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Early in my Tablet PC selling career, I learned that the best prospective customer for a tablet was one who already owned a Palm Pilot or Pocket PC. Why? These folks were willing to spend money on mobile technology that would help them get their job done. They were looking for a tool to help their business. So, why did I see $$$ when they pulled out their PDA? Inevitably, they would complain about the screen size. While the device was a very mobile way to carry their information and it made an incremental improvement in their workflow, the difficulty in reading the display or the inability to see all their information was a major frustration. I think we will see the same thing with all these 7" tablets. No one wants to carry around three mobile devices. A cell phone or smart phone is a necessity. You can already get your contacts and email this way very efficiently. A second device, whether it is a tablet or laptop, needs to have greater capabilities to display spreadsheets, documents, drawings, web pages and other data that are needed. A device with a 7" display just doesn't work very well. Reading spreadsheets and documents requires scrolling. Looking at information on a drawing or webpage that was designed to be viewed on a larger screen is darn near impossible. It would be great if all field workers were 20 years old with 20/20 vision, but that isn't the case. People doing the best work are those with 10-20 years experience in their field, whether that is inspection, project management, healthcare provider or service technician. When I go on a sales call, I always bring a device with a 7" display. I bring it because people always want to see the small, convenient, pocket-sized computer. Then I put a PDF or web page on the 7" device and a 10" or 12" tablet. Without fail, the first comment on the small device is "Oh, that's too small, I can't read that." Size matters.
There has been plenty of discussion lately around the question of what exactly is a Tablet Computer. Is it an eReader?Does it have to offer handwriting recognition?What size is too small to be called a tablet?Can it make phone calls?What OS? Windows? Linux? Apple? Android?Pen touch or finger touch? Or both? I received an email the other day from a company that makes rugged tablet computers. What struck me most about the email was a graphic of their products next to each other. Here it is: DLI makes mobile devices for various types of users: The small one is the DLI 8800 Mobile Point of Sale Tablet which can do credit card scanning, barcode reading and contactless payment. The next larger is the DLI 8400, a rather bizarre/futuristic looking thing with an Atom processor and a 7" display. Moving on up the line is the DLI 8300 which has the appearance of what I would call a more "traditional" tablet form factor. The 8.4" display and Windows OS is more typical. The last is a computer that can be mounted in a bulldozer, police car or ambulance. I'm not trying to talk about this specific manufacturer. I am trying to show that a tablet computer can only be broadly defined as a "mobile computer that allows the user to interact with a stylus or finger". It could be an iPad, a Lenovo convertible tablet, a Motion Computing slate, an Asus netbook/convertible or a DLI tablet computer. More important than the name or the form factor is the way it is used. Maybe it can be defined by DLI's website tagline: Computing without boundaries Your thoughts?
While checking Google News for the latest on Tablet PCs, I saw a sponsored link at the top of the page: Clicking on the link, I was taken to the Sears website here: http://www.sears.com/shc/s/s_10153_1...aptops_Tablets Apparently, Sears defines a tablet computer as being either an eReader or an Apple iPad with a Toshibs M780 thrown in for good measure, at least according to their Page 1 listings. Page 2 saw more traditional tablet computers like the HP Pavilion, Lenovo X201T and Fujitsu 2020. IMHO, it is pointless for us as dedicated tabletphiles to try and define what is and what is not a tablet computer. The is the USA and the marketplace, both of consumers and businesses, will define it for us.
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