Anything with a real keyboard.

Laptop

I use a HP 2 in 1. It has the full Keyboard for searching the web. It is has a small screen like a tablet, 10.5 inches. Also a touch screen. Its small and handy for tossing on another pin to keep reference photos nearby during my restorations.

I use an iPad. Easier to put it where I want it than a laptop. Takes great pictures.

Tablet when it's used as a viewing screen for documents, photos, and videos.

Laptop if you're using it as an input or output device (typing, surfing, downloading, burning EPROMs, etc)

I take a lot of photos when I work on a game and use them for reference. I was spending most of my time going back to my office to check on something. So I got a laptop for my shop. Best thing I ever did. It’s a Dell Studio with full size keyboard and a large screen. Unfortunately I don’t have LAN in my shop so I must use WiFi. I think the WiFi is slower and I could never use a touch pad keyboard – just old school I guess.

There are different versions of wireless standard.

Wireless G will seem slow when trying to access high resolution images. Wireless n or ac are newer standards and can handle high resolution images with little to no delay.

It's possible that you might need to replace your wireless access point (or router if it's an all-in-one unit) with a newer model that supports those newer wireless standards.

Personally, for consumer electronics, I prefer the Asus wireless routers--they're rock solid, much more secure than other consumer grade routers, they receive regular updates (other manufacturers tend to abandon their products after a short time), and the firmware is richly featured, so you can customize things to your liking.

Last Xmas I bought a FIRE tablet for this very purpose. My other
hobby is old (tube) ham and s/w radios so I'm constantly in need
of view able manuals and schematics. The 10" version of the FIRE
is perfect for this. Not as large as laptops so takes up little
space on the bench. It uses the three-finger approach to move or
expand/compress pages which is real convenient. Built in wifi works fine.

The biggest drawback is these things include seemingly built in ads
which are easy to bypass but annoying. Paid $99 for mine at Target.
Steve

Tablets are better, since they are much easier to swallow than laptops. Although some prefer gelcaps.

I have a small chromebook in the shop for looking things up, referencing images, diagrams, whatever, keyboard is a must in my book. it's actually a convertible one with touchscreen so does tablet mode as well. it's also fanless so I don't worry about dust at all. plays music to a pair of speakers on the rare occasion i want that as well. shop is a detached metal building so had no signal unless I was near the ceiling next to the translucent strip at the top of the walls, so that's where I mounted an additional access point to bridge to the house, works great.

65" HD TV with a desktop PC with lots of USB ports.

Laptop.

Tablets are dumb. Nothing I can do on a tablet that I can't do on my phone which fits easily in my pocket.

They are good for tournament scorekeeping I guess.

Laptop for doing anything useful and a phone/tablet for screwing around. Recently I picked up an e-ink reader for my manuals and other documents. What's really cool with the new e-ink readers is that several come with a stylus for note taking and sketching. It's nice to be able to pull up the old service manuals and be able to jot down notes or circle key info for later.