Do you know what a tablet is?

A few days ago, a middle-aged acquaintance of mine said that she was going to buy a grandson gift - a tablet. It's the kind he has long been dreaming of. It was obvious that the woman completely does not understand what a tablet is. For example, the name of the device it was taken for the manufacturer, etc. Although such total misunderstanding is rare, many still have a question about what a tablet is. This is not surprising, considering the "youth" of the device, the beginning of mass sales began only five years ago.

So, what is a tablet? Perhaps there is no such person who does not know what a laptop looks like. This is a kind of "suitcase", one inner side of which is a screen, and the other is a keyboard unit and a touchpad surface. The laptop, in comparison with a personal computer, has one undeniable advantage - mobility, because to raise 2-3 kilograms is not difficult even for a woman. Yes, and the popular screen diagonal of 15 inches is not too large. On the other hand, you can not put such a laptop in your pocket or a small handbag. Therefore, the market has been offered and actively promoted "successors laptops - netbooks. The diagonal of the screen was reduced, on average, to 10 inches, and the components became even more economical. However, for a long time they could not survive, giving way to even more compact tablets.

To understand what a tablet is and what its features, you need to remember the design of the laptop. If you remove the top cover-screen from the keyboard unit, integrate all the key components into its case, and make the display touch, then you get a real tablet computer.

Its advantages are obvious:

- Extended battery life.

- All-in-one device.

- Insignificant size and weight. The standard screen sizes are 7, 8, 9.7 and 10 inches. Weight also decreased, ranging from 300 to 700 g, depending on the model.

- Lack of hard drive (replaced with solid-state memory).

- Work in any position.

- Low heat level (for ARM processors).

You can often hear the question about the keyboard. Usually in standard trim levels the classic keyboard is missing. It replaces the image of the keys on the touch screen. Of course, if you need a set of voluminous texts, you can connect a familiar USB keyboard or purchase a special case with an integrated keypad.

Depending on the type of processor, we distinguish tablets with the operating system Windows (Linux) and Android from Google. As a rule, Windows is installed on x86, and Android on ARM. From the point of view of universality, the former are more preferable, but their disadvantage is high heating and the need for a cooling system.

With the touch screen everything is exactly the same as in the field of mobile phones: resistive models are triggered by pressing, and capacitive ones by touch. The former are characterized by lower cost, but their capabilities are lower. It's that simple.

Sometimes people who do not know what a graphic tablet is, confuse it with a tablet computer. These are different devices. Probably, everyone tried to at least once draw with the mouse in the program Paint. It is not comfortable. But designers use a special solution - for example, the Bamboo tablet, which allows a special "pen" to draw on a small touch screen, the picture from which is transferred to the computer. It turns out a kind of "eternal" sheet of paper. It is worth remembering that this is also a tablet, although highly specialized.