What Should I Buy? Laptop Or Tablet - Part 8

The Laptop Advantage - File Formats

This brings us neatly to compatibility. Laptops are great because, with the right software, they can display or play almost any file. The iPad is much more restrictive and requires videos, for example, to be in MP4 (H.264) format before they'll play. It means you might have to convert files before you can play them, which could be more hassle than you're willing to accept.

For photos and music, the iPad supports the common JPG and MP3 formats, so these aren't a problem for most people.

Transferring files to the iPad has to be done via iTunes, not Windows Explorer. This lack of drag-and-drop support is initially a bit frustrating, but it's absent for a reason: a good user experience. Filtering everything through iTunes means you won't end up in a situation where you've transferred a video, say, and you're sitting on a plane only to find that your tablet doesn't support it and you've got nothing to watch.

In Part 9 we'll discuss 'Which iPad Should I Buy?'.

No comments:

For Your Information:
Posts are presented in a stack with the most recent post at the top. Clicking Older Posts will show the next (#) older posts and so forth. Clicking Newer Posts will show the previous (#) newer posts. Clicking on the word Home will display the top (#) most recent posts. When viewing a single post, clicking Older or Newer Post shows a single post each time, but, clicking Home displays the top (#) most recent posts. There are 326 posts in the stack, as of 9-15-19.