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Sorry if this has already been done to death, but her goes:
I'm about to change jobs and my current employer issued me with a laptop which I use for work and personal use, however my new employer has a very strict IT policy so I will loose personal use of a laptop.
I only really want to access the internet, listen to music and view/manage photos. All of my music and photos are currently stored on an external hard drive. I think my options are:
1. buy decent Laptop (probably a Mackbook), or
2. buy cheap laptop (for managing pics and music) and ipad (for internet access and listening to music)
Is there another option I missed and what would you do (and why)? Thanks
From what you've said, a chromebook would do the 'laptop' bit fine and costs a lot less.
Do you want to edit the photos?
If it's only view and manage I'd go with option 2. If you are a bit more serious about photography I'd be tempted by a higher end laptop.
The ipad is great for recreational things so I wouldn't sacrafice that for a high end laptop that I wasn't going to need.
You can edit photos on a chromebook, but you cannot connect an external drive to a tablet.
Chromebook ftw.
I'd probably go for a Chromebook & [s]iPad[/s] tablet of some description.
you cannot connect an external drive to a tablet.
Yes you can. My Nexus 7 will take an OTG ('on the go) cable (about £2.50 iirc) which allows me to plug in pretty much any usb storage device including external hard drives.
Note - I use an app called Nexus Media Importer
What are you pluuging the external drive into?
you cannot connect an external drive to a [s]tablet[/s] iPad.
FTFY.
Some Android tablets support "USB on the Go" which allows you to mount external storage.
I've just bought a laptop and Chromebook to do as you describe.
The Chromebook gets all the use, while the laptop sits unused (and every time I turn it on I have to wait for it to download updates etc).
So - Chromebook +1.
Personally for photos I'd go for a cheap laptop with a good size drive. That will allow a local copy of everything backed up to an external drive. No way would I just have my pics on one external drive. Then get a tablet for general sofa browsing.
No way would I just have my pics on one external drive
That's what the Google Drive is for 😉
I do everything from tablet now - music (google play sub) photos (PS touch) and usual web stuff and a lttle bit of office use (Polaris Office & bluetooth kb)
I have no interest in platform wars so have no idea if better/worse than other products, but am very satisfied with my (now old hat!) Note 10.1, the stylus is great for photo/graphic apps, the screen fine for video and general use and it hasn't missed a beat.
One minor niggle is the Samsung proprietary charger port so no usb, but an adapter fixes that for few quid and unpowered usb dveices work fine as do memeory cards (also with adapter)
I was sceptical about not having a home pc/laptop but must say I haven't missed them at all, and the tablet does seem to be more user friendly as regards use and OS.
My Nexus 7 will take an OTG ('on the go) cable (about £2.50 iirc) which allows me to plug in pretty much any usb storage device including external hard drives.
Wow.. didn't know that 🙂
If only the Nexus would allow HDMI output it'd be absolutely perfect. As it is, it's just very good 🙂
I think most Android tablets support USB On The Go now, don't they? I keep meaning to buy a cable for my LG GPad.
I have read that some of the external drives aare too power hungry and the tablet can't provide enough juice for them to run. But, I'l only be using a USB adaptor to plug in a flash drive or an SD card reader so that should work OK.
Note - I use an app called Nexus Media Importer
And if you root the device, you don't need the app.
I have read that some of the external drives aare too power hungry and the tablet can't provide enough juice for them to run
Possibly/probably - you may need to choose one that has an external power supply in some cases though IIRC you can get OTG cables that include a power supply.
I had trouble playing media from the sd card though on the hudl.. seems DRM only wants to work from internal storage.
I'm in a similar situation to the OP, work laptop not for personal use. I interpreted that as the OS and software is not for personal use and installed a second hard drive in the optical bay using an [url= http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2nd-Hard-Drive-Bay-Caddy-9-5mm-SATA-to-SATA-for-Laptops-A8-/200595602045?_trksid=p2054897.l4275 ]optical bay hard drive caddy[/url] and boot from that when I want to use it. The main (work) drive is encrypted so my secondary OS cannot access it, and when I'm finished I can take the bay out and put the DVD drive back.
Chromebook!
Its my first 'laptop' that is genuinely portable, it gets a few hours use each evening and I probably charge it once every three days. It turns on quicker than I can get comfy on the sofa, its light, doesn't get hot, absolutely no nagging prompts to update this and that, and simple.
I have the Toshiba one, impressive sound quality, and loud, compared all my previous laptops so good for streaming music - not so good for keeping music locally although you can use 32gb SD cards or an external drive for that sort of thing.
Negatives - incompatible with software i.e. Tracklogs, no good for video editing, and you need a cloud compatible printer to, er, print. Google Docs and Sheets are more than good enough to replace Word and Excel. Google Drive is very convenient.