I see these fondleslabs as a toy rather than a tool. Outside of the cult of Steve Jobs I only see these as serving a niche group.
I think the PC manufacturers thought that tablets would replace PC's and are now discovering that this is not the case. HP does what HP does best and was at the cutting edge of failure, they smashed their ship into the shores of who gives a f**k. Microsoft and other manufacturers are poised to start supporting ARM and other mobile platforms, the MBA dbag brigade are all salivating at moving PC users into a closed platform where they sell them everything in a DRM/DLC cesspool like gaming consoles are today. Apples dominance over the tablet marketplace and the niche market already saturated I see this as big ideas in a small marketplace.
Long live PC's
I completely and totally agree with you. ALL webos, ios, and android based tablets are *toys*. You cannot use them as a primary device for anything serious. You could not get rid of your phones and computers and use it solely as your only means of computing. That is, unless your needs can be fully met with surfing and playing angry birds. We are after all a site full of computer enthusiasts, so please keep in mind that I'm talking about this site's target audience.
So, apple/hp/google will say it's supposed to be your THIRD device and shouldn't be thought of as a primary. Do serious work on your main computer, do mobile stuff on your phone... and if you happen to sitting on your couch and you like holding something relatively heavy up with your one arm and smudging the screen with your other hand, then the tablet fills that nitch.
If a modern tablet was a light as a kindle, then that would be one thing, unfortunately they are not. They are a toy with very few uses and it's fun to touch webpages and make them fly around and pinch and zoom and whatnot. So then comes the kicker... is it really worth $500+ for a toy that is a third device with a very limited use? Hell no. is it worth $100-$150? Hell yeah. Thus why i bought the touchpad 32gb. I still have to force myself to use it only for the novelty of it and i'm already working on hacking it (it's actually incredibly easy to do).
The only serious tablet I would contend to be more than a toy would be a good convertible laptop... those with the swivel screens which still support multi-touch, but can be used as a traditional laptop when you want to do serious work. I don't know why they haven't really caught on. You have the best of both worlds, full laptop when you need it, fully-touch tablet when you want to just play around. The worst thing is the weight, but since the screen swivels around, it can actually hold itself up and not need some accessory to remember to bring with you to do the same.
Topic: HP touchpad (8/5 - 8/7 only) $200 off (Read 3869 times)