(Photo by Alex Washburn for Wired.)

I've spoken before of switching from an iPhone to a Samsung Galaxy S4 (review here), and from a MacBook to a PC gaming Laptop from Kustom PCs. After years of being an Apple fangirl, I became a bit more educated in terms of computers and hardware and realised that Apple charge double what their products are worth, spec-wise, because they're shiny, trendy, and run on OSX. As such, my Windows laptop cost half what the mid-range MacBook Pro did at the time, but with equal or better hardware inside it.

Aside from the iPod, which I am a long-time fan of, one Apple device I'd always liked was the Ipad. When I first got mine, it was a functional and incredibly handy device that I took to uni regularly, wherein I could use a write essays and read scholarly articles on it. The latter has however proved impossible with the introduction of the new iOS 7. Safari will now refuse to open any of my articles or handouts because they're Adobe Reader files, which it won't co-operate with. My iPad, which I got for university, was suddenly a whole lot less useful to me.

I'd been using my iPad less and less because it wasn't as functional as I'd like it to be, but this really pushed me to consider what would be suitable for me to take to university. I can't bring my laptop in easily as it has some serious hardware inside it and is thus pretty heavy, but on the two occasions that I did have my laptop on me, it was fantastic. With my full desktop I was able to tether it to my phone's 3G connection and work on a Google Docs presentation, as well as research and write an essay. It was so productive, and I realised that what would really suit me is a Windows tablet.

Enter the HP Envy X2. It's a 'convertible' laptop and tablet hybrid, whereby the screen detaches from a keyboard dock so that you effectively get two devices in one. It runs full Windows 8 (not RT) and I think it's exactly what I'm looking for. I've just bought one on eBay, as the full-price device is too expensive for me, with the intention of selling my iPad on there to recoup most of the cost. I'll be posting a review of it soon, as I've been a bit dissatisfied with a lot of reviews I've found online, and I hope that it will be of use to some.