freescale_tablet_demo_at_mwc_2010

The “Tablet”, Are You Getting One?

By on March 9, 2010 in News

I have a folder in my IE Favorites titled “Sites to check for WGS news”  Sometimes I even open that folder and check out a few of the URLs.  Tonight, I opened that folder and clicked on eHomeUpgrade.  3 of the 4 most recent posts dealt with:

What are all those devices?  Some form of Tablet, right?  Take those particular devices, add the Kindle,

f95c81b0c8a06e4aea1ca110 L thumb The “Tablet”, Are You Getting One?

the iPad,

safari 20100307 thumb The “Tablet”, Are You Getting One?

and any others that don’t come right to mind; we have the “me, too” tablet phenomenon being demonstrated.

I know, we are a WHS site.  But I am sure a great deal of you are PC and/or Mac enthusiasts.

As these tablets all fall into the enthusiast area (yes/no/maybe so?), I am just curious.  Does anyone here care?  Or, perhaps the better question is: who is planning on getting one?  Or two.

I read an article earlier today (I forgot where) that this is the last year of growth for netbooks.  The netbook fad is over already.  Perhaps replaced by the “Tablet”?  Who knows?

So, I just wanna know.  Why would I want one?  Why would you want one?  Please tell me why!


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About Jim Clark

Hello. I’m from the heartland of the U.S. Lots of corn and beans, although Iowa is a lot more than just farmland. It also has a few computer enthusiasts (no, not me!). I’ve been around PCs since I got my 1st PC XT aloooong time ago. WGS is one of the first sites I found centered around WHS. And the best. Every once in awhile, I do get away from the KB and enjoy time with and my wife and our 4 kids. And I do have a day job.
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  • DV-Design

    I dont beleive netbooks are a fad, i think they will continue to be mainstream as long as Intel doesnt do what it did with the second gen Atoms again. I think the next generation netbook processor has to offer a bit more muscle without sacrificing battery life.

    As for the tablets, i think there is a contingency to them catching on, and thats 3g/4g service. The kindle in my mind and other ebook readers do not fall into this category as they serve a very specific purpose. I consider a tablet (not the traditional idea but the newfound one like what HP has made) to be a functional computer…however the only reason its format is desirable is for extreme portability.

    With that portability lack of internet would kill the desire. It needs to fit the niche between netbook and smartphone. After all i can access the internet from a capable smartphone from anywhere i have a signal, however the screen is very small…and i can also access the internet anywhere using a netbook provided i have a 3g/4g card, however the netbook format is not great for holding and moving with. So if you can fit between the smartphone and netbook without dropping internet service…then i see these new tablets being useful to some people.

    Personally, im holding out for a smartphone or extremely portable computer that doubles as a phone. Another interesting gadget would be the rumored psp phone, thats something i would be interested in provided it comes with a slightly better browser then current ps3/psp models.

    I want 1 device that i can truely utilize as a phone/computer on the go. Id like it to provide the main feature set of any computer (full browser, media viewing/playback, email, expandability by programs/apps, etc). I dont expect it to replace my desktop or even my laptop, but i do expect it to be more useful then most smartphones out there now…watching some of the smartphone owners try to do anything internet related from one is amusng (usually they spend 5-10mins fumbling then just give up).

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/urmaster urmaster

    Hey Jim wonderful question, I'm be interested in seeing the responses too. Me no because they don't have a place for me:

    My laptop gives me the power and large form factor.
    My smartphone gives me the small form facter.
    My DS or PSP consoles give me real games on the go.

    Ok so I don't carry all 3 at the same time but the tablet doesn't seem to fit in anywhere or at least not on enough occasions.

    What I'm totally stocked for is laptops with detachable screens:

    http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/04/lenovo-ideapad…

    This will give me that rare tablet usage and double as a laptop for a better pricepoint.

  • John Shelton

    I find myself only using my smart phone to make "smart" phone calls and to store information (address, phone number, birth date, children's names and ages, etc., etc.) about everyone I know, and for nothing else. I find my netbook and Verizon 3G aircard totally capable for everything else that a smart phone is theoretically capable of but does VERY poorly. I contest the idea that the netbook (laptop smaller than 12" – - my definition of netbook) is dead. I think it will be around as a mainstream device for a long time to come. Perhaps a tablet will be able to steal some thunder from the netbook, but I believe that the tablet will compete more closely with the not-so-capable cell phone. The net book will still be enjoying some degree of success when the tablet fad is long forgotten.

