TabPCMan writes:
I have heard some people being down on heavy tablets. So what if it is heavy? That does not necessarily negate the usefullness of a tablet when you want one.
Uh, ok. A heavy tablet makes almost no sense at all. How can you hold a heavy tablet with one hand and write with the other? It's not being "negative on the Tablet" so much as it is common sense and fundamental practicality and usability. There is diss and then there is reality. I'm reading more reality than diss, but beauty is in the eye of the ...
Bill Gates said in the Channel 9 interview himself that tablets would get lighter and thinner over time. Now there is evolution.
An overbearing, awkward-to-use-as-a-tablet 6.9 pound Gateway widescreen Tablet is not falling into line with this future dream machine, nor is it anything that people will be carrying around and using in tablet mode standing up at least. It's cool that the Gateway convertible offers widescreen for watching DVDs but at that weight it's not very portable. Why not just drag around a full LCD?
Evolution makes sense but heavier notebooks with tablet functionality are going backwards, not forward.
Also they have to get the price down to Bill's $500 student tablet dream. Thinner, faster, longer battery life and less expensive, and there is a package people will buy in big numbers. TabPCMan, if you want to see more expensive, heavier notebooks with tablet functionality, then more power to you but you're likely in the huge minority, even among existing tablet users, I'd say. Sure, people will like buying a notebook with Media Center and Tablet PC functionality, but they won't be using it that way. Not like a two pound or less light, thin, sexy and very usable slate.
Meanwhile most tablet vendors are duking it out at the $2,000 price point. Mainstream America is not interested in that price point. Businesses and some niche sectors will bite, sure, but not Mr and Mrs. Smith.