2011, Year of the Tablet?

frontwave writes "After the huge success of the iPad, with over 4 million units sold since its introduction, all major hardware vendors of PCs and mobile devices are coming out with new tablets in the next few months, including Apple with a smaller version of the popular product. Analysts estimate the market for tablet devices (over 6" screen size) to be around 25 million units for 2011."

Notion Ink's Adam

[sverrehu]

What? No mention of the Pixel Qi -based Adam? This is the one I'm waiting for.
http://notionink.wordpress.com/
http://www.notionink.in/

Clarification

