{"id":7855,"date":"2002-11-01T14:25:55","date_gmt":"2002-11-01T14:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/streettech.dreamhosters.com\/?p=7855"},"modified":"2002-11-01T14:25:55","modified_gmt":"2002-11-01T14:25:55","slug":"tablet-pcs-are-coming-but-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/streettech.com\/?p=7855","title":{"rendered":"Tablet PCs Are Coming, But Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tablet PCs — Microsoft’s next big thing — are due to debut next week in New York and points around the globe. The tablet PCs are “powered” by a special version of Windows that adds handwriting recognition and touch-screen compatibility to allow users to skip the keyboard for taking notes. Many manufacturers are getting into this biz, with either a laptop version like this one<\/a> from Acer with a flip around screen (pictured right) or the sans-keyboard version like this one from Electrovaya<\/a> (pictured under “read more”) that’s more like a very large Pocket PC. Click “read more” for my predictions on tablet PCs…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve gone back and forth on the idea of tablet PCs, but my current prediction is that these will fail, and for some they will fail miserably. The laptop version could have some success within a very small market; I could see some sales reps making use of them, and the flip around screen would be handy for limited presentations. But overall the laptops simply do not offer a compelling reason for adding these features, and because of the added cost, they will not likely be embraced by many consumers or even in the business world. For those manufacturers who are toying with the keyboardless versions, I see an even worse future. While they may be used in highly limited “vertical” markets for things like warehouse inventory, they will not take off. Even if the idea of being able to take your web surfing to every corner of the house or grab your tablet and head into a meeting in the office seems pretty cool, consumers and businesses will never take to them, and here’s why; there just isn’t a need. Paper works fine in meetings (don’t tell anyone I ever said thatt though) and most home consumers want a big screen and keyboard for their work. These tablet PCs will never have 17″ screens, and even if they did, no matter how thin they make it, nobody wants to carry around a 17-inch screen. So that means external monitor and<\/i> keyboard, which means more cables and more expense without providing significant advantages over a laptop. Of course, all of these predictions won’t prevent me from going to the MS launch of the Tablet PC, where my mind may be changed….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gadgetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/streettech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/streettech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/streettech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streettech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streettech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/streettech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/streettech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streettech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streettech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}