Nexus 7 vs Notebook

[Trouble Kelp]

I am considering getting getting a Nexus 7 or a cheap Laptop (probably a chromebook). I would mostly use it at school so I'm leaning towards the Nexus 7 cause it's smaller and easier to carry. If I got the chromebook I would probably end up putting linux on it and my friend told me it wasn't that great with linux. I also want to play emulators so that's another reason I'm leaning towards the 7. Which would you recommend and why? and if you have a chromebook with linux on it how well does it run?

[Hans Christian | Teri]

The Nexus 7 because it allows you to rather effortlessly draw mathematical formulas and other stuff you may encounter during lectures.

[CoolBeans]

The chrome book would be easier to type on but would probably be to slow for Linux, I would get the Nexus 7

[whatthe_fuzz]

Chromebook. Laptops will ALWAYS be able to do pretty much everything a tablet can do and more. 

 

i.e. the LTTForums. mobile is not fully supported so you would be limited on webbrowsing. 

[WoodenMarker]

ASUS X200CA-DB01T: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231117

Maybe replace the hdd with a ssd?

[Kamil]

The Nexus 7 because it allows you to rather effortlessly draw mathematical formulas and other stuff you may encounter during lectures.

In my experience, capacitive touch screens are not very useful for recording mathematical formulas; drawing with a finger feels too unnatural and even if you get a capacitive stylus it's difficult to be precise. If you're not getting something with a full digitizer I would definitely recommend a keyboard for faster text input, and then just have a regular notebook for any diagrams or special symbols you need.

 

Overall I would recommend a cheap Windows laptop or the Surface RT (2, if you can wait) for school. That's a little more pricey than your options, but I think they'd be better in the end. It's possible you'll have different opinions though.

[obsidian1200]

I'd say go with a Nexus 7 + a bluetooth keyboard over a chromebook. I just find it to be a little more versatile and portable. Plus the Nexus 7 is excellent for e-textbooks IMO, as I've been using mine for them for a little over 3 weeks and haven't had any reading issues. This includes Epubs, Mobis (Kindle), and PDFs where the fonts aren't adjustable outside of zooming in and out of the page, which I've yet to need to do. I also use mine for improvised flash cards, some made with PowerPoint (for mathematical formulas, identities, etc.) and the rest with Excel (for anything not math/number related).

 

Plus, you can still use Google Drive or Kingsoft Office for note-taking and even papers if you want. I haven't tried using it for handwritten notes, though so the advice above about using a sketchpad for math notes is worth bearing in mind (but you can get a composition notebook for $.99 easily).

[A/C]

If a tablet is your goal, why not samsung note 8?

 

I'm in favor of a notebook tho'. Any will perform better than a tablet for what you need it. Tablets are more media-consumption devices. I have an ASUS Transformer, look into those transformers too. They should represent a good middle ground.