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My $200 Laptop Can Beat Your $500 Tablet
Roblimo writes "Yes, we know tablets like the iPad are the wave of the future and that PCs and laptops are dead. But some of us see tablets as laptops with their keyboards missing and a few hundred bucks tacked onto the price."
Modern notebooks/netbooks weigh very little. If you put a fancier hinge and a touchscreen layer on a Macbook Air's screen, how much heavier would that make it? Don't forget, almost all laptops use li-ion batteries instead of the much lighter and more space-efficient li-pos.
The big question is whether it will be a PC-like laptop running a desktop OS, or an Atrix-4G like device, basically a convertible laptop body for a phone, running a less functional OS. It could go either way. Assuming this walled garden fad wears off soon (every walled garden in the history of general-purpose computing has failed so far), I'd say it'll be an Atrix-like device, otherwise it will be a PC-like device. Either way it won't weigh significantly more than a tablet and will be far more useful.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
A long time ago when getting prepared for hiking at Philmont someone told me "By the end of the day an ounce will feel like a pound."
At first, we laughed at the nuts who cut the handles down on their toothbrushes. After a week we wished we had done so as well.
A a few pounds difference may not be noticeable during your basement to kitchen table commute but for others ounces can make it more comfortable to carry.
Actually a tablet can be used for creating and consuming. 5 minutes on the Apple site shows that very clearly. As to whether "there's nothing that you do with an iPad that you couldn't do on a laptop", while that is (mostly) true, how is that relevant? I could easily say "there's nothing that you do with a laptop that you couldn't do on a desktop" and it would have just as much relevance (none!) to the discussion.
The iPad was introduced as a revolutionary device that covers the space between a phone and a laptop. In reality is a device that's not appropriate for either purpose, with non or little actual space to cover in between (at least for the moment). If you really think about it, there's nothing that you do with an iPad that you couldn't do on a laptop. By extension I think this applies to any kind of tablet.
You're right, in terms of function there's really not much you can do with a tablet you can't do with a laptop, and a tabet isn't really a phone or a laptop...
But where a tablet is nice, is doing some of the same functions with a different form factor. Like someone else pointed out above somewhere, I can take my tablet on the subway and read things on it, where I'd find it extremely difficult to do the same with a laptop, especially if I'm stuck standing, holding on with one hand.
It's nice, too, that it's a well sealed package, so if I take it to a restaurant, I can use it without worrying about getting food or drink in the keyboard.
It's a better tool for some uses than a laptop.
Why do you get to decide what's a "justifiable use"? I like to use my iPad as a browser on the couch, and to check email. I find that if I'm sitting in front of the TV, I'd rather not sit with my laptop all the time. I also find my iPhone a little too small for viewing when I have the option of a larger screen. As for an e-reader, I prefer the iPad because I'm not locked into a single store for books; I can buy from the Kindle, Nook, Borders, and Apple stores, among others. I do have a "wider variety of devices" but the tablet fits certain use cases that I have. Don't think that "justifiable uses" fit everyone.
The iPad does give you a nice user experience, if all you basically want to do is consume. However if you want to do anything more than play with a toy, you may need something different.
I'm afraid you don't get what Steve Jobs does: Most people today and certainly the vast majority in the iPad target audience, already have a computer. You can try selling them a new one, or you can sell them a totally new device that satisfies needs that their existing machine doesn't.
Take me, for example. I'll be buying an iPad 2 when it comes out this week in my country, even though I already have two computers in this house, and my girlfriend has another two, and two out of those four are a notebook and a netbook. But none of them allow me to lie down on the couch and ready a PDF book comfortably. Or take with me when I go on a trip in much the same way I'd take a book.
It's not a pressing issue - if I had to build my household from scratch, a computer would come first, long before a tablet, but neither is a tablet simply a notebook without keyboard. Whoever writes that disqualifies himself from the discussion as not having understood a thing about why the iPad sells as quickly as the factories can make 'em.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org