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May 17, 2021

Tablets as laptop replacements for remote work? Sure, here’s how.

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    • Insights overview

    For most professionals, a modern tablet is worth consideration as a replacement for a traditional work device.

    And for those use cases where a tablet alone can’t do the job, there’s TeamViewer remote access.

    Ever since the first iPad in 2010, technology users have wondered whether tablets could replace their laptops or desktops as their primary work devices. And for the last 11 years, that conversation ended with something like, “Tablets are great, but they can’t [fill in the use case].”

    Over the course of those 11 years, as tablets became more powerful and feature rich, it’s been harder to find something they can’t do.

    In fact, for most professionals, a modern tablet is worth consideration as a replacement for a traditional work device, allowing users to experience benefits like increased battery life, greater portability, and potentially lower cost.

    And for those use cases where a tablet alone can’t do the job, there’s TeamViewer remote access.

    Why you may make the switch

    Although today’s modern laptops are significantly lighter and feature longer battery life than they did 11 years ago, few weigh as little as a tablet and even less get close to all-day battery life with normal use. For example, the 2020 12.9” iPad weighs about half as much as a comparable 13” laptop, if you don’t include a heavy keyboard case. With the iPad’s support of Bluetooth for mouses and keyboards, you don’t need that case.

    Speaking of Bluetooth mouses and keyboards, input methods used to be a strength of laptops over tablets. It was cumbersome to accomplish certain tasks using a touch screen, such as working with spreadsheets, and the keyboards tablets could use took some getting used to. Now you can bring your favorite mouse and keyboard with you on your switch to tablets.

    Tablets and mobile operating systems were designed with ease of use in mind – something few people would say about PCs or even Macs. Even small children can navigate a tablet with ease. The digital architecture of tablets is lightweight and fast. Sometimes professionals just want something that works quickly and without unnecessary challenges.

    Portability is great, but where it really comes into play is when you’re using a tablet as a data gathering device. Have you ever seen someone try to take a picture with a laptop’s camera? (It’s awkward.) Tablets have had cameras since the beginning, with Apple even branching out into LIDAR for 3D renderings and augmented reality applications. Both Apple and Google see a bright future for AR, but to take part in that future you’ll need a mobile device.

    Tablets have also made strides in how easy they are for corporate IT departments to administer. With a good mobile device management system and features like Enterprise Mode, where work is kept separate from personal use, tablets are less risky to corporate networks than they have been. Add in the fact that, according to Malwarebytes, the Windows ecosystem experienced ten times as many security threats in 2019, as Android (and iOS events were so rare they couldn’t even be counted) 1, and you can see that IT administrators no longer have to fear tablets.

    1 https://resources.malwarebytes.com/files/2020/02/2020_State-of-Malware-Report.pdf

    people looking at graphs on a tablet

    What could be holding you back

    In the past, the major shortcoming of tablets against other computers was a lack of processing power. It was often said that if you were programming, doing graphic design, or other tasks that need a lot of power, a tablet wouldn’t work for you. But today’s tablets have processors that rival laptops. Apple’s iPad Pros actually use the same CPU as their laptop cousins.

    What’s keeping business users from jumping to tablets now? Sometimes, it’s just a matter of a particular app not being available as a mobile version or on the web. Some file management concerns also pop up, especially when those files can only be accessed on premises in a local server.

    But now that TeamViewer supports the iPad’s new capabilities with a mouse and keyboard, including right clicks, double clicks, and scrolling, you can solve many more of those issues. In fact, you can now be just as productive with a tablet as you can with a notebook, while still enjoying the benefits.

    iPad users can remote in to another device or server and access the files or specialized applications they need as if they were sitting in front of it. And since a mouse and keyboard can be used, no functionality is lost because of the touch screen. You get all the core benefits of working with a tablet with all the functionality you may need to get the job done.

    Instead of looking at laptops that can get frustratingly close to the benefits tablets offer, but not quite make it, you can actually use a tablet and get more done. And then you can be on the other side of that discussion: “I made the switch to a tablet and I’m not going back.”

    Learn more about TeamViewer’s support of mobile devices