Hacker News Reader

Comment by SimbaOnSteroids | Hacker News Reader

Chromebook allows you to type papers etc.

But Apple Pages is free for iPad, and so are Google Docs and Microsoft Word. And of course you can run all the same webapps as on the Chromebook.

You could supply hardware keyboard-cases that prop up the tablet at a usable angle. But otherwise, typing long documents on a tablet is a miserable experience.

This is more flexible. The iPad can gain a keyboard when you need one, but Chromebooks can't lose their keyboards when they get in the way.

They have convertible chromebooks.

This. As the owner of a full-body aluminium convertible chromebook, I'd concur: The point about "losing the keyboard" doesn't apply per se, if you're talking about the right Chromebook model. The Asus C100P for example makes a good tablet and its laptop-experience has never been matched with any iPad-keyboard I've seen so far.

On the other hand, a Chromebook's problem (for now) regarding the "tablet mode" lies in the ChromeOS GUI: It wasn't designed with touch screens in mind (especially the browser itself) and feels clunkier than other tablet controls. Google are on their way to remedy that through their integration of Android apps though. They're certainly not there yet, but I can imagine that changing in the forseeable future.

I've seen first hand students waste time trying to highlight something correctly or navigate the menu by pecking away at the screen of their iPad, when a mouse would have made their actions much faster and more precise

Reply on news.ycombinator.com