[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by SmokeAndMirrors

Well, I'm part of that 10% I guess. As a writer, a tablet is useless to me. That is most of what I do on a computer.

But it strikes me that you're wrong about tablets being so appealing and versatile when you look at the numbers. More people own ereaders than tablets, by a pretty big margin. And ereaders a niche product. Tablets can't even compete with ereaders. There's a reason for that.

I don't think this is correct, factually...and I don't think that the two are comparable anyway. Why not compare mp3 players and tablets?

Ereaders do what they do really well. They don't try to be things they aren't, and they don't do anything half-assed. Tablets do almost everything half-assed, and they have no specific purpose. In addition to that, they have very poor ergonomics and present the same problem that we had before the typewriter - your hand covering what you're trying to look at.

This depends on your use case. They are better to carry around all day and easier to look certain things up with. They have larger and better screens that most netbooks, while being lighter, smaller, and having better battery life. They are more ergonomic than balancing a netbook on your lap.

I have a convertible touch netbook. That is a perfect solution to me. It weighs a bit more than a tablet, but honestly, without a real keyboard, tablets are useless to me anyway and I'd be carrying around an external keyboard if I had one - so weight-wise it works out about the same.

It has great handwriting recognition. So if I need to take quick notes while I'm standing or moving I can swivel down the screen and do that, or to quickly read PDF's, or whatever.

If I need to actually get things *done* I can swivel it out again and use the real keyboard. And it has a full operating system.

That's great for your use system. Although when I need to do a lot of writing, I'd much rather do it on my desktop than on my netbook. But different people have different needs.

$500 may not be expensive to you, but it certainly is for me. I could buy a whole 'nother netbook for that price, and it would be vastly more functional. Hell, I could buy 2.

Words matter. I objected to your use of the term "very expensive." (And, obviously, that's still in the eye of the beholder.)

I should point out, however, that while I don't think it makes sense to compare e-readers to tablets, I think it does make sense to compare netbooks to tablets. (Which is the comparison you make yourself). And in this case, tablets are dominant - with 13.6 million tablets shipping last quarter vs. 7.3 million netbooks. That's a 112% increase in tablet shipments vs. a 13% decline for netbooks. I have both and the tablet is much more useful.

But honestly, if I'm part of a 10% minority on one end of the spectrum, I think you're part of a 10% minority on the other end. I may not represent the average user due to the amount of output I do, but I don't know any average users who use their tablets a whole lot. Most of them say they bought it, it was neat for a week, and they use it less and less. They can do all the same stuff on their netbook/notebook plus a lot more, and it will do it a lot better than a tablet could. Why bother?

I see tablets for sale on campus all the time, from students who bought them thinking they'd be useful for class. My dad got a tablet a month ago... and now he hardly uses it. Because it just isn't that useful.

Maybe it is for you and what you do, but from what I can tell you're as much a minority as me.

That's fair enough - and the vast majority of people don't use their personal (as opposed to work) computers for any actual work at all, aside from perhaps writing short e-mails. They just don't have jobs like that. But, as I think I mentioned earlier, I see about 50/50 tablet vs. laptop usage when I am doing work outside of my particular office. And I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes more and more prevalent in many professional jobs.