Bottom line: Should you buy a laptop or a tablet? If you want a portable computer to stream videos, browse the internet, hop on video calls, or work in cloud-based services like Google Docs, a tablet will work beautifully. If you want to do anything besides the activities just mentioned, a laptop is often your best bet.

Bottom line: If you need to do serious work, need powerful processing or multitasking, or need compatibility with a specific accessory or storage device, there's no good alternative to the laptop. Tablets can fulfill some of these needs some of the time, but when it's time to get things done, the laptop still reigns.

If you want something that will let you surf the Internet, email, listen to music, read ebooks, and play casual games while on the go, a tablet is the better choice. If your technology needs require more processing power and local storage, like if you engage in a lot of academic research or business analysis, you should consider a laptop.

Every household should have at least one laptop, so if this is going to be your main or only computing device, a laptop is the way to go. However, if you're looking for a child's first gadget or a media-consumption system, a tablet still makes sense.