Mobile computing options: Opinions?

[blr_p]

Dunno what you mean by resolved, but the fact is between the OP and today, I have put my back out pretty badly with something called muscular fibrocytis (?) obtained from an intensive speaker-building project. Basically I was on three weeks of bed-rest and physiotherapy, and had to undergo a distress sale on the laptop as it was injuring me quite badly even with 5 minutes of use.

Get well soon

The good news here if I may call it that is this happened due to over exertion. That means you will get better and if you don't do the same thing again it will not recur.

I did my back in last year working in front of not one but two laptops. My mistake was not turning my body to face the second one whilst working on it. That is, two laptops next to each other seperated by 6 inches at most. The chair i sat on had no castors. This resulted in my back being held in tension for months on end and it just gave in one fine day when i found i could not get out of bed.

Doc put me on anti-inflammatories & pain killers. This made getting out bearable and made me more or less functional during the day. Took about 3 weeks on drugs but i got better. Could not sleep on my left side for at least 4 months but the pain went away completely after that. Neuro-muscular pain takes time to heal.

Earlier I used to dead lift 100+kg, never thought merely working in front of a computer could ever do that kind of damage but it can if your posture is bad for many hours a day and months on end. You get so fixated on work that you do not even realise until your body tells you otherwise.

I have ordered this chair: http://www.featherliteindia.com/product-gallery.html/executive-chairs/11926 (The one with the big headrest) which, as far as I experienced, was extremely ergonomic and comfortable with pretty much every piece adjustable in every direction and the right amount of firmness in the cushion and headrest. Also, it suited my budget, which I wanted to keep under 15k and this is just about that much.

For now I am using a dining chair which is fixed and designed to keep the spine straight (I designed the chair myself for a combination of guitar-playing and very short dinners), this is temporary while my new chair arrives by a low truck from Bangalore.

Until you're comfortably ensconced in your chair for some time and your pain is mostly gone then you are not ready to make this decision is my point. That is what i meant by resolved. Once you got the seating comfortable, you can decide better what to go for.

Then it should not matter whether you you use a pc, laptop or tablet does it. As its not clear as yet whether you need to buy anything at all. If not you can fit the device better to your requirements and not have to worry about whether you will be able to operate it.

I think it was your bad posture whilst working at the laptop that did it as opposed to merely working at a laptop. Dunno if that was what you meant to convey but it comes across that way. The key here is identifying what you did wrong so there is no repeat. This worked in my case. If you think otherwise lets hear it.

I am pretty confident I want a tablet now because of circumstances. I was leaning heavily towards one of the cheaper Chinese 'Retina' tablets but am waiting and watching for feedback as there are some issues around the firmware and Wifi of pretty much all of them.

Tablet would be good for your work but it must be able to handle the work you throw at it. This means you need to go to shops with your files and try them on various models. When will you be ready to do that leg work. Unless you have friends that can bring models over to you.

Though my first thought is a laptop/ultrabook basically something with a kb & mouse as opposed to a tab on a dock is better. What difference is there with that setup and a laptop to begin with anyway. The GPUs on tabs are not quite there yet. Graphically speaking, i don't know how demanding your work is.

Could the laptop that got you into trouble in the first place still be good enough ? Worked fine before you got unwell. Worked so fine in fact that in the contest of laptop vs your back, it was your back that gave in first

That tells me you already have a working solution, you just need to figure out how to be safer using it in the future.

Also, as some of you know, my current status is 'unemployed' and funds are pretty tight - this coupled to the fact that my hobbies are all expensive, means progress - and purchases - will be slow. It's not fun living off interest.

The more time you take to buy products that have yet to fully mature the better.

 

[Gannu]

Dunno what you mean by resolved, but the fact is between the OP and today, I have put my back out pretty badly with something called muscular fibrocytis (?) obtained from an intensive speaker-building project. Basically I was on three weeks of bed-rest and physiotherapy,

That really sucks! Get well soon.

Glad that you got yourself a good chair. I have been contemplating to buy myself a good chair with a comfortable back support and head rest since a long time now. I saw a few from Featherlite (we have some in our office as well but those are exclusive for the bosses; we get those el-cheapo ones) and sat on a few of them to get the feel of it. Very very comfortable no doubt and seems worth the price.

 

[bottle]

I'm using Merryfair, the only one that hasn't crumbled under my weight :lol: bit uncomfy cushion at first but gets ok after a weeks use

http://monarchergonomics.com/

 

[cranky]

Get well soon

The good news here if I may call it that is this happened due to over exertion. That means you will get better and if you don't do the same thing again it will not recur.

I do hope you're right...

The thing is though, with my back the way it is I doubt I will be able to do any actual content creation work for at least six months as it involves long periods of sitting work and that is forbidden as of now.

Therefore I will probably looking at something for simple content consumption tasks instead of my little 3" mobile screen (which I tend to use a lot of the time nowadays). Hence my being OK with a little less performance than is standard for things that size.

@bottle, the one I chose is similar except the backrest and arms are fully adjustable, the backrest for height and rake, and the arms for swivel, height and rake. Cost me ton of cash but hopefully should be able to get an almost exact fit for my very slight frame.

