As you may or may not know, we just relocated from the US to Bangalore. While we wait for our stuff to come (shipped by sea), we are living a somewhat nomadic life. The latest temporary residence happens to be a decent hotel, but before that we spent a few days in a guest house and before that, with my uncle and aunt.

For the past week or so, for one reason or the other, both our iPads have not come out of the suitcase. The kids have started going to school so they don’t need entertainment during the day, there was no wifi at the guest house earlier, and there is good wifi here in the hotel but we have a PC that we use a lot and for quick email triage and Facebook/Twitter/ADN, I end up using my phone more than anything else.

As a result, not only have the iPad not been used, more importantly, they have not been missed. We have not once felt like we would rather use the iPad. The kids used to play random games (dress up Barbie or restaurant manager are current favorites) but they have the TV to entertain them after the come from school. For the past several months I have noticed that my use of the iPad has strictly been Twitter, Facebook and the browser. Between the phone and the laptop, I haven’t needed to get the iPad for any of those uses.

This could very well be because we are not settled into “our house” yet. In other words, if the iPad were there on the coffee table, we would of course pick it up than open the laptop. However, I am seriously thinking, if instead of a laptop, I had a Windows RT “device”, I would be absolutely ok and in fact would prefer it. That would take care of the thin-and-light thing that is lying around on the coffee table, and also fits well as a “better computer” than the iPad when hooked to the dock at the desk. So that casual Excel or Word files that I may need to edit on-the-go, can actually be done without fumbling with pinching and zooming to no end.

The kids have enough “entertainment” options outside of the iPad, and even today, there are plenty of games and game-like apps in the Windows Store to keep them busy (and educated at the same time) so they won’t miss the iPad.

There you have it. I am ready to get a Surface RT to replace my iPad 2. At least one of the two that I own.