  • http://missingremote.com Adidas4275

    I will be buying an iPad first…. I own an iPhone and want my wife to have similar experience without paying for another data connection.

    the iPad will also be a home automation controller with homeseer

    then i will buy a currier. This will be after I buy my new Windows Phone 7 in december.

    the HP slate looks okay, but it will have to boot… which means waiting and for a sofa browsing device that is no good… also i dont want a full OS on a slate…. it needs to be a refined touch based OS,

    I love W7 and have 4 PCs and 2 Notebooks with it, also my wife owns a 13" unibody macbook, I have a WHS and have a touchscreen based W7 in wall PC.

  • AndyR

    I use my Iphone to do pretty much everything, even rdp into my server which is pretty much all I nead but am still drooling over the ipad which will be a must for me and the missis, mine will come in usefull at work with the 3g as a wider/bigger screen rather than squinting at the iPhone.

    I did like the hp but the tablet is something I've been after for years and no one had made one usefull enough untill the ipad which will pretty much do most things you want it to withou the boot times and the ui that's not desinged to be used as a touch screen like Msw on hp's tablet.

    I'm just hoping the ipad will have some app desinged for use with the whs for movie viewing with a full screen ui when browsing movies like the my movies adding provides for wmc.

  • JohnCz

    I'll take Courier by a mile. iPad looks like a big finger iPod. Netbooks never really made a sense to me as I already have laptop. But Courier seems so natural and I absolutely love its pen capabilities. I prefer to have an experience other than navigating through a computer or portable player ui.

    • wozza

      I have to agree about the stylus – onscreen keyboards are fine for phones, but not for these larger format tablets, where you're clearly meant to use them for more than just a quick email or text.

      The Courier looks really interesting, assuming it actually gets released of course! And the paint app it has looks great too – and additional advantage of the stylus over the finger.

  • Mike Lowrey

    If the first tablet with a real LinuxOS or Windows on it are in stores and if i’m able to play about 6 hours with it, I will buy such a tablet.

    The most interesting things i see is a big “controller” for home automation, using it as an admin console for my home server and of course as a media device for MePo TV Server (hopefully) webbased!

  • Malcolm

    I think the Courier has real potential – even my technologically conservative (literate, but conservative) wife thought it was brilliant and was raving about it to her friends – that never happens!

  • scott

    Need an "always on" computer to use in the car while making sales calls. Net/Note books require opening the unit up, smartphones are too small to do real work. I want Windows 7 so i can run apps for customers. Oh yea, fits in my narrow briefcase.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/urmaster urmaster

      Use standby on the netbook sorted.

  • http://gcoupe.spaces.live.com Geoff Coupe

    I've had an HP Pavilion TX2000 Tablet PC for a couple of years now. It can be used both as a Tablet and a conventional laptop. I use it mainly around the house in both modes for a variety of uses (e.g. browsing, writing), but recently it's often being used as a DLNA DMC to stream music from our WHS to our Hi-Fi, using the "Play to" feature of the Windows Media Player in Windows 7.

  • Tim

    I would buy a courier over an ipad simply for the pen interface. I want to use it in the corporate world. As part of my job, I do a lot of hand calculations on paper. I think that it would be great if I could have windows recognize my handwriting and import the text into mathcad to do the grunt work. But why stop there? Bring it to meetings and take notes, draw up schematics, etc.
    I think the biggest reason that the ipad will fail is because as far as businesses are concerned, it serves no purpose.

  • guest

    I will be getting one, maybe 2 different tablets. First I'll be getting a tablet that runs Windows 7 hand has 1080p-support, this will be used as a mediatablet at home with Mediaportal. That way I can carry a TV with me all around the house, probably a HP Slate if that can handle the 1080p.

    And then I might also get myself a ARM-tablet that I can bring with me when I'm traveling for expanded battery life.

  • katy b

    I recently got an iphone, and it filled a niche which my wm6 device failed to. I also have a netbook running ubuntu but would love a tablet pc, as I don't really type much on my netboook so a virtual keyboard would be fine. I would never, however, consider an ipad because of the lack of flash support. I would want a tablet mainly for multimedia and general web surfing but flash is a must for this. That is the one and only gripe I have with my iphone.

    I definitely think waiting till at least the first quarter of next year is a must though, as with the start of the netbook craze, a lot of the 1st gen models were superseded by much better ones.

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    When I click your RSS feed it puts up a page of unformatted html, is the issue on my end?