 

[cranky]

For those still watching, I got this last month:

http://dealsprime.com/new-products/...6-gps-android-4-1-16gb-rk3188-1-6ghz-cpu.html

It has its issues with slow caching of app data and a bit of lag, but quite usable. I was sure that the A7 solutions were not the way to go so I held out for something better. The display is excellent, the sound is pathetic and it definitely needs a tuned-up firmware (I am running as close to vanilla 4.2.2 as I can). 5GHz wifi is a massive bonus though it is still a 1x1 65Mb/s solution. Battery last a full day if I abuse it all day, but two days of normal use on a single charge, ~65% brightness and wifi always on. I would have liked at least 130Mb/s wifi but I guess battery life would have suffered.

In the month I've had it, only 4 or 5 videos will not play, more to do with format incompatibility than file size - everything else works fine. 1080p is not very smooth but 720 and below are great, and the screen is absolutely great for videos, as good as the Dell 3008WFP. Glossy screen means there is some reflections in daylight, but these screens don't have a matte option anyway. Build quality is the weakest link, and if Pipo is one of the better OEMs I wonder what the cheap ones are like. The case is creaky and the fit isn't exactly the same all the way around the screen. Speakers suck - there is a hardware design fault that makes the right speaker much, much louder than the left. Basically, Bluetooth speakers are a must. It is said that the bundled earphones are 'good', to me they sound like poo. Thankfully I didn't buy this for music...

I paid ~21k off eBay for the warranty, just in case. The seller was very difficult to correspond with, but came through in the end. You could buy it off his site for a bit less but I just wanted assurances. Those with stronger appetite for risk could try direct buying.

 

[blr_p]

For those still watching, I got this last month:

http://dealsprime.com/new-products/...6-gps-android-4-1-16gb-rk3188-1-6ghz-cpu.html

It has its issues with slow caching of app data and a bit of lag, but quite usable. I was sure that the A7 solutions were not the way to go so I held out for something better. The display is excellent, the sound is pathetic and it definitely needs a tuned-up firmware (I am running as close to vanilla 4.2.2 as I can). 5GHz wifi is a massive bonus though it is still a 1x1 65Mb/s solution. Battery last a full day if I abuse it all day, but two days of normal use on a single charge, ~65% brightness and wifi always on. I would have liked at least 130Mb/s wifi but I guess battery life would have suffered.

if you waited a little longer you would have got single stream ac in the upcoming batch of tabs. Single stream ac is like 3x3 n wifi. About 50-6o Mb/s. How good range is with ac is remains to be seen, i was not impressed with 'n' 5ghz and use 2.4 primarily. There is no discernable performance increase between either band on a mobile device, even one that claims to have channel bonding.

The latest mobiles all got ac starting with htc one, g pro, s4, g2 & note 3.

In the month I've had it, only 4 or 5 videos will not play, more to do with format incompatibility than file size - everything else works fine. 1080p is not very smooth but 720 and below are great, and the screen is absolutely great for videos, as good as the Dell 3008WFP. Glossy screen means there is some reflections in daylight, but these screens don't have a matte option anyway. Build quality is the weakest link, and if Pipo is one of the better OEMs I wonder what the cheap ones are like. The case is creaky and the fit isn't exactly the same all the way around the screen. Speakers suck - there is a hardware design fault that makes the right speaker much, much louder than the left. Basically, Bluetooth speakers are a must. It is said that the bundled earphones are 'good', to me they sound like poo. Thankfully I didn't buy this for music...

Never heard of a matte screen they're all glossy but some screens have a layer to control for reflectivity. You could get a screen protector with less reflectivity. Matte will mess with viewing quality.

This tab reminds me of a 9.7" offering that iBall had. Wasn't a quad, think it was dual and it had screen touch issues. This was in the days when i thought portrait was better for reading. I've since turned into a landscape reader with 10.1. Your tab's 50gm heavier than my note 10.1. Can't do much one handed reading with that.

 

[eternoMind]

Congrats!

The battery life is quite surprising!

 

[cranky]

if you waited a little longer you would have got single stream ac in the upcoming batch of tabs. Single stream ac is like 3x3 n wifi. About 50-6o Mb/s.

Yeah, and add 13k to the cost for a new router, no thanks! I have my 2.4g band limited to 54mbps in order to reach an extender three floors down. 5 runs full speed, and frankly it took me a long time to work out the fact that the tab had only a single stream card. In any case, 5 gives me great connectivity through the house and i'm sticking with that.

This tab reminds me of a 9.7" offering that iBall had. Wasn't a quad, think it was dual and it had screen touch issues. This was in the days when i thought portrait was better for reading. I've since turned into a landscape reader with 10.1. Your tab's 50gm heavier than my note 10.1. Can't do much one handed reading with that.

No that was a quad, with the Allwinner a31, quad core a7 chipset. Frankly the lag on those was pathetic and one of the reasons I stayed far away from the Ainol I was considering back in April.

I use the tab like I'm using it now, flat on the bed typing on screen. I can also use it on bended knee, or on the couch, or propped up on a nice stand when i don't feel like holding it. And since this is my first tab, weight is not an issue given I'm coming from a laptop that weighed the same as three bricks. In any case, reading was never something I needed this for - though I have no issues reading a book or two on it. 50g is the weight of a third of a potato. I don't see how that is a significant reduction in weight anyway.

@eternoMind, thanks. I'm reasonably happy with the tab apart from the caching issue, I suspect firmware optimisation is still required given it's a brand new chipset.