I've been on the fence for weeks over whether or not to buy I-pad or other tablet and start practicing with electronic charts. Thanks for starting this thread.
At recent training sponsored by local FSDO, the FAA inspectiors described their MO for conducting ramp checks. Note that there are Maint inspectors and Ops inspectors, they apparently look at different things. The Ops guy said, if he didn't find current paper, he'd accept current data on an Ipad.
I don't use a cell phone much, I pay $100/yr for an old T-Mobile brick and usually don't even turn it on.
I'm just cheap. One look at the internet message boards proves that most of what folks have to say isn't worth paying to hear. Phone company marketing people have always done a great job of creating a sense of need for their more expensive products. In any case,
I'm thinking IPAD might be responsive enough, I believe I can upload sufficent qty of latest charts when I'm near a big wifi pipe.
Maybe I can update and use my Garmin Aera 510 datafor a backup, on my the occational long cross country.
Another tablet concern I had is tabbing across screens to an app that lets me write down frequencies, clearance changes, hold instructions etc.
I tried one tablet device that ran on the andriod OS and found it to be clunkier than Apple's. At this point, I'm leaning toward the I-pad.