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Comment by pmccool | Hacker News Reader

The article describes a situation where an ultra-portable device with long battery life is a winner. It's not clear whether the iPad is any better than a netbook would have been. I would imagine it would win on standing-up use and lose out on typing. At any rate, it seemed more about the virtues of an ultraportable than the particular virtues of the iPad.

edit: which is not a criticism of the article, merely an observation that it applies to more than one device.

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Netbooks have been around long enough now that if they worked in this situation, they would have been adopted already. Think clip board, not laptop. The standing-up use is essential. He said the typing worked just fine. Add the 12+ hour battery life and the iPad fit the situation quite nicely.

I was making the point that a lot of the advantages mentioned apply to netbooks. Some of the ones that don't (e.g. standing-up use) would be a case of swings and roundabouts. I agree that standing-up use, particularly data entry, is one of the iPad's advantages. I didn't get how much of the standing-up use was data entry (where it's game, set and match to a touchscreen) and how much of it was passively displaying data (where the advantage is smaller).

One place mentioned in the article where the iPad wins over netbooks is ease of cleaning, having way fewer crevices than a device with a keyboard. Not an impossible problem, but I imagine it's nice not to have to worry about it.

Think clipboard versus Olivetti.

Netbooks have half the screen and a fraction of the navigation and presentation usability for this particular scenario.

As owner of both types of devices, I'd venture that the on screen keyboard on the iPad is at least as touch-type-able as the miniature netbook keyboards.

Also, Penultimate with its wrist rest detection suggests what domain specific charting software could be like.

One plus for the iPad is that it's very easy to clean fairly well. Certainly easier to clean then anything with a keyboard.

And it's fanless, so there are no vents, and it's not blowing potential infectious agents or allergens around.

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