Turn Your iPad into a Netbook for Under $150

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
Just buy a netbook with half that money, and donate the rest to a good cause.

Apple users should be doing just that. Instead of wasting money on a corporation that knows no philanthropy.
 
"What tablet is it?"

"I was wondering the same thing."

"If I was going to spend that much I'd just buy an HP tm2t to get something that could actually be useful in that configuration."

"It's a mythical tablet created by a person who dislikes something so bad they have to resort to wild fabrications to try and make a point."
 
Orionantares was actually spot on with the first comment I quoted here. My tablet pc is actually an HP touchsmart tm2. To solidify and expand on my first comment: first of all, I bought mine with a coupon. It came out to something like $739 or so. You can check out logicbuy and get the newer ones for quite cheap as well. Mine has a core2 duo processor but the latest ones have corei3 and i5. Some other thoughts I had in comparison to an ipad. They ipad does have an SSD so that could be another disadvantage for some people... however I have 500gb rather than 16 or 32. I also have 4gb ram rather than 256 or 512mb. You can look up something like 'HP TouchSmart tm2t Tablet PC Gaming Performance Benchmarks' in youtube if you want to see how it performs in games. I use mine for casual gaming, couch tablet surfing, and digital drawing (it has a wonderful wacom active digitizer that works great).
 
The probably I have with netbooks is that they're supposedly of extremely inferior quality and have a much higher failure rate compared to notebooks. If you want a laptop for productivity, then you're probably better off just getting an older model notebook on sale. And unless the netbook has Linux, I don't know how you can call it a fully-featured OS, since it would most probably have Windows 7 Starter, which was absolutely horrible when I was setting up my dad's new netbook. The only feature it has is making your netbook as difficult to use as possible.
 
iPad
iBook
iCrux
iCrud? An attempt to make better of a bad situation, but honestly?
If you have the iPad and the spare cash, by all means...
Otherwise get a real netbook or wait for Apple to do it properly.
 
It's obviously aimed at people who already own an iPad. You probably aren't going to buy an iPad AND buy the Crux at the same time. You have an iPad, you like the mobility, the touchscreen, apps, w/e. But there are times / days where you need more from it, such as a keyboard for days you have class, or times when you need to mass-respond to work emails, whatever the reason.

That being said, it's actually a very nice product. Since it's for the iPad, it's already marketed towards people with ample disposable income. This isn't really a product for the budget-conscious out there. The product looks well thought out, it's got a slick design, the movie stand was a nice touch. If I were someone who owned an iPad, I would probably invest in this as well.

I don't see any reason to knock it. The Crux allows you to have both a tablet AND a netbook, whereas if you bought a netbook, you'd just have a netbook. And be honest with yourselves, "full-featured netbook" is an oxymoron.
 
[citation][nom]didymus03[/nom]Orionantares was actually spot on with the first comment I quoted here. My tablet pc is actually an HP touchsmart tm2. To solidify and expand on my first comment: first of all, I bought mine with a coupon. It came out to something like $739 or so. You can check out logicbuy and get the newer ones for quite cheap as well. Mine has a core2 duo processor but the latest ones have corei3 and i5. Some other thoughts I had in comparison to an ipad. They ipad does have an SSD so that could be another disadvantage for some people... however I have 500gb rather than 16 or 32. I also have 4gb ram rather than 256 or 512mb. You can look up something like 'HP TouchSmart tm2t Tablet PC Gaming Performance Benchmarks' in youtube if you want to see how it performs in games. I use mine for casual gaming, couch tablet surfing, and digital drawing (it has a wonderful wacom active digitizer that works great).[/citation]
That's not a tablet. It's a laptop. Even amazon says so.
 
