PDA

View Full Version : engineers and tablet pcs



Brian Ashton
02-14-2012, 11:25 PM
Hi guys and gals

Working for a civil and structural engineer and they're contemplating getting samsung tablets to do work in the field with. I can see some possible uses such as integrating GIS on one and taking them into the field to update data and allowing me to take fairly complex and large spreadsheets onsite to be updated on the fly... But I'm not sure these can justify the costs so was wondering what others are using them for to get some food for thought. Would also like to know if you've used them and then dumped them for what ever reason. These are fairly longterm contracts at 2 years so we would like to know with some knowledge behind us as to whether they're worth it or not

Thx in advance

Shaun Mahood
02-15-2012, 12:24 AM
Brian, what operating system are the tablets running? I've dealt with 3 similar things (as support, not the end user)
- we had a crew last year using a windows 7 rugged tablet outdoors all summer, using a semi custom data collection program. Worked fine, upgrading the software and adding it to more crews this year.
- I've had other users on convertible tablets (can transform from tablet to laptop), was a good mix but was only used in an office setting. Would be good for a mix of in office / indoor field work, but they have ruggedized versions as well
- we have an employee who has moved some excel spreadsheeta to his personal Blackberry playbook for indoor only data collection in the field. He is totally happy with it.

Two of those solutions have completely removed the need for paper and copying into he computer, which has made it totally worthwhile for us. We also have crews wih laptops and mobile internet access, some of our truck GPS units now
come with network jacks to piggy back onto their data plans. Let me know if you want more details or the name of our rugged tablet supplier.

Brian Ashton
02-15-2012, 4:56 AM
we haven't got that far on what OS to use, android or osx, but I think we would be leaning towards the more pc friendly os which I suspect at this point is android.