Not for me they won't although I have nothing against them really they just aren't as useful for me and don't even equal a netbook never mind a laptop or notebook in terms of usefulness. My opinion on Tablets is they are media consumption devices they are fine to surf the net on, watch movies, read books etc. For many people this is all they need and while I do think they have a future they aren't replacing PC's for me anytime. Tablets are great gadgets and very useful they just aren't a replacement for computers definitely more of a second machine.
I'm not sure where I stand on tablets. I was dismissive when they were announced/showed up but in a short time even I must admit they've become a VERY big deal. Also they seem to be extremely popular with the kiddies.. As a developer I look forward to making apps that take specific advantage of the benefits of such a device (more than just "higher-rez graphics") and that is exciting to me. As a consumer, personally, I think it'd be a nice toy but I don't view it as a necessity.. yet. (mind you that I've never owned a laptop, either...)
I should clarify. When I said replace, I meant for office-work related uses for people like myself. I use a laptop mostly for creating documents, ppts and excel files. And mails of course. As far as these functionalities go, I would love to have a 12-14 inch tablet with a detachable keyboard that stays in office. And an OS which treats a tablet like a computer and not a mobile phone. That surely isn't too far away. And as far as tablet fully replacing a "computer" for people who do need a lot of processing power for compiling programs and generating heavy duty things... tablets will not work for them. But even then, their monitors will surely be touch sensitive and they will allow tablet-like experience. That's not too hard to imagine.
Even in a workplace scenario, I don't see how tablets are going to replicate what desktop or laptop systems do now; unless everyone suddenly decides to put all their databases in the cloud. Don't see that happening anytime soon.
not "everybody," but I am sure more and more companies will stick stuff up on Google Docs and the like rather than store it locally (particularly if it is secure). Well, I have definitely heard of plenty of offices doing such things already. It will be a long time before that becomes de rigueur, "if ever" I do suspect that eventually hardware will generally get reduced to a bunch of terminals/interface devices with the guts being generally "offsite" (or shrunk down so tiny/efficiently that they are no longer considered relatively cumbersome). What we are experiencing right now - smart phones, tablets - is still a fairly early stage in that evolution, but it certainly is noticeably different now than things were a decade ago.
I might get a Windows Phone 7 once it's mature enough, and the app number and quality is on par with my iPhone apps like the games and my medical apps like Campbell's and Netter's stuff
I had some decent hopes for WP7 but am surprised how little support it's got (guess I shouldn't be). Sounds like it's a nightmare to develop for (as far as getting any kind of feature support from ms) and their track record still baffles me in all of this. Sigh. Oh well, at least there's still something out there..
Both of these posts seem to focus more on where tablets are at right now rather than where they're heading. If you look at the iPad, Apple shot it almost half way to laptop status in one swoop. They've only just caught on and the technology is still in diapers, tablets have a lot more evolution to go through yet. Right now I don't need or want one at all, but look say, 10 years into the future and the tablets on the market will be absolutely mind boggling. You'll probably have your cloud by then too.
I actually was thinking of the future and where they (tablets) are headed. There are several Android based tablets out now and some releasing in the near future that have a "laptop" type dock, I'm thinking about things like connectivity, bandwidth etc. Given the problems Amazon had recently, and Sony still going through-I don't see it making much of an impact in an office setting. I think they have great potential but at this point they're more recreational (at least marketed as such) than anything else. I'd love nothing more than to be able to take a tablet somewhere and write, create .pdf's etc, but need a keyboard to do that. Sure I can use a bluetooth enabled one, but that means lugging it around; may as well have my laptop instead. I love Swype on my Android for text messaging and quick emails (or comments on forums), but for anything more than a couple of paragraphs a physical keyboard is a must. Tablets have an identity crisis-it can do lots of things but masters none of them. I wouldn't be surprised to see them start being segmented at some point in the future. ie: consumer and business. Tablets may become more mainstream in the future but I don't see them replacing laptops/desktops in the near or distant future (of course I didn't think e-readers would take off either, so there ya go).
