I put up a thread about my experience with tablets the last few years.
https://forum.ukuleleunderground.co...through-the-world-of-tablets&highlight=tablet
And here's what I said:
When I retired and started to play ukulele and bass uke about 4 1/2 years ago, it didn’t take me long to decide to use a tablet for my music sheets instead of lugging around a big notebook. I had long before gone paperless, using my iPhone and MacBook Pro for everything from quick little notes to calendar to... well everything.
I had a 9.7 inch iPad, so I looked for and found two music cataloguing apps for iOS, OnSong and forScore. I tested both, but found them to be unintuitive and illogical (I designed database software for about 10 years, so I know of which I speak). Along with that, the 9.7 inch screen was too small for my aging eyes.
At that time the 12.9 inch iPad Pro was announced for around $1000, more than I wanted to spend, so I decided to forsake my Apple fanboying and see what was available for Android. Amazon had a 13.3 inch referb tablet for $150, but what really caught my attention was MobileSheets Pro. Immediately I saw that it had a much better user interface than OnSong or forScore. So I went for it.
I design my own PDFs of the music sheets our leader gives us to the exact size of the tablet screen. All was good until I needed to make quick notations while rehearsing (twice a week) because the Android was terrible at it, neither my finger nor the half dozen stylus I tried worked well. I lived with it for a couple of years, until I found that MobileSheets Pro came out for Windows 10 tablets.
I looked up the stylus function and according to reviews, the stylus was very good. So I got online and found a 13.5 inch Windows 10 tablet, 32 GB and a stylus for $400. Yes, the stylus was better, but after a couple of months I ran into the inherent problems of a Windows computer; bloated OS, updates that take over out of nowhere, interfering with what ever I was doing, slow operations, awkward interface and short battery life.
In the midst of that frustration, I went to my local Apple store and tested the iPad Pro 12.9 inch and Apple Pencil. It was very obvious that the iPad Pro and iOS runs circles around Android and Windows tablets. It’s faster, the stylus is exceptional, far more precise than any other. The battery life is much better, it’s lighter, and having used an iPhone for years, I know the apps are far better integrated to iOS.
So last week I got online to the Apple referb page and found a 64 GB and a Pencil for $805 out the door, about a $200 savings from new, with the full year warranty. I then setup forScore because I learned that they added in-app recording (MobileSheets Pro does not, and the other tablets would not record while in another app, I used my iPhone because I record each song while rehearsing and post them for the other members to practice with anytime they want). In the first hour of using the iPad Pro in rehearsal, I realized, you get what you pay for. It's head and shoulders above Android and Windows.
I’m getting used to the awkward interface of forScore, and making great use of the built in record feature. One more thing, the developer of MobileSheets Pro says he’s going to make an iOS version sooner or later and include in-app recording too, but for now, I’m a happy camper.
This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 11 solid body bass ukes, 9 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 34)
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