[QUOTE=Jobester;446749]Those were fine. But overkill, they're still over $1000. The keyboard is good, but some people would rather use USB or Bluetooth or on-screen. They're too heavy for some people. Don't know if battery life has been an issue. The main thing is there hasn't been a tablet with a great touchscreen OS yet.
/QUOTE]

A keyboard, by itself, is like 50 grams (WAG). So everything else being equal, a tablet PC of yesteryear would be about as heavy as a keboard-less device of the same era, say maybe 200 g more, for the pivoting mechanism and such. In other words, we've been here before, they just didn't catch on. As for "there just hasn't been a great touchscreen OS yet," I think we all know where that argument is headed.

Mentioned weight because everything you're referring to is at least 3.5 pounds, which gets bad reviews nowadays. And why would anyone pay over $1000 when netbooks are going for $200? Adding a touchscreen doesn't cost hundreds of dollars. And any tablet that comes out with the current version of Windows isn't good enough for me. I can run Linux flawless on a netbook, but I love working with a stylus much more.

Oh man, I would find so many uses for one around the house.

If it was much thinner and lighter than a notebook/netbook, with a really nice touchscreen and wifi, it would become my highly portable drawing tablet. And when I wasn't using it, hang it on the wall for a photo slide show.

Well, I think when people say tablet these days, they mean slate, i.e. sans keyboard. And I don't think that it can really be disputed that there is a market. The Kindle, nook, Sony reader, these are all tablet's without keyboards. People buy them to read books. I'm going to go out on a limb here are say that nowadays, there are more people reading webpages than there are reading books. News (cnn.com, bbc.co.uk, nytimes.com, telegragh.co.uk, etc), magazines (wired.com, popsci.com, sciam.com) , blogs (gizmodo, slashgear), whatever, people read. And no, a lot of the time, the keyboard isn't required or desired. Personally, I'm probably going to pick up the Notion Ink offering if or when it appears. It rarely takes me longer than 5-6 hours to read a book, so for me it would serve as an ebook reader as well as web tablet, etc.

I still use my N800 and prefer the virtual keyboard.

I would use a bigger tablet for mind-mapping style notes, which like more room for creative line-drawing.

I'm pretty sure the color Kindle in about a year will have mindmapping and other additions that will appeal to users that aren't techies but want a smart notepad.

BTW: The Kindle does have a physical keyboard that seems primitive but works surprisingly well.

There's always a use-case for simplicity in features and their access. Tablet devices are no different from any other in that a targeted feature set - not just ability but an actual solving of problems similar to how Texrat described his use case - is where tablets, smartphones, laptops, etc. derive their usefulness and market.

The fact that Apple has perfected that to the point of making an entire ecosystem around it means more that feature-itis is something that while admirable for a check-off list sucks for actually solving use-needs.

But then again, I was nearly blasted here for taking my N800 and restricting its use to being a scribble notepad, external HD and email terminal for enterprise use. The features don't need to be so expansive when the use is so targeted.
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I disagree with 2010 being the year of the tablet for the same reasons I say that the year of the smartphone was actually two years - folks know what they want, companies have been trying to force more than what people would purchase. Thankfully, the highly turbulent economic climate which will continue for a while longer will force companies to develop more specific solutions, not simply catch-all devices which tickle a small and dwindling user base.

There's really no need for distinctions in computing devices when they are designed not around features, but around uses. Because at that point, the software will have been written from the ground up to respond to context - and the hardware, while a compromise on all levels, will always be a best case scenario. To that end, a dual-screened mobile device the size of a Nintendo DSi would be the ideal device form factor.

Tablet computers will sell in their millions this year claims Deloitte

Tens of millions of tablet computers could be sold this year, kick-starting a £600 million industry, business advisory firm Deloitte has predicted.

Deloitte's annual Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) predictions said the tablet computer or NetTab - smaller than a netbook, larger than a smartphone and boasting wireless connection with a touchscreen display - will have its ''breakout year'' over the next 12 months.

''NetTabs will be purchased by tens of millions of people in 2010,'' Deloitte's TMT report said. ''NetTabs are expected to meet specific consumer needs compared to smartphones on the one hand - which are still a bit small for watching videos or even Web browsing - and notebooks, netbooks, and ultra-thin PCs, on the other - which are too big, heavy, or expensive.''

Computer giants Apple and Microsoft - in partnership with Hewlett-Packard - are both expected to launch rival tablet systems later this year.

And the competition will only increase the tablet's popularity, according to TMT predictions report author Paul Lee, who believes the tablet boom could launch a market worth more than £612 million worldwide.

Mr Lee, Deloitte's director of knowledge and research, said: ''While it is difficult to forecast sales of devices whose specifications are unknown, some analysts estimate 12-month sales from launch of over one billion dollars. This is larger than global sales of personal navigation devices.''

Mr Lee refers to the tablet as a ''Goldilocks device'' - not too big and not too small.

He added: ''The tablet fills a hole, in terms of its size, that has existed in the market for a while. New technology seems to appear out of the blue, but it actually has a very long gestation period.''

Mr Lee believes the increased coverage and speed of wireless networks combined with improvements in hardware and battery life have created the perfect storm for the tablet's emergence.

The one thing the analysis misses is the growing market for DRMed ebooks. A tablet that can offer you Barnes and Noble's new book catalog plus the various TV shows that are becoming available on the Internet could be a big seller.