Ten failings that will check the tablet's rise
Summary: The Apple iPad may be in the ascendant, but fundamental limitations in the tablet concept need serious attention, says Jack Wallen
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Hard disk drive storage
7. More internal storage
SD cards are not the best way of attracting more people to tablets — even though they may be better than the simple fixed-size storage offered by most slates. Internal storage in tablets needs to be significantly greater than that found in higher-end smartphones.
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Talkback
Apple came up with something different from Microsoft's idea of a tablet PC, and succeeded where MS failed. As soon as you include a keyboard, hard drive etc then it's something different.
I don't have a tablet yet, but I intend to get one soon as I simply want something I can pick up and use without any bother. If I need anything more, I'll use my laptop or PC.
I agree about price, although there are some cheap (and poor) tablets around. But Amazon's new Fire should address that.
Call me a luddite if you wish, but I have never been able to see the point of them. Since the days when Bill Gates was saying they were the future. That died in the same way as the predictions of laptops killing the desktop PC. Along with 'this is the year of Linux on the desktop' and 'Ubuntu will kill Windows'. Microsoft seem to preparing to do that themselves with Windows 8.
Back on topic, as the previous post says, if you address the tablet's shortcomings you end up with a laptop.
Tablets are a fashion, like everything beginning with i. They are trying to fill a gap that doesn't really exist. Smartphone to laptop to desktop PC. There isn't a missing link between the three.
When the fashionistas and air-head advertising, Apple obsessed, "media" types lose interest in them for next big thing, tablets will fade into tach/gadget limbo. Along with "3D" TV and all the other "this is the future" failures.
Take something with the formfactor of an existing smartphone, with its compromise UI and low bandwidth connectivity.
Then add a range of optional UI devices: a dumb, tablet sized touch screen; a keyboard;a pair of iVues; headphones; video camera; graphic tablet; joystick; a projector; cuddly toy; extra storage device; blu-ray read/writer;printer; minority report gloves; extra processors; big fat datapipe. You get the idea.
The device can be carted around, and you can access it via the most suitable interface device you have available.
In an ideal world, you won't have to worry about drivers, or cables, or slots, but we don't live in an ideal world, and as for batteries...
A 12" touchscreen being an (expensive) extra.
Your EP121's pen sounds a pretty stupendous accessory though!
Docked keyboard
Be tablet or a notepad
Decent usb drivers for mouse etc
Easy acess slot for SD card in tablet and dock.
Will accept usb sticks and other mass storage devices including cameras and phones.
When your data is stored remotely and accessed via reliable networks, the whole way you think about data — as a user and as a developer — changes completely.
I will agree on keyboards — but I can count on one RSI-crippled hand the number of keyboards I've used in the last decade that didn't just make things worse. Cheap keyboards suck with perfect vacuum. IBM understands this. The HP-that-is-no-more understood this. Logitech understood this before they decided they really needed to be in the race to the bottom with the rest of the commodity-PC industry.
My last on-site client had "Dhell" systems with bundled generic keyboards. I could type on those for about an hour, tops, before my hand locked up tight. I'm typing this on a keyboard that's seen an average 10 hours a day, six days a week for two years — with no RSI problems. (See it at http://j.mp/ucISg8)
The best way to win the race to the bottom is not to join it. (It would be nice if ZDNet figured that out, and got rid of the crippled comment editor they're using now…)