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Originally Posted by SensualPoet
But I wasn't making the distinction that tablets, and the iPad specifically, is just about reading. Of course it isn't. In fact I stated: "it is for multimedia playback primarily".
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Fair enough--silly to compare it too e-ink devices which don't do anything other than display reading material though as it's apples to oranges. Actually more like apples to pizza as they're different enough to not even both be fruit!
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The problem with tablets -- and you state exactly my case -- it's not about inputs. You can't "type" on it; you can "peck" on it -- the core difference between a virtual and a "real" qwerty keyboard. And, while pointing and pinching and finger dragging is great in some cases, it's not as precise as a mouse -- depending on what you are doing ... select from a honeycomb colour palette for example.
We will see: but at the moment, tablets appear to have an uphill fight to define their functionality between mobility of an iPhone / Android phone and a netbook and the full featureness of a modest laptop. Longer term, I'm not sure there is a market at such a premium for a device primarily focussed on playback.
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Yeah, for me I really want a tablet with good stylus support. As the only "work" I would do on them would be reading and marking up/annotating PDFs of research articles, word documents of articles I'm reviewing etc. that I currently (and always) have done on printouts. Though worth noting that tablets can get around your gripe by using a bluetooth keyboard.
Anyway, other than that markup use, I'd use a tablet for netsurfing, checking e-mail and media consumption--videos, magazines, comics, novels etc. All that stuff Laptops can do, but I HATE the form factor for. It just gets old sitting at a desk, or sitting on the couch with the laptop on my lap etc. I much prefer doing that stuff on my girlfriend's iPad which I can hold like a book or magazine. Not have the heat output etc.
Smartphones are useless to me as I'm not on the go enough to need (much less pay for) 3G access, and I wouldn't want to do much of anything on such a tiny screen anyway.
But you're, only time will tell if there's really a market for these type of tablets or not. Depends how many people there are like me out there I guess that want a tablet form factor for document work, reading, and media consumption vs. how many are perfectly fine with their PCs and laptops/netbooks.