Which tablets to avoid this holiday season →
Dan Seitz at Guyism posted this marvelous linkbait, but I’m falling for it because I think it’s hilarious:
The Apple iPad 2: Why are we recommending you not bother with this one? Because the iPad 3 is inevitable next year, and there might even be two of them. It’s not worth $500 for a device that will be obsolete in three to five months.
The most popular and best-rated tablet by far, the one that defines the entire tablet category, should be avoided when buying it as a gift for someone else1 because a new model for this product that’s typically on a 1-year cycle might come out in three to five months.
As soon as that happens, the one you received as a gift this month will be obsolete, which means that it will cease to be useful for modern-day tasks. (Ask owners of the 22-month-old iPad 1 whether their tablets are still useful.)
OK. So which tablets should we buy? Apparently the Asus Transformer Prime, a hacked Nook Color, or the “not fully functional” Nook Tablet.
How useful will any of those be, as tablets, in 22 months? How about that “obsolete” iPad 2?
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Imagine the look on the recipient’s face when, hoping for an iPad, they open up a suspiciously small box to reveal an opened, rooted Nook Color.
“It’s better!” ↩︎