[Swordmaker]

I was very interested in tablets/ipad until I found you needed a smartphone and data connection/subscription to do most things with them.

Not true. An iPad and in fact most tablets, are fully functional with a WIFI connection. They never require a smartphone to function. An iPad can be had with a cellular connection which allows it the freedom to connect to the Internet without a WIFI connection. . . and there were some Android tablets that also had cellular connectivity as well for the same purpose.

My personal iPad has the LTE cellular connectivity because I often use it away from a WIFI connection. Because I have a smartphone, service for it costs me an additional $10 per month on my plan.

[doorgunner69]

Just going by my brother showing up here last summer with some sort of tablet. Took him down to the volcano and was impressed he could check on weather as I drove the 93 miles down and back. Asked how he got a connection.

He admitted he carried an ATT smartphone hookup box that enabled the connection and was piggybacked on his cellphone subscription.

He was fully wired with all that crap when he worked for Shell (they paid of course) and traveled all over the world. I just never bothered with it, never needed it. My world was electronincs design, not much consumer stuff. Designing the antennas used on the military PLGR handheld GPS is as close as I got to consumer stuff.