Variations and Niches
The lines have sometimes blurred between today's high-end and low-end laptop and tablet models, meaning you should thoroughly research a laptop or tablet prior to purchase to ensure it can meet your needs. From bulky budget machines made with cheap plastic; to high-end notebooks with sleek profiles, aluminium shells, and powerful processors; to laptops and tablets with retina display, there is a device for every kind of user.
In the mid to late 2000s, netbookslightweight, compact, low-powered laptops with a long battery lifebecame popular, ushering in the current era of greater mobility. Following in the netbook's footsteps, some of today's laptops, like Google's lightweight Chromebook, are only intended for internet browsing, reading, and video watching. Similarly, many tablets, including some laptop-tablet hybrids, some of which run on Windows RT, are mainly intended for entertainment and are not high-powered enough to accommodate work outside of basic document creation and editing. There are even phablets, large smartphones that may or may not be as powerful as tablets, depending on the model.
Notebooks [standard, lightweight laptops], ultrabooks [sleek, high-powered laptops that drop the optical drive and use solid state hard drives], and slate tablets, which aim to directly compete with laptops, are high-powered enough for more serious work, like detailed photo or video editing. With careful consideration of laptop specifications, you can even purchase a PC gaming laptop capable of playing the latest, graphic-intensive games.
Strengths
Size
With the exception of laptops with large [>16 inch] screens, both laptops and tablets are small enough to carry around in small backpacks or bags.
The primary strength of tabletsin fact, the main reason for their existenceis portability and convenience. When Apple first released the iPad, many were skeptical about whether people would find it useful, but the public quickly displayed a massive appetite for the mobility and ease of use that tablets offer.
There is some overlap in terms of device size. There are large tablets, and there are small laptops. As such, size and subsequent portability are not the only factors you should consider when deciding between a laptop and tablet.
Hardware
Because of their hardware, laptops can perform more difficult tasks than tablets can. A laptops typically larger size also allows for a bigger screen, a more powerful processor, and more storage space, meaning laptops are better for graphic-intensive applications, such as gaming or processing photos and videos. High-end laptops are becoming more compact while remaining powerful, and are therefore coming closer to bridging the gap between the portability of tablets and the processing power of desktop machines.
As they are handheld devices, tablets work well as e-readers. Another major benefit is the inclusion of front- and rear-facing cameras on most tablets, which allows tablets to function as digital cameras and can be useful for making video calls.
Where tablets really shine over laptops is when it comes to battery life: they can be used for seven to 12 hours straight, on average. One of the reasons tablets have this better, longer battery life is because they don't perform difficult tasks that require lots of power.
Software
If you want the ability to edit high quality photos, video, or audio, a powerful laptop is capable of handling these applications [e.g., Adobe Photoshop]. With their built-in keyboards and touchpad, laptops are much more suited to productivity than tablets. Creating documents, from word-processing to making spreadsheets or slideshows, is much easier on a laptop than a tablet. Laptops also have more USB ports and other input/output options for external displays, hard drives, and mice.
For many, the built-in keyboard of a laptop is superior to the touchscreens, external keyboards, and pen styluses of tablets. However, others find the touchscreen of a tablet more accessible and intuitive. If you are concerned about productivity, a laptop is more likely to meet your needs, but, depending on your work and personal preferences, you should not necessarily rule out a tablet.
Weaknesses
Size
Laptops are not as mobile as tablets, as they generally require a surface on which to work from. They are not handheld devices, and while laptops can certainly do everything that tablets can in terms of browsing and creating content, they cannot be used everywhere with ease.
Hardware
Laptops have shorter battery lives, limiting their mobility, and are less suited to travel than tablets [although ultrabooks are increasingly small and lightweight]. Their operating systems are more open and complicated, and therefore more vulnerable to malware and glitches in general.
Tablets lack a built-in keyboard or touchpad, so all input is usually accomplished through the touchscreen. Various external keyboards and other accessories are available, but these can diminish the main benefits of a tablet: mobility and convenience; moreover, external keyboards, which tend to be small, are generally not comfortable for long periods of use. Tablets also have smaller screens, and so are less immersive for viewing movies and playing games. Their less powerful processors are not suited to intensive photo or video editing. Tablets tend to have fewer available ports for plugging in external hard drives or connecting to an external monitor.
Many tablets are essentially large smartphones in terms of their hardware. They have less internal storage space [generally, 16-64GB] and less RAM [