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Two-in-one tablets come of age and make the laptop an endangered species

Two-in-one tablets have failed to live up to their promise – until now.

Two-in-one tablets have failed to live up to their promise – until now. Photo: Supplied

With the recent announcement of Apple’s updated iPad Pro line of tablets, the sun may well be setting on the age of the laptop.

As processor chips become more powerful, displays brighter and more responsive, and operating systems more practical, our reliance on ye olde faithful clamshell laptop to provide computing ‘grunt’ on the go is waning.

The new 10.5-inch and updated 12.9-inch iPad Pro tablets feature Apple’s fastest mobile processor to date – the A10X Fusion chip. Coupled with ProMotion graphics and an updated Retina screen running at 120Hz, this all translates into the most powerful and beautiful-looking tablet you can buy.

The choice is yours

A lot of hype has been made in the past few years about the dawn of the ‘laptop killer’ tablet; an all-in-one solution that promised to keep users mobile and functioning as they would on a conventional laptop.

That promise fell largely short. Until now.

Not only do many new tablets feature powerful hardware, but also leverage intuitive operating system features to offer ‘desktop-class’ performance. For the consumer, this offers a broader range of mobile devices that ‘simply work’.

For Apple, improving the iPad Pro meant a total revamp of multi-tasking – now more flexible than ever – the addition of a dock to the display, new drag-and-drop features, and a new file-management app, Files. All of that make the iPad Pro a very real contender for that ‘killer’ crown.

Apple has unveiled new 10.5-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pros. Photo: Apple

But Apple isn’t the only company to offer a powerful mobile alternative to your conventional laptop.

Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4 tablet boasts a variety of hardware configurations and runs apps on a version of the company’s desktop operating system, Windows 10 Pro.

With the cost of a new and powerful tablet now comparable to many laptop computers, the only thing left to do is weigh up the practicalities.

Pros

Lighter and smaller than the average laptop, a tablet is easily transportable and won’t weigh you down.

For those who do a lot of photo or video work, or if you simply love gaming, the graphic performance on some tablets is now as good as, or better than, many laptops.

Many tablets now offer a variety of ways to manage files. Apple’s new Files app, to be released with iOS 11 in spring, is one such tool.

Likewise, a tablet running Windows 10 Pro, such as Microsoft Surface Pro 4, offers management of files in much the same way as you would on a laptop. Android OS users can manage files in a variety of default ways to suit their needs.

new tablets spell the end of the laptop

The Surface Pro 4 can run apps on a version of the company’s desktop operating system, Windows 10 Pro. Photo: Microsoft

With an external keyboard attached, a tablet becomes a touchscreen laptop – a feature that can add a lot of flexibility.

Cons

Those favourite laptop programs you have; they may not have an equivalent mobile app for your shiny, new tablet. You will either have to make do with an alternative, or wait until the program developer creates a mobile version.

Storage on tablets can be pricey. Using solid-state memory, instead of a conventional hard drive, makes tablets fast, but comes at a price. The larger the memory, the more you can expect to pay.

If the program you use squeezes every bit of juice it can from your existing laptop’s multi-core chip, you may find moving to the lesser power of a tablet too great a compromise. Be prepared for changes in performance.

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