James Banogon

Why end users would not pay money for tablet PCs

Posted on August 2, 2009 in Technology

Word is that Apple is a month away from advertising a new tablet PC. One more tablet, the Crunchpad, is also due for impending release. These and other keyboardless PCs get vast coverage on gadget websites, but in reality, I consider this entire category a hopeless case. Why we continue waiting for the killer tablet PC is beyond me. Only a small number of people really want one, particularly at the prices that they will have to put up for sale.

Tablet computers – pleasing to the eye slates that you operate with a touch screen – are nice-looking if you are a sci-fi buff. There is a bit functionally attractive about a computer that is all screen and nothing else, and where your interaction is straight through that screen, not a go-between like a keyboard or mouse. And the notion works well on smart phones.

But what you can accomplish with a screen-only computer gets really inadequate when you expand the gadget beyond pocket size. There are two immense restrictions. Initially, you require a keyboard for doing actual work. In any case most of the public do. Maybe a generation of children will grow up that are as swift on a virtual keyboard as they are on an actual one, but until then any person who carries out more than just writing quick emails and Twitter messages on a PC will want to take a bona fide keyboard with them. Plus typing on the display, even if you are able to perform it, is an ergo failure. Either you need to maintain your hands up in the air (if the PC is mounted perpendicularly in front of you) or you have to bend over your computer screen to see it. Perhaps it is the international chiropractors association that is pushing this form factor.

While this type of device may work well for browsing the Internet and viewing multimedia, it is too large to substitute a mobile phone and too inadequate to lug around as a work computer. The community will need their keyboarded notebooks as well as Netbooks for genuine work. These gadgets, like other devices, Netbooks and super mobile PCs, are additions to genuine PCs. You cannot perform amply on them to give good reason for the cost, even though they are certainly good to have if you have spare cash for a gizmo that sits between your computer and your phone, both in size as well as purpose.

So as an add-on, tablets are too costly. If Apple releases a tablet in the supposed $700 to $800 price bracket, it will die. Not for the reason that consumers would not care for it and yearn for it, but because they would not be able to justify it.

I, in reality, have higher expectations for the Crunchpad due to its focus which is the Web and its lesser cost. But still then, at the alleged $400 price dot, I still consider it is too valued for rational consumers on a real budget, and it will purportedly be short of resources (storage space) to make it a practical answer in a world of connectivity. Geeks may be fond of it, and pay money for them as living room sofa Web-surfing PCs, but for families looking to tackle real technology wants, a Netbook like a 200 US dollar Acer Aspire One offers a superior stake: it has an actual keyboard, its own storage space, and you can bring it on the way and do authentic work on it, like a Netbook or a notebook computer .

Of course, you will almost certainly be able to plug-in a keyboard into any of these tablets, but you will shell out extra for the hardware and it will mean more cog to keep track of and sustain on your desk.

For specific applications, tablets can and do work. The Aeryon spybot utilizes a tablet computer to manage it. And in the end user space, Amazon’s Kindle, a tablet by form factor albeit it has a vestigial keyboard, works since it does things no other piece of equipment can do at all: it can purchase books instantaneously, just about anywhere, and present them on a display nearly as simple to read as a printed page.

I adore stunning and well-designed tech toys as much as any other geek, but geek love is not sufficient to make a real market. Tablets needs to be charged a lot less and do a lot more before they establish a grip in the end user market.

Tags: apple, tablet pc, touch screen