As usual with me, there's a ramble to begin with. I hope you can stay awake long enough to contribute to the discussion and possibly even give me something to think about. The right hand side hinge on my laptop has snapped INSIDE the plastic sheath around the lid/screen, with an almighty crack. I can now only open my laptop with great care and the assistance of a pair of pliers. This is extremely depressing and means that I'm not really portable any more. I can hold the thing open to come across the road from my apartment (here) to leach from the reception of the complex here, but I'm concerned that further opening and closing (even with care and pliers) is likely to result in worse damage or maybe even failure of the screen. In every other respect the machine still does what I need 4yrs on from purchase, but it was fracking expensive at the time and I couldn't replace it. It's highly unlikely that there will be anyone on the island who has the skill/patience/knowledge to reattach the hinge, so I'm resigned to just being careful and using the thing less.

However, given that work is presenting me with a few challenges at the moment and some of my colleagues are being completely immature dicks, the breaking of my laptop led me into thinking that buying a new one would cheer me up! Not that I can afford it you understand. Anyway, then I got to thinking about my applications. For checking flights, general browsing and some VERY light spreadsheet use for work, either an iPhone/smartphone would suffice and be ultraportable. Giving my wifi wherever I go. Typical SIM-free cost - £400-£550. For easier/better browsing and spreadsheet use and generally improved ability an iPad/netbook would be better and they last ages on battery, leaving me to keep my crappy phone (which still makes calls and texts quite happily). However, neither of these options is really ideal for movie/TV watching, or music playing (not that laptop speakers could ever be considered good, but they beat the ass out of a phone speaker and headphones aren't always preferred). It got me thinking, my current laptop (a Dell XPS M1710 with C2D 2ghz/2gig RAM/7900 GTX/XP SP3) does 1920x1200 res, plays 720p with ease, and sounds bearable for tunes, but weighs 4.5kgs and a 17" screen whilst lush for normal usage, gaming (although not so much these days) and movie/TV watching is immensely impractical.

So.........

If you had to get one device to cover all your portable needs (this assumes you have a desktop/media server or whatever at home) what would it be and why? For me, I'm starting to think about a 15" laptop with an optical drive, "reasonable" speakers and all round ability for £600ish, but I'd love to hear people's thoughts...

Personally I'd get an Android tablet - It can run Flash, meaning you can stream the BBC at http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv (when in the UK) and catch-up services from other channels. Also, you can install non-Webkit browsers, such as Opera, which is useful as Webkit doesn't work with all websites fluently.

Finally, an Android tablet will allow you to put music and video onto it without requiring iTunes.

It's either that, or get a 2nd-hand laptop for >£200 on eBay.

The iPad is excellent for watching TV and movies on. I use an app called Air Video which needs a program called Air Video server installed on your other machine but it can stream any video to your iPad without the need for iTunes. I have the screen locked and watch it on its side when in bed, while it is in the Apple dock, so no power problems either. I can then catch up on all my downloads. At some point I will look into ripping more DVD's for more viewing.

Get a decent pouch for packing it in so that you do not damage it when out and about. If you need to be able use it out and about then get a 3G version though you may not need much memory as you can stream pretty much everything you need.

Being an iOS and Apple fan, I'd say iPad.
While you can't watch the TV live, you can still use iPlayer fine on iOS.
iTunes may be a bugger under Windows, but if it's seriously just there to sync your device, I wonder how much of a big deal it is.

iPad is a more mature tablet platform, but Android could bring some interesting things to the table soon. Android on the phone hasn't been without it's odd quirks and battery problems, though I wouldn't count on using an iPad as an alarm clock.

I've played with the original iPad for about five hours in an Apple Store (different days) and the iPad two for about an hour. I spent five minutes on a Galaxy Tab in Tesco and the whole experience wasn't a good one. Music started playing when I unlocked it and I couldn't make head nor tail of the interface to turn it off, there certainly wasn't anything obvious.
Apart from that, comparing the likes of the iPhone 4 and the HTC Desire, the iPhone 4 feels more solid to me, I don't know if this carries over to the tablet world.

