I have a tablet with magnetic keyboard. It’s about 20% as heavy as my laptop, doesn’t make a noise when it’s trying to keep itself cool and allows me to shop online, read some news, or browse Lemmy just fine.

They do it to fit into an in group called havers. The have stuff.

Because they’re different than a laptop, desktop, phone, with different capabilities and limitations.

Why are you using Lemmy when reddit works better?

(By “better”, I’m sure someone could make arguments why reddit works better for them, that would make as much sense as OP’s opinion on “better” regarding these devices).

Or more simply, your opinion is just that - your opinion.

I use a Pine64 watch, and set it as a notification center. It shows me notifications as they come in, so I don’t have to take my phone out of my pocket while at work. It allows me to see if the notification is urgent or if it can wait until break. When I’m not at work, I put on an analog watch. I don’t use tablets, except for an ereader.

Edit: added link.

since a lot of functionality at my job that doesn’t require me to physically be in the office can be done on a web browser I use my tablet as a work computer if the office is occupied. before this year I used my smartwatch as a phone monitor because even vibrating I can’t feel my phone ringing in my pocket or vibrate for text messages. and it was literally vitally important that I be available 24/7. these days I no longer need to be constantly available but I now have to monitor my glucose levels so I found a watchface and corresponding phone app to send that information to my phone.

tablets and watches still have a place for a lot of people.

Tablet is just a bigger screen…

And this is why I got a tablet, I needed more space in my screen 🤷‍♂️

I prefer to read manga and comics on a tablet screen, easy to make text bigger for someone with dyslexia, more portable than a laptop, not to mention cheaper. Smart watch makes it so u don’t have to pull out my phone when i get a notification at work or when my hands are full, and i can glance to see if it’s important. Also helps me reduce my screen time, and lengthens my phone’s battery life. As far as tracking, i have almost all tracking disabled except what is necessary for operation of the “local”(i have precise gps disabled) weather. All health features and telemetry disabled/routed to 0.0.0.0. i understand not everyone has uses for these kinda of devices, but that doesn’t mean no one does. My watch lasts 2+ months on a charge, my phone 1-3 days, tablet, lives connected to a wall unless i wanna read on the go. I don’t worry about battery life.

I use my tablet to take handwritten notes.

Tablet: Read magazines and watch TV shows. You might be fine if you own a large phone, though.

I’ve bought probably 5 or 6 tablets in my life. Each time, I thought I’d find a use for them. Every time, though, I ended up giving them away to someone so they didn’t languish in a drawer.

The only use I found for a tablet was as an e-reader, but it was never really great at it (too large/awkward, poor battery life, etc). Bought a Kobo for that, and it’s perfect.

Smartwatches? I can see the appeal for those. I don’t wear it anymore, but the one I had was useful to use as a remote control for my phone (answer calls, see incoming notifications, music control, etc) while leaving my phone in my pocket. It didn’t have any radio besides Wifi/BLE and was purely an accessory device. It synced with my phone via GadgetBridge, and everything stayed local.

And a smartwatch with a cell radio is no more/less a tracking device than the phone you’re already carrying. Assuming you’re not syncing your health data to some cloud service, that is.

I got iPad for drawing and reading comics/manga on a bigger screen and reading/writing on PDFs.

I hate watches. Back before pocket phones (I’m old enough to remember when car phones were a thing for the rich) I carried a pocket watch instead of a wrist watch like most people had. Once I got a flip phone which fit in my pocket I stopped using the pocket watch. (I don’t remember why I had both a “candy bar” phone and a pocket watch)

I use my tablet for site surveys and leave my phone at home or work. It is light to carry, has great battery life, has a sim card, memory slot, headphone jack. When I’m done work I can watch a film. It’s some shitty Samsung thing work gave me, it’s great. I don’t think I would ever buy a tablet myself though.

I do not have a use for a smart watch.

Tablet

Great for watching videos, reading the newspaper and drawing (with a digital pen).

I actually don’t have a laptop anymore, because I found that a tablet could do everything I needed on the go with less bulk, longer lasting battery and no fan noise.

Smartwatch

Tracks my heartrate (had some issues with elevated heart rate before), guilt-trips me into doing more excercise, shows me notifications without having to get my phone out, displays the time with a customizable watch face.

I have a Garmin for trail running, but it has a compass, offline maps, barometric altimeter, bunch of other stuff. I used it to plan a 2000 mile route through Canada while driving last summer because my phone had shit-tier 2G/3G roaming. I have it scheduled to go into ultra battery conservation mode when I should be sleeping and only need to charge it every 2 weeks.

It also records activities even without a phone, just need internet to upload it to Strava later, so pretty handy to be able to run without a phone (Strava or it didn’t happen lol)