Cathy Healy

Cathy Healy works with K-12 classrooms worldwide as they make a difference in the world.

Cathy Healy

Advocate for K-12 Global Collaborations

Frustrated that iPad isn’t also a netbook

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Well…hell!

Last week I left my laptop (MacBook Pro, 4.5 #) home and took my iPad (2 # with cover) to England for a week.

It turns out, that I can’t get along without my laptop if I want to keep on top of my days and not sink like a rock when I return home.

And I am dependent on the iPad for reading — news, books (I’ve downloaded more than 100 books on Kindle and iTunes) ….

And I am dependent on my iPhone, which makes great, clear Skype calls when you’re out of the country and on wi-fi–and the phone is useful when before you leave and after you arrive back in the country.

The trouble is, together, the three gadgets weigh 7.5 pounds, counting the iPad cover, which is essential for good video viewing and for typing.

Seven-point-five pounds is nothing, when I remember how excited and pleased I was to buy an Otrona Attache computer, which was only 18 pounds (vs. the next lightest “portable” computer, which weighted 26 pounds.) But  7.5 pounds (plus other stuff in my backpack) is enough to make my neck spasm.

Before I left for England, I stopped at my favorite Apple Store (Clarendon, VA) and touched the new Airs. Ohhhhhh. The 11-incher with a full keyboard weighs only 2.3 pounds only three ounces more than my iPad. If the 11-incher had the guts to handle video editing, I’d buy it in a heartbeat and simply hook it up to the 24-inch monitor at home for video editing. But the 11-incher has less megahertz (only 1.6 GHz) than two or three laptop purchases ago — not nearly enough. the laptop I bought in two laptops ago–not nearly enough. 

The most souped-up, 13-inch Air, at 2.9 pounds has about what I have now with my early 2009 MacBook Pro. The specs okay. But “okay” for $1800 and two pounds less. 
And– I’d still need to carry my pad, my phone and my air! Deme un break! 
“I want an Air that’s a tablet,” I complained to my friend, Shashank Garg, a fellow 2007 Stanford Fellow who lead the creation of a variety of mobile devices for Encore, a hardware company he co-founded in Bangalore. “All they [Apple] needed to do was to add a hinge so that it could be used as a clam-shell or a tablet,” he replied.
A few minutes ago I discovered that Dell is doing just that — and their not-yet-released tablet-netbook has a great look. CNET has the story and a video.

C’mon Apple. This is how much I weight I want to carry: A 4.8 oz. iPhone and a 2.0 (MAX!) tablet-computer.

By the way, here’s how to fix one of the most irritating things about typing on an iPad: Turn off the auto-correction by going to Settings > General > Keyboard.

PS:
I probably wouldn’t feel quite as cranky about this if the elections had gone the way I wanted them to go. 😉

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