[citation][nom]didymus03[/nom]Orionantares was actually spot on with the first comment I quoted here. My tablet pc is actually an HP touchsmart tm2. To solidify and expand on my first comment: first of all, I bought mine with a coupon. It came out to something like $739 or so. You can check out logicbuy and get the newer ones for quite cheap as well. Mine has a core2 duo processor but the latest ones have corei3 and i5. Some other thoughts I had in comparison to an ipad. They ipad does have an SSD so that could be another disadvantage for some people... however I have 500gb rather than 16 or 32. I also have 4gb ram rather than 256 or 512mb. You can look up something like 'HP TouchSmart tm2t Tablet PC Gaming Performance Benchmarks' in youtube if you want to see how it performs in games. I use mine for casual gaming, couch tablet surfing, and digital drawing (it has a wonderful wacom active digitizer that works great).[/citation]

While the HP TouchSmart tm is a great product with greater power and more flexibility, it's a slightly different class of product than an iPad. The Touchsmart is 2-3 times thicker and 3 times the weight of a iPad. Depending on the application, weight and size can trump absolute processing power. Both products definitely have their niches. I have a friend that has a degenerative eye disease that requires her to be able to blow up PDFs to large size. A heavier tablet like the Touchsmart is just too heavy for her to carry around all the time at work and school.
 
I honestly didn't buy an iPad to use as a netbook. The eReader I was looking at was $250. I managed to get my hands on one, new, for a little less than $400. Since I've gotten it, I also use it as an Ableton controller for my music projects. It is also a great thing to have while on the crapper (I am so serious, I can hold it and not have to set it on my lap or anything). I'm an avid PC fan (don't get me wrong), I will never buy a Mac, but I really like Apple's gadgets. Me and my girl use Facetime a lot. My laptop, however is a G51JH and I was looking at selling it (begrudgingly) after I purchased my new PC (homebuilt BE 955 + 6870 HD), simply because it is not portable at all. It weighs a ton and has an hour and a half battery life (at the most). This may offer a solution for me to keep it. If I already own one, this seems like a cool idea. I don't really like the pricetag, but hey, Christmas is coming up, and I can add this to my list. :)
 
iPad and netbooks have completely different use cases. I would touch neither of those 'cause I:
- casually surf the net with my iPhone
- seriously surf the net with my desktop
- don't read eBooks (still love paper)
- don't do anything on the plane/road (I sleep/drive)
- don't play games (at all)
But I strongly believe that not all 4m+ iPad buyers are wrong. And certainly not the 100m+ netbook buyers...
 
[citation][nom]ericburnby[/nom]It's a mythical tablet created by a person who dislikes something so bad they have to resort to wild fabrications to try and make a point.[/citation]
Yeah, it sounded too good to be true, which means it is. Shame, I really wanted to buy it before I realized that he just made it up. What a d*ck.
 
a bit expensive but i must admit from watching the video, someone put some thought and effort in designing a good add-on to the iPad. initially i thought it's pointless to convert an expensive iPad to a netbook. instead of having to 2 separate devices the crux case gives you the option to have just one. now you don't have to choose between an iPad or a netbook. you can have both.
 
@stingstang: Semantics. You can call it a slate with a keyboard, a touchscreen laptop, a tablet pc - whatever. I'm much more concerned with what I do with it, not what Amazon calls it.

@jomofro39: I'll clear it up that I do not dislike the ipad. I don't like it either, but that's just because it doesn't fit my personal preferences and circumstances. Also, from my perspective, the tm2 is just as much a tablet as an ipad in a crux. A few months ago I was just a customer doing research for my next device - I considered the ipad, but found the tm2 to be a much better deal. Especially for what I wanted my device to be capable of for the money. I wasn't making up a "mythical device" to offend anyone - I try and get the most for my money and would like to pass on the knowledge of my research to anyone else going for the same thing.

@fellskrazykayaker: Very true. They aren't the same and for someone else the ipad might fit the bill of what they want better. For me, the tm2 in tablet mode is plenty portable (I've used an ipad as well and it would be a lot like tearing off the display from the lower part of the tm2 :) I did, however, come from an Alienware m15x, so the tm2 feels pretty small. For ultra portability I use a 4" Galaxy S that is significantly lighter, smaller, and still more powerful than an ipad. To each his own - for someone like your friend, a larger screen and as thin as possible probably fits the bill perfectly.
 
It's a waste of money. The only thing that you could use the 'netbook' feature was to type the notes and email (Or did i miss something). Whats the point??? Turn your baby of a netbook into a netbook for the wonderful price of 'FREE'. This puts the price of the iPad 'netbook' about 150+500(Or more)+Tax=At least 650$. My netbook cost 275 with a 2 year costco warranty. Just thought i'd give my two cents. :)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom