10 Reasons Not to Buy an iPad Instead of a Laptop for a College Student

The summer season is almost over. If you're a parent that means back-to-school shopping is right around the corner.

And there's one product — one fairly expensive product -- likely to be in high demand for college-bound students in particular: The Apple iPad!

But as dealnews' media editor Jeff Somogyi says there are 10 reasons why you should NOT buy your kids an iPad — especially in place of a more traditional laptop.

"It is a great product [and] I have the utmost respect for Apple," Somogyi tells tells The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task in the accompanying interview. "But in this instance I think that the cost per benefit is a little too high especially when it comes to students."

The tablet device starts at $499 for the most basic model with 16GB of storage with Wi-Fi connectivity.  Meanwhile, the higher-end 64GB models with 3G connectivity start at $829 and expect to pay an extra monthly fee if the wireless Internet plan is enacted.

"You can get a very nice laptop for that price," he says. "You can get a laptop that does everything that your student needs it to do for less than the low end iPad."

Not only can you save money, a laptop will enable students to do all the things they need to do — like write 500-word papers -- easier and more conveniently.

Which brings us to Somogyi's top reasons to not buy your student and iPad for back to school: It's expensive and it's not the best solution for note-taking or editing documents.

If these two reasons alone are not enough to convince your child that the iPad is not the right choice for them, here is Somogyi's full top ten list of reasons why you should not cave and buy your child the iPad:

#1 It's Expensive

#2 It's Not the Best Solution for Note-Taking or Editing Documents

#3 It's Too Distracting

#4 It's Ultra-Portable and Ultra-Droppable

#5 What Makes it Desirable to your Kid is What Makes it Desirable to Criminals

#6 It's Meant for the Enjoyment of One Person, Which Means Social Seclusion

#7 Digital Text Books are a Marvel, but There's No Secondary Market

#8 It's a Status Symbol, Plain and Simple

#9 It'll Already be Old Technology by the Time You Buy It

#10 They'll Also Want a Laptop, Too

Read More :http://dealnews.com/features/10-Reasons-Not-to-Buy-an-iPad-Instead-of-a-Laptop-for-a-College-Student/475970.html

Google Plus users update: 18 million users, 33% female [Report]

Google Plus now quickly becoming a parlor full of women.

Good news Google fans, (and boys inside Google Plus). Search engine giant’s Plus subdomain now catering more female internet users.

Google Plus residents reaches 18 million, according to latest stat presented by Paul Allen, the “unofficial Google Plus statistician” and founder of Ancestry.com. Allen is claiming that the population of Google Plus is now about 2.3% of the total population of Facebook — so yeah, it’s like China versus Singapore, but the growth of Google Plus is undeniably impressive, knowing that even LinkedIn founder isn’t happy to welcome a new competitor that could kill his business.

Google Plus will most likely get more members by the end of this week, knowing that the official iPhone app is now available. And how can Google use iPhone to grow? Well, current members of Google Plus could try their very best to convince family and friends to join Google Plus too, and just by sending an invite via e-mail, multiplication will occur.

One of the biggest features of the Google Plus for iPhone (and Android) that could attract more members is the Huddle or instant messaging service embedded inside the native app. Apparently, Google Plus members can IM each other cross-platform using Android or iPhone to communicate — this could also replace the old-school text messaging service, and even RIM’s popular BBM.

Anyway, Paul Allen of Ancestry.com is also predicting that Google Plus population were most likely male dominating, but women quickly catching up, contrary to previous reports posted by “flawed” (as Allen called it) Social Statistics data. Allen told his Google Plus followers that as of June 15th, Google Plus users consist of 66.4% Male and 33.6% Female. It should be noted that Allen is the first public figure to predict the first two weeks population of Google Plus (which is 10M), that Google CEO Larry Page has confirmed during his last quarterly earnings call.

SRC.http://popherald.com/news/google-plus-users-update-18-million-users-33-female-report/8659/2011/07/20