Embarrassed by Laptops

Artrockers,
I'm an iPad-er, have been for a while. I love it. Right now I'm horizontal, the iPad is leant against a cushion and the latest David Sedaris reading is playing on the BBC iplayer (if you're not on the Sedaris tip yet why not? Do keep up, he's funnier than anything on TV right now). As I pause for inspiration I slip the iPad onto the floor with one hand and, inspired again I pick it up as easily as a magazine, no sweat. As I've observed previously, tablet technology has transformed my life and reintroduced me to the world of nerdery.

But there is a problem in paradise, you see my wife loves it too, when she gets home from work the first question is always: 'Where's the iPad?'. Eventually I retrieve it from its hiding place and reluctantly hand it over. After a quick flick through the news sites she settles her self down for several hours of Spyder Solitaire. Great! I'm left with the laptop, and that is so last century, I'm worried that a neighbour will wander in and find me using it. I need a sticker for the laptop that says : 'My other device is an iPad' . So embarrassing.

Fabulously successful renaissance man that I am I baulk at the idea of spending another £400+ for an iPad just so my significant other can play insanely complex card games that make my head hurt. So I've been watching developments in this field with great interest, waiting for a tablet that doesn't cost an arm and a leg but that does pretty well everything the iPad does. This month the market has gone nuts. They're all falling over themselves to get their tablets on the market pre-Christmas.

Artrocker designer Rich had to by an Android tablet this week so he can monitor the production of the magazine for non Apple tablets. It cost about £100, he describes it as his Fischer-Price tablet, it is, apparently, crap. So I won't be buying one of those. I nearly bought a Nexus having had it recommended to me by someone at Virgin, but I didn't.

I've long envied the US market for having the Kindle Fire, and turned my nose up at the monochrome versions we've been fobbed off with over here. But now they've released the HD version in Europe, 16GB for £159, less than half the price of an iPad, so I'm off to buy one as soon as this has left my outbox. Apart from the fact that you can play Spyder Solitaire on it there's another reason for me to buy, you see, as hinted at above, Artrocker Magazine will be available for Android any minute now. Kindle, Nexus, Nook, Smoove...and many other similar, dyslexically named tablets will all carry Artrocker.

In the meantime, the latest Artrocker Magazine has gone live on Apple Newsstand and, of course, it looks great. So, if you're a 'Padder' go and get it now. If you're an Android, and I know some of you are (we exclude nobody, not even robots) then we'll be plonking ourselves on those stands any minute now. Oh brave new world.

And our first venture into the world of e-books will be along on November 26th when we publish GARY NUMAN: NOW...and then. It's an incredible piece of work, I wrote it.

What I REALLY want is a tablet with a phone incorporated so I have one mobile device rather than two. Maybe they'll have that ready for next Christmas, but maybe they don't want to shoot their massive mobile phone market in the head.

How are the tablets working out for you? Got any experiences to share? Recommendations? Avoids? Fails?
I'd love to hear from you.

Until then I remain
Tom Artrocker