[fjtorres]

I seriously doubt that tablets will kill laptops.
Historically, it is the higher functionality device that marginalizes and/or subsumes the functions of the lesser. (Connected organizers and media players becoming smartphone features, dedicated word processors getting replaced by software on PCs... examples abound.)

As of 2014, tablet sales are flat or declining and laptop PCs are growing again. And robustly, if you include Chromebooks and convertibles.

The way I see the winds blowing, touchscreen laptops and convertible laptops are going to cap tablet growth at the high end starting this year--effectively foreclosing the corporate and educational markets to tablets--and over the next five years they will erode the consumer market for higher end tablets. It will become increasingly hard to get consumers to fork out over $300 for tablets and most non-Apple tablets will be forced to play in the sub-$200 arena, leading to a massive die-off.

The calling card of tablets is the combination of portability and "daylong" battery life, both of which are being matched by current laptop hybrid laptop designs. This will force most tablet vendors out of the market and very soon.