When Steve Jobs presented his then-new product line in 2010; the iPad, he described it as something that should be located between a smartphone and a laptop. What we understood from Jobs’ presentation was that the tablet should have been something that provided the factors of ease of use and lightweight of a phone, and combined that with the possibility of having a better media consumption experience, in addition to a somewhat limited options related to productivity, such as e-mail, basic document typing, and viewing.
With time, we found something weird happening, the tablet makers (including Apple, Samsung, and others) were not satisfied with the way things were going. As a matter of fact, we started witnessing tablets morphing to become semi-laptops, and laptops transforming into tablets. Not only that, but we also saw accessories to the tablets, such as Bluetooth keyboards and mice, in addition to stands, which effectively turned the tablet into a fully functioning notebook or even a desktop computer.
On the other side, makers of laptops, like Asus, Acer, Dell, and others, started to release notebooks with touch-screens that can flip back 360 degrees to provide the user with a tablet-like experience. Then we found new products; detachables, which are notebooks with screens that can be separated from their physical keyboards to be used fully as tablets.
In the last few years, something new started appearing; the Pro products, tablets, like the iPad Pro, the Galaxy Tab S series, and the Surface Pro series. Those are tablets that have high specifications concerning processing power, that if you attach a keyboard to any one of them, you have a fully functioning notebook, especially the MS Surface, which runs on a complete Windows operating system.
The question now is, with these mutations, what will we see in the coming decade? Will all this maybe take us towards a third category?
On the other side, makers of laptops, like Asus, Acer, Dell, and others, started to release notebooks with touch-screens that can flip back 360 degrees to provide the user with a tablet-like experience. Then we found new products; detachables, which are notebooks with screens that can be separated from their physical keyboards to be used fully as tablets.
In the last few years, something new started appearing; the Pro products, tablets, like the iPad Pro, the Galaxy Tab S series, and the Surface Pro series. Those are tablets that have high specifications concerning processing power, that if you attach a keyboard to any one of them, you have a fully functioning notebook, especially the MS Surface, which runs on a complete Windows operating system.
The question now is, with these mutations, what will we see in the coming decade? Will all this maybe take us towards a third category?
