The AppsLab

Sure, myself among them. I had all three with me: phone, tablet and laptop. And I used each of them. That still ruins the portability of the tablet though, essentially making it an accessory of your laptop.

I’m not sure most people who travel a lot will want to be weighed down by small, medium and large computing devices, making the choice either between phone and tablet or tablet and laptop. The tablet is in the uncomfortable middle.

A regular keyboard (and/or mouse) can be plugged into a netbook USB port. Maybe hotels will start supplying keyboards in the same way they do hairdryers and irons. That said, there is a security risk in plugging an unknown device into your machine’s USB [key loggers to start with], so perhaps not.
Some TVs accept monitor cables, but netbooks with an HDMI output would be easy to connect to a hotel TV for use as a monitor.

Funny you mention that, I just saw a post about pwning a computer via the USB connection to a phone.

My point is that if you have to extend the device, it’s not good enough for you bc you’re relying on an external tool to make it more usable.

The supply of extension devices tells me there’s demand, i.e. people feel the device is too constrained.

Funny about the netbook, my cubemate has an hp on his desk he’s supposed to get working, only a few months old, not only is it too small to be useful, but it’s already fried. As it is sitting there endlessly running chkdsk, various people walk by and comment about how uselessly sized it is.

Surely the physical input usage is the defining parameter for usefulness for mobile devices, but I don’t think the laptop configuration is the best. If you actually put it on your lap, you fry your gonads or are just generally unstable, so you need something to put it on anyways – seatback tray, table or whatever. The various train configurations I ride have many facing seats, some of which have tables – the ones that don’t are less used by those using their laptops, with the exception of those just watching movies or looking at pictures on their phones or tablets. The seats with a seatback tray are much preferred.

Definitely a pertinent point about extending the device – power cords for phones in cars can be a mess – but I’m not convinced that is not simply a topology and physical management problem. Imagine a screen floating in front of you, and gloves giving your favorite tactile typing feedback. OK, total science fiction. Now imagine a tablet sized screen light enough to be mounted on thin wires you can make into a base for any surface, your favorite keyboard and headphones wireless and light, and the thin wires going to a pocket device that actually has the power and processor, and the wires under control. Is that still science fiction? Eyeglass displays still have a ways to go…

The thing about tablets is they don’t cannibalize laptops. But they do overlap in displays. So DT has it part right and all wrong – this will indeed be the year of tablet, perhaps we’ll see some new and interesting apps, but you hit the nail on content creation. To think everyone is going to be videographers – well, perhaps as a fad, but it’s a heck of a lot easier to read and write. And a book still beats a podcast in usable information bandwidth.

Love Swype, blogged it here in the past, can’t use it w Cyanogen anymore on my EVO bc HTC deploys it via OTA now.

Re. screens, Tim (oraclebase) mentioned something similar on the previous post about multiple screens. Flexible displays are definitely an interesting way to account for physical constraints.

I’d argue that the tablet really that much more easy to use in small spaces than the laptop. Yes, it’s smaller, but it still requires a certain amount of contortion to use, e.g. my elbows kept flying out on the plane to perform gestures on the iPad, and holding it gets tiring quickly.

Tablets absolutely do cannibalize laptop sales. Best Buy said that last year; Tim Cook said that on Apple’s earnings call. It’s fact. Deloitte is jumping on the obvious bandwagon; since the iPad dropped, many have noted that corporate IT departments were buying them instead of laptops.

Because people with lightweight internet requirements can rock a tablet no problem. I just can’t.

I thought I saw just that scenario somewhere in the CES coverage, obviously not from Apple though. I like the idea, but the implementation needs work.

Oh duh, it didn’t even occur to me that people would use laptops for lightweight access in IT departments, because that’s not what I see. Like so many other times when splitting off a cheaper alternative from a more general one, those who can, will, and if enough of them do, the general will die.

Of course, I didn’t see the previous post until after responding to this one.

I’d like to see on thereifixedit.com: duct-tape a tablet to a happy birthday helium ballon.

Disqus is really doing some strange things, when I clicked reply here it put in an unrelated reply I had made long ago, and several times I’ve wound up barely able to see the tops of the letters I’m typing, the scroll bar doesn’t go down all the way (two different pc’s running firefox on xp).

Yes the ASUS Transformer: http://ces2011.asus.com/press-release/asus-tablet-computers-providing-choice-through-innovation-at-ces-2011/
Although the Slider looks interesting too. Both will be running Honeycomb which is a bit more desktop like than the iPad.

Actually, that’s not what I saw. Those look like tablets with keyboards attached, pretty nice. The one I saw looked like a laptop whose screen pulled away, minor difference I suppose.

I agree. I almost specified the tablet as Android and not iPad because of that.
Android supports touch, trackball, trackpad, keyboard, stylus and voice input.

Perhaps you were thinking of the Lenovo Ui?
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-31045_1-10427615-269.html

I am agree, Because laptop has its own functionalities which a tablet can not produce right now. But it seems that in the future, Tablet will surely replace the Laptop.

I realize I’m about a year late — hello, random google search! — but I gotta chime in and agree absolutely about the netbook. I rock a netbook because my laptop was literally in pieces and I needed an inexpensive replacement. It’s kind of like Folgers; it’s better than nothing.

You get used to the hunching and the crunched keyboard. It’s great for the frequent trips to the coffee shop, because it fits in my purse; there are even things I like about it. But if I had the chance to replace it with a standard laptop, this would very quickly become a toy for my toddler.