[jabberwock_11]

For many people, myself included, tablets HAVE replaced laptops. My Asus Transformer is designed to work with its dock as a netbook type device (hence the transformer portion of its name). This is not a BT keyboard, but a keyboard that docks directly with the tablet, there is no "homebrew" about it. That's one of the big selling points, that it has an integratted keyboard dock designed specifically for it. Even with the dock it is smaller and more powerful than most netbooks. The business software is also arguably becoming more powerful and functional for android tablets.

The whole point of the article, and my point as well, is that more and more often people are seeing greater value in tablets for everyday use. Tablets are quickly taking the place of dedicated devices such as ereaders. This is easy enough to see, just look at the number of people on this forum who have switched from eink devices to tablets.

In specialized fields or with people who work in high tech industry an android tablet or ipad will not be the tool of choice, but that is true of every industry. I would NEVER consider using an otoscope or BP cuff from a drug store, but that does not mean that the average consumer would think twice about it. The average consumer is the person who dictates general market trends. If most consumers decide that tablets are a better value than eink devices then the market share for eink devices will shrink, in spite of their vastly superior ability to be used in prolonged reading. Devices with better market image will beat out other devices every time, even if the other devices are superior. Anyone who believes that eink devices will disappear any time soon is short sighted (hell, they made walkman tape players until the early 2000s), but on the flip side, anyone who believes that tablets are NOT gobbling up the market share previously dominated by eink devices is just blind.