Why I don't care very much about tablets anymore

I think people are making too big of a deal out of all these tablets coming out. Android 3.0 looks like a great OS and I'd love to have a device that runs it, but I don't think they're as useful as people believe them to be.

The main reason they're becoming so widespread is because carriers are offering them with 3G data plans. People use them for tethering, etc. I have an iPad that I hardly use. The thing is useful sometimes, but it's just so rare that I actually take it out to use it when I have my netbook, desktop, and an Android phone that's more powerful...

I got to agree. I got caught up in the tablet fever like everyone last year, but in practice all the complaints that people had with the iPad release panned out. Tablets across the board are jacks of few trades, master of none. Terrible input, only so-so for web browsing/reading, and basically on par with a laptop for video and portability.

To quote a very smart man in 2003 [1], tablets are still only good for "a bunch of rich guys who want a third computer" (edit: relevant tablet talk is around 8:00-10:00). I have hope things will be better 3-5 years from now.

1: http://video.allthingsd.com/video/steve-jobs-onstage-at-d1/1...

Tablets don't excite me either, it makes me appreciate the tactile feel of a keyboard and the benefits of using a mouse (you can't hover like you can with a mouse with touch input on an ipad).

I use a hp touchsmart, which is an affordable laptop-tablet hybrid. It's a fantastic input device due to wacom technology (shame ipad doesn't excel at pen input), but using the touch screen with my hands is only really convenient when I'm laying back consuming content leisurely.

The killer app for tablets right now is Pulse. It allows you to consumer information probably 3-5 times as fast as any other medium. They do it by displaying a lot of information quickly about a lot of articles with a UI that is unparallel.

Because of Pulse alone, I use my iPad everyday. It's the FASTEST way to read news.

Except your option was a cell phone or a land line.

In this case you've got a choice between smartphone, ultralight laptop, netbook, and tablet.