I used one of these at an Outback Steakhouse a few weeks ago.
It was a bit awkward, because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to use the tablet or not. The waitress still came and took our order, then put it in on the tablet. At the end, we saw we could pay (and we did) but the waitress still brought us a check.
I guess the weirdness could be solved by better communication from the wait staff.
The best thing was that it easily allowed you to split your bill among multiple credit cards. This is easily the biggest pain about eating out with a group of people.
I would prefer they get rid of waiters entirely and just have runners for the food. Then I can stop stressing about tips and grumpy waiters. In NYC, the waiter actually improves rather than detracts from my dining experience less than 5% of the time.
If it's such a formulaic process, the control should just be completely taken away from the end customer.
Other reasons that tipping should exist: it only serves to perpetuate racism [1] and sexism [2]. A lot of waiters have preconceived notions about what kind of people tip more, who tip less, etc.: they're expecting business people in suits to pay more, and African Americans to pay less. So what happens when the two enter a restaurant? Servers fight among themselves on who should get who... because it's an issue of money for them. Trust me, I once worked at a restaurant -- it got ugly.
The sooner we can get rid of this strange and hate-inspiring custom, the better. Better for customers, better for restaurant owners, cooks, dishwashers, everyone.
Tipping is a cost sharing mechanism between restaurant operators and customers. Through an immense social reengineering effort, we could rid ourselves of the convention, and at the same time simultaneously raise prices for customers everywhere while at the same time lowering the income of professional (ie, non-temporary) servers. This doesn't seem like a great place to invest effort.
I have a friend from Australia that visits America regularly. We were talking about tipping once. They don't tip in Australia, and instead, just pay the wait staff and bartenders a large, regular salary. So a tipless dining economy can certainly work.
My friend said when he first encountered tipping in America, he did not understand it. At some point, he got it. He figured out how to use tipping to establish long-term relationships with the staff at the different restaurants and bars ... which you could then leverage in other social situations. People remember you, and when it is important, they will help you out. It was less about getting good service for oneself so much as demonstrating social proof for negotiations. What he said echoed some of the things I've heard from the pick-up artist community, though he was applying it as much to business dealings as anything else.
I've read the blog post written by the restaurant owner who talked about how tipping is primarily a power issue. That there's this underlying, smarmy association of tipping with fantasies of intimate relations with the waitresses. But now that I'm recalling my conversation with my friend, I realize that, while that kind of dynamic is indeed at play for some folks, it also seem like a waste of time and resources. Being able to establish influence at a number of venues that can later be tapped seemed more sensible to me. Meaning that, if you're not actually dealing and trading in power and influence, then you're indulging in the illusion of power and influence. I suppose people have to get their entertainment in some form.
To be fair, not being able to tip won't bother the folks who use it to maintain their network. They'll just find other ways to establish relationships with the staff.
You can use tipping that way, but you're not if you just tip 15%, which is all you're expected to tip. At 15%, you are, as I said before, sharing a cost with the owner of the restaurant that would otherwise be reflected directly in the cost of items on the menu, as it is in Australia.
It was a bit awkward, because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to use the tablet or not. The waitress still came and took our order, then put it in on the tablet. At the end, we saw we could pay (and we did) but the waitress still brought us a check.
I guess the weirdness could be solved by better communication from the wait staff.
The best thing was that it easily allowed you to split your bill among multiple credit cards. This is easily the biggest pain about eating out with a group of people.