It's certainly nothing new for students to be taking notes on their laptops and Netbooks in lectures. So why even bother with a tablet PC if you're a student?
Isn't a Laptop Good Enough?
Despite being considered old technology nowadays, the laptop computer is a seriously cool invention. No doubt about it. They're portable and rugged and allow you to run exactly the same programs as you do on your desktop. In fact, if you're like most students these days, you probably don't even have a desktop, opting instead for a heavy-duty, powerful laptop, right? You won't find me saying bad things about laptops. No, Sir.
But there's no denying the fact that tablets are a hundred times more portable than a laptop. They're so much lighter, they're thinner, less bulky, faster to boot up and, let's be honest, a whole lot sexier! It's easy to take out your tablet in a lecture and start taking notes without disrupting the people around you. Try that with a laptop. You know the pain.
What's more, you can even use a stylus to take notes in your own handwriting. Your notes are digitised, enabling you to search them at a later date by keyword. This is a killer feature when you consider how much time you can waste when writing an essay or studying for an exam... Ever found yourself looking for a piece of information you know you wrote down in the lecture, but couldn't find when you needed it? That problem is a thing of the past.
You can also store a huge number of academic papers, journal articles, case studies, and research briefs on your tablet and, just like your lecture notes, annotate and highlight them and search them later. Plus, you're much more likely to break out your tablet PC on the bus or train or between lectures and put that dead time to good use. Much more likely than if all those articles were on your laptop, I'd bet.
So Which Tablet Device is Best for a Student?
There isn't a straight-forward answer for this, I'm afraid. Of course, the giant marketing and advertising machine at Apple is hypnotising you to buy an iPad, but in many cases it's going to be outside the average student's budget. And at the moment, there isn't a low-end iPad on the market. It's big bucks or choose something else.
Fortunately, there is a range of tablets on the market, a number of which fall into the budget of most students. You might need to pull an extra few shifts in your part-time job for the next month, but that's okay. The cheaper student tablets may not have all the features of the top-end models, but you may not need all those bells and whistles anyhow. Don't spend a bunch of cash on stuff you're not going to use.
If you just want a tablet because of the portability-factor and to connect to the internet for basic things, then a basic model will probably do. Make sure you check the handwriting/stylus capabilities of the cheaper models, though, because this really is a great feature for students and not all tablets do it well... or at all! And make sure you find out exactly how much memory it has and whether it has an SD or micro-SD card so you can expand your data storage at a later date (which you definitely will need, especially at university/college level).
Is There Anything In-Between?
Actually, there is. The Asus Eee Pad is a kind of "hybrid" tablet device that utilises a special "docking station" plus keyboard. Carry the tablet around with you and use it like any other tablet and then "dock" your tablet and it becomes the screen for what is basically a Netbook! It's quite an amazing piece of technology, bridging the gap between the portability of a tablet and the convenience and power of a laptop. Kind of the best of both worlds and perfect for students in my opinion.
Having said that, I should also point out (because I have no vested interest in Asus Eee Pads) that you can buy an external keyboard for most of the major tablet PCs, which achieves the same outcome.
If you'd like to download a free 32-page Buyer's Guide and Checklist to help you choose the best student tablet for you, visit http://techgadgetrecon.com/tablet-pc-comparison-chart You might also like to read about these "must have" tablet PC accessories, one of which is an external keyboard.
