Just wondering if any other postgrads are using tablets at all to help with their work? I've specified android in the title so no opinions on ipads please as they are way out of my price range. I'm thinking of spending up to £170.
I'd just like to know whether you think they can be useful for paper reading/annotating and editing written work/making notes when you have a spare half hour on a train etc? Or would it just end up being a toy used for web browsing and time wasting?
My laptop is gradually starting to slow down as I use it for everything so am wondering if by shifting some of the load to another device whether that would be worth the money or not especially as I'm entering my 4th year soon.

Any opinions welcome.

How slow / old is your laptop? I'm jut thinking, you don't want to spend money on a tablet, then have to replace your laptop in 6 months if it breaks...

My parents kindly bought me a small tablet (nothing too flashy, but uses Android) thinking I would use it for work; reading, document writing, organising etc etc.

You know what I actually use it for?

Games.

Honestly for organising there's nothing better than a diary to write things in. For making presentations and documents, a tablet interface doesn't beat a laptop or computer. For note making, you'd need a very good stylus to get the tablet to recognise your writing and these can be expensive, it's best IMO to stick to pen and paper. For reading, I still find printing off the pdf and writing little notes when I see something interesting much more efficient than swiping through the tablet.

I'd say save your cash or invest in a better computer once your laptop craps out on you. Don't get me wrong, I know I come off very negative and oldy fashioned, but I do enjoy the tablet and use it pretty much every day. It's just not useful for study.

Just a little update as I didn't get any earlier opinions, I spent some time doing my research on tablets and have ended up buying a fairly cheap android tablet (£90) yesterday and so far I've found it useful for making brainstorms and a few notes plus the obvious web browsing. I'm not fussed about using it for games so haven't even tried yet, I'm quite happy faffing around online when it comes to time wasting!

My laptop is nearly 3 years old and still runs well enough but it is slowing down and getting hot especially when it's online. The idea for me was to shift some of the lighter work, i.e. notes, editing/proof reading documents and a bit of reading to a tablet which is more portable and faster to load for a quick bit of work and so far I think it was a good purchase but of course only time will tell.

When it comes to making notes I much prefer to type so I can read them the following week as my handwriting is atrocious and I have to type anything important up as quick as I can otherwise I'll never decipher it!