Discussion on:

Shortcomings of current tablet offerings

About the only thing keeping me from Debian on a tablet is driver support for the touchscreen. Provide generic drivers, document the hardware interface, use touchscreens that simply present as mouse pointer devices or even a focus on reverse engineering driver support and baking it into the *nix kernel (the most rational solution really). General purpose distributions just seem way to far behind for all the attention that touch interfaces are getting these days.

Same OS running on my desktop, laptop, phone and tablet with form-factor applicable desktop environment on each; yesser.. who do I give my money too?

"Same OS running on my desktop, laptop, phone and tablet with form-factor applicable desktop environment on each; yesser.. who do I give my money too?"

Hmmm...Microsoft...from previews of Windows 8 anyway!
Sorry...I couldn't help myself! I know, I know...do 3 Hail Linuxes,
spinning around counter-clockwise 3 times, and re-compile my
Slackware kernel...
{;-)

I thought that had finally been updated to "recompile your Hurd" in the St Ignatious reading, chapter five, passage 3.

I've actually been watching MS since they first introduced the cross-compiling of games for all MS platforms at once. There are other things that would make Windows incompatible with my setup but that wuold indeed provide the single OS on all devices need.

Head over to XDA Developers. Someonw has ported Ubuntu to the original Samsing Galaxy tab.

6. I don't mind the current hardware prices as much as the cellular service contracts.

8. Looking at what we know of Windows 8, Microsoft seems to think that not only should tablets be more phone and less laptop, laptops and desktops should be more phone too.

Some people, even though they would like a sports car, really need a pickup truck. If you add all these features you have a laptop, not a tablet. Nothing wrong with that, but don't put all this baggage on a tablet for those that don't need it. A sports car with a truck bed out back isn't going to be a very good sports car.

you then have...drumroll please...A LAPTOP!!! So, it begs the question, why
not get a small form-factor laptop to begin with?
I've read numerous blogs and op-ed pieces that say basically the same thing
in regards to tablets..need to add this, add that, etc. etc, ad nauseum, so that
it can then be the cat's meow. Well, I think I hear a cat purring over there...
yep, there it is! My laptop!
Why keep trying to justify the use potential of these devices? They may be
quite handy for display purposes, quick email, etc., but if they don't fit the
need, then why not acquire a tool that does?

Ok, Let's start by understanding that this product is still in its' infancy.
Instead of letting the 'Industries' 'Wow' us with this and that, how about you, 'Tech Republic' start the ball rolling by establishing a list of basic capabilities that 'WE' want to see, and at what level of capability and performance. Sub-Charts could be made for various client markets. IT Road Warriors are different than Business Road Warriors and Gamers - all very demanding clients. etc. General users still deserve capabilities. Keep it going.....

I really hate laptops.
They are too small to be a substitute for desktop computers on which I need two monitors to do my work. If you take laptops into a production work environment and you flip the screen open, you have to put it down on some surface to do anything with it. Now a tablet would do the job except - it is not capable to do it yet as I take it from your comments. I am waiting for a tablet that can do a laptop's work without being bulky.
If it would have phone capabilities, much the better.
Anybody read Moving Mars? That devices would be the ones we would need.
(PS: I love my sports car...)

Yes, there need to be more embedded tablets (car dash-boards, shopping mall kiosks, tourist attraction kiosks), door-side announcers, better key-boards, and much bigger screens... at lower prices (and not just bait-and-switch/low-ball prices but across the line).

"Bulkiness" is way down my list of concerns. Now that we've finally recovered to 64-bit architectures, bring to market a 6 pound lap-top, 1.5-2 inches thick, with a fold-out 30-inch screen, with a privacy setting to prevent blabbing your identity and location to every cell tower and wi-fi service point etc., 10 hours of battery life between charges, and (uh, let's see, 10 years, twice a day, 365.223 days, call it) 7300 recharge cycles before battery death, at $1K or less.

As our needs grow and diverge within the ICT-related space we find that one-size does not fit all. The sports car VS truck comparison is perfect. Tablets are, in my view, a new category of device whose focus is media consumption. If you are into some heavy lifting regarding the creation of content... then you need a desktop or desktop replacement equivalent - which is NOT what a tablet is meant to be. I think it's normal for power users to want more and more from nascent platforms - but is that what the general public needs? There is a client base who wants something portable with close-to-zero latency and simple operation. This client-base I easily see including both senior citizens that want some unobtrusive device to just check email with or do video chat, whilst looking at photos of the grandkids... and students who just want to access ebooks, movies and music whilst keeping in touch in ways that their smartphones do not allow. This category of device is not a replacement in most cases, and is best viewed as a new media consumption portal.

We tested Lenovo IBM 10 inch tablet pc Thinkpads (Windows) 4 to 5 years ago with hand writing recognition. Drawbacks - short battery life (2 hours), connection problems to portable scanner or all-in-one. Pros of the Lenovo was had the same OS and Office Suite of desktop computer. Could connect to network via VPN. Use remote desktop to avoid installing extra software on the client tablet. The new tablets seem nice but they are missing the keyboard, hand writing recognition, VPN?, network connection, Outlook and Outlook PST is required on a laptop. Can Outlook PST files be connected on tablets?

I think that is the elephant in the room - or if win 8 arm will only support metro

we may be in a situation where win 8 though scalable across platforms will not allow all features on each. so tablets will remain just big phone's without the phone.

the writer's use of the tablet jives with most who have the upper end- it is difficult to ascertain true tablet sales since even the most basic e-reader is labeled a tablet in the survey's

It's a tablet, NOT a PC, NOT a laptop. Turn around and look ahead!

Tablets just are not there for ease of use. You all have mentioned so many issues, however to me it boils down to just ease of use. I have written an article on the ViewPad over at www.theweekygeek.com to give more depth on what my personal experiance has been.

I guess I don't fully understand how something as basic as connecting a tablet (or for that matter any Android) to a printer was left out of the recipe... When and if someone comes up with a good app, they're going to be downright rich. For me, it's a head-scratcher....