel for, it is probably a better idea to lie in bed than to go to the lectures.
Or just go directly to being a failure in life. No sense wasting money on tuition if all you want to do is take a nap.
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### Author:  [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2012, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/5 "2012-10-29T19:45:18Z")
I strongly recommend a laptop but a lot of professors ban them in class these days, so be careful!
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### Author:  [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2012, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/6 "2012-10-29T19:48:37Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> I tried this. I wanted to learn chemical engineering. So I signed up for a course on the subject but then I decided to save time by reading _The Lord of the Rings_ trilogy instead. Surprisingly, I failed the final. Apparently, the lectures in the course were more relevant to the content of the course than I had anticipated.
> Or just go directly to being a failure in life. No sense wasting money on tuition if all you want to do is take a nap.
It\* worked fine for me, horses for courses I guess.
\*where it = what I said, rather than how you characterised it
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### Author:  [@Atman8r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atman8r)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2012, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/7 "2012-10-29T21:39:11Z")
Yea I already have a laptop. Want something different with apps for downtime because I have hours at a time where I have no classes but my friends all do. Also want to be productive a little bit.
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### Author:  [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2012, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/8 "2012-10-29T21:46:35Z")
> [@Atman8r](#):
>
> Hi,
> I’ve just started college and I want to buy a tablet that’s good for taking notes amd what not but under 300$. Help?
One word: refurbished.
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### Author:  [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2012, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/9 "2012-10-29T22:35:36Z")
Get an iPad mini. The others are all still essentially knockoffs, with orders of magnitude less software available.
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### Author:  [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2012, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/10 "2012-10-29T23:07:03Z")
> [@Absolute](#):
>
> Get an iPad mini. The others are all still essentially knockoffs, with orders of magnitude less software available.
That’s just silly, and the iPad mini is over budget.
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### Author:  [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2012, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/11 "2012-10-29T23:19:35Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#):
>
> That’s just silly, and the iPad mini is over budget.
It’s not silly at all. My advice is to spend $30 over budget and get the most popular brand of tablet, rather than a cheaper clone. There simply aren’t nearly as many apps for non-Apple tablets. The OP says he wants “apps for downtime”. There are, literally, orders of magnitude more “apps for downtime” available on the iPad than on other tablets.
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### Author:  [@Atman8r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atman8r)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/12 "2012-10-29T23:23:43Z")
Yea but I’m not an apple fanboy. I refuse to spend more for a downgraded monopolized product, thanks
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### Author:  [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2012, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/13 "2012-10-29T23:57:03Z")
And we’re off!!!
Glad it didn’t take until page 2 for this to become an Apple vs Other thread!
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2012, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/14 "2012-10-30T00:34:17Z")
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#):
>
> It\* worked fine for me, horses for courses I guess.
Wasn’t your major accomplishment in 2012 staying out of prison?
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### Author:  [@NadineBeyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NadineBeyer)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/15 "2012-12-03T14:00:30Z")
There are a a lot of cheap tablets right now on the market, but I’d suggest you invest on a Nexus 7 because it offers the best performance and experience you can get for those money. I wouldn’t buy an Ipad because of the OS restrictions Apple puts on it’s devices.
Here’s an article that I found, there seems to be an android tablet which will go on the market for around $50 [http://www.mawista.com/blog/en/top-cheapest-tablets-for-students/](http://www.mawista.com/blog/en/top-cheapest-tablets-for-students/)
Unbelievable! Can you just imagine where are we going to be in the next 4-5 years?
I got my N7 32gb at Black Friday sale very cheap.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2012, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/16 "2012-12-03T14:15:16Z")
Since this thread is over a month old, the OP may well have made a purchase by now, in which case I’d be curious to learn what he decided on and how it’s working out.
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### Author:  [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2012, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/17 "2012-12-03T15:10:31Z")
For taking notes, I’d go with this [tablet](http://www.amazon.com/Mead-Writing-Tablet-Inches-70104/dp/B001AW0192/ref=sr_1_17?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1354546937&sr=1-17&keywords=paper+tablet), it’s well within your budget even when you get the [accessories](http://www.amazon.com/BIC-Mechanical-Colorful-Barrels-Pencils/dp/B0007L1VLO/ref=sr_1_3?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1354547036&sr=1-3&keywords=pencils).
While I’m being somewhat facetious, tablets are rubbish for creating content, and that’s what taking notes is all about. You want to be fast, accurate, and keep your attention on the prof instead of the device. What do you do when the prof puts up a diagram, or a formula, and you need to get that shit on your tablet? If you want an electronic copy, transcribe your notes after class, it’s practically studying all on its own.
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### Author:  [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2012, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-student-trying-to-find-a-good-tablet-to-buy/639183/18 "2012-12-03T17:26:57Z")
As a huge proponent and fan of tablet computers, I’d say: forget it, stick to a notebook computer. Taking notes on a tablet just doesn’t work, unless the tablet has a Wacom digitizer or a keyboard dock - and there is no tablet under $500 that has either.
If you like to take hand-written notes but want to manage them digitally, and can’t afford a \>$500 tablet, you might look into a [Livescribe](http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/) pen. Or get a good scanner.