Update to 'Buying a tablet'

At the end of October last year I was listening very carefully to all the news coming out about the latest tablet computers. Mainly they were the Apple iPad Mini, Google Nexus 7, and Microsoft Surface RT. I was weighing all the pros and cons of each based on my needs.

Well the winner, as I speculated in October, was the Google Nexus 7. I didn't want to spend too much which eliminated both Apple and Microsoft, plus I was excited to try out the Android operating system.

Here are three immediate observations I have made.

1) Appreciate Google products more
My favorite new tool is the Google Calendar believe it or not. I love how I can set  up appointments on the tablet or on any desktop computer I was logged into and it would sync up between the two. The same can be said for Gmail and especially the Google Play store. I can find an app on my desktop computer and download it and it will automatically be on the Nexus 7 the next time things sync up.

2) Tablets are a gateway to a smart phone
I don't own a cell phone (here is why) but after being introduced to tool such as Google Now I have started thinking about it more and more. The following video features how Google Now works on the Google Nexus 4, their mobile phone from LG, but the Nexus 7 can do most of the same things (where there is WiFi). I love how intuitive Google Now is and I can just imagine all the ways it could make life easier and more organized if you had it everywhere you go.



3) It is still an iOS world
Apple still owns a huge share of how people perceive tablets. At work when coming up with an app, the primary consideration was making it available on iTunes. When Vine came out from Twitter it came out on iOS devices first and there is currently no word on when it will be coming out for Android. Other than that I find the app stores comparable for what I am looking for. Any apps that weren't available just weren't compatible with the tablet screen and not the operating system it was on. And in those cases there were suitable online solutions that worked just as well.

One other quick thought is that I have found that a tablet can't 100% take over as your main computer. I am currently typing up this blog post on my desktop computer with a keyboard. I can't imagine writing this on the tablet, but I have observed that this could just be a generational issue. It really is better at consuming content versus creating it. However there are Bluetooth keyboard docks out there that could make that easier.

What do other tablet owners think; did I make the right choice? 
How important is the operating system compared to the hardware?