Personally I would get anoter lappy - and for less than £600 ( new Dell 15R with a sandybridge processor is £450) so you still have a few quid leftover

While a iPad is fun if you end up doing any real work on it then you really need a proper keyboard - not sure what 2nd hand iPad 1's go for but you might be able to pick one of those up as well

You can watch live TV using TVCatchup.com ipad service. That said try it out on a store, but I would probably suggest another laptop as a good all round solution.

When I wanted something portable of browsing, Facebook/Twitter, eBooks, and the odd tv/film/audio stuff I considered a tablet but went with a large screen smartphone in the end (4.3" was the biggest I could get). I have a laptop at home though so my need differed. In your position if this was your one and only device I'd prefer a laptop - but smaller and lightweight (10-14" 720p) - with an optical drive, etc. Then I got to thinking what about something like the Dell Duo? A tablet/netbook hybrid.

Personally I think you can't beat a good laptop.
It you must take the tablet route, there should be a fair few new Android 3 devices on the market soon.

I feel that with a netbook, iPhone and desktop I've got all bases covered. If I had an iPad, I'd probably never use the netbook though, so there's a case for an iPad over a netbook.

All that being said, if I could only have one device, I'd get a 15" laptop.

+1 for another laptop but I would try at least to fix the hinge myself. If it doesn't work, you haven't lost anything serious. Potentially you could be saving the cost of a new laptop.

Hinges for less than 12 notes. A simple fix but it could just be an excuse for an upgrade.

Maybe get it fixed and either sell or delay until you really need one but save up in the meantime. Best of both worlds then.

Laptop, not netbook. Their screens are just too small.

I can see the attraction of a Tablet but I personally would go for a nice laptop if you have a budget of £600

I'd go for the DIY fix first though as others have mentioned.

Hmmm.... interesting.

As for the repair, without taking the plastic lid/sheath off the screen and being extremely careful, it's not gonna get fixed. And I were at home and had nothing to lose, I might try it. But here, I can't afford to break the laptop without having my desktop to hand, or some other replacement. I've backed up most of my data, but don't have room for everything due to my storage constraints here.



This appeals because it could have a reasonable size screen, and also allow more fiddling than an iPad. However, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it's merely a large phone, without the phone, that won't fit in a pocket. Do they accept external HDDs over USB? I currently have a 640gig laptop HDD in a USB3 enclosure filled with movies/TV/music. Presumably, the iPad is going to offer the same pros and cons as an Android tablet, but with the plus of a more mature platform.

Talking about the iPad, it seems from what your saying, and what I've read, that it's based a lot around the cloud and streaming. That doesn't really suit my model and given that at the moment I live on an island with painfully slow wifi and 3G coverage is irrelevant because I can't afford roaming, OR get a local contract, that's not ideal. Also, I would be thinking of any potential purchase as something that might go with me wherever my next adventure takes place. So although telephony would be handy, it's less important than it would be for most UK based people.

Veato, what phone did you go for? How have you found it, and do you find yourself wanting something bigger? I'm intrigued by this duo concept. Anybody played with one?



This kinda seems to sum it up for me. Although were I to have two portable devices, I'd probably want something bigger than a netbook as the larger of the two.



I have to agree. Two friends here have a Packard Bell thingy, with an Atom in it. The res is too small to be of any real use for anything other than VERY casual browsing (yet there's no zoom or interesting GUI change as per smartphone), they are painfully slow, and they struggle with 720p. Very light, last for ages on battery and easy to carry though!

If I were to assume that for now, I'm stuck with my laptop just at home and across here, but would like something to take around with me - what's the smallest/cheapest device that will allow me to view and make basic edits to Excel sheets and has wifi with a zoomable browser?