Spec me some tablets (work related)

Soldato
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Hi,
I have been tasked with sourcing some tablets for work to enable us to be as efficient as possible during our busy summer period when we are out of office a lot and needing access to information on the fly (summer schools)
Budget is not an issue.

Essentially we need tablets that will be able to access information on a cloud service (no idea which one?!?!?) to get spreadsheets etc from.
We exclusively use pcs in the office and all our work is on pdfs, excel, word with two database points that holds all the information in MS Access and CASPIO.

any ideas?
 
If you're heavily tied into MS technologies (office etc) then a Windows 8 RT tablet might suit best like the MS Surface ones.
 
I can highly recommend a Surface Pro, I've had mine for just over a week now and I am very impressed with it. Its not really struggled at anything I have thrown at it. I've even managed to play Crysis on it, which is impressive in itself for a tablet device. On average I have been getting around 5 hours from it, some times more though.
 
If it's purely work then I would also second the Surface RT as it comes with RT Office as standard although it has some limitations. You're best off checking to see if your MS Access databases can opened on Office RT but otherwise it should be ideal for the job.

On second thoughts, if budget isn't a concern then get the Surface Pro but bear in mind it is far heavier and have shorter battery life (due to x86 chipset and a high res screen).
 
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Yeh was leaning towards the surfaces so its good for confirmation that im on the right track... how do cloud based services work on the surfaces? Espexially the rt...do they have the apps or is skydrive used?? I dont think we have skydrive atm which is the only problem
 
You've come to ask a question armed with less than half the facts. What cloud services do you use? Do they have a tablet app? Does it exist on the platform's you're looking at? If not, is the mobile website utter trash or is it usable?

If you're trying to use a made-in-the-90s Access database on a tablet then there's not a tablet in existence that will be anything approaching remotely good at that task.
 
I'll add another recommendation for the surface pro, I'm loving mine, I have office 2013 pro on it, haven't used access yet, but I've run 3D studio Max, AutoCAD & creative suite, so I can't imagine access being a problem.

Office 2013 is OK as it's been touch optimised, but other desktop applications need a mouse or the stylus as the screen is silly high rez.
 
surface pro, may be RT if budget does become a concern

I got them for my little team and they are working extremely well as a travel companion for us. Don't bother travelling with my laptop any more.

As we use google apps to run much of our services, we use it with gdrive and it works well.
 
You've come to ask a question armed with less than half the facts. What cloud services do you use? Do they have a tablet app? Does it exist on the platform's you're looking at? If not, is the mobile website utter trash or is it usable?

If you're trying to use a made-in-the-90s Access database on a tablet then there's not a tablet in existence that will be anything approaching remotely good at that task.

No I havent, I have clearly said what cloud service we use, I run all the services we use at work, I have all the facts and lol please made in the 90s database? were not in school here.....

I have realised though that people have been suggesting the Windows tablets, but the offical ones dont even have a 3g socket in them??? So i presume i will have to go with another maker.
 
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Surface Pro + 3G dongle. The Surface Pro is more like a PC so whatever you can do on the PC will be the same on this. Probably the easiest way since we don't know which cloud service you use, and nothing beats Microsoft Office.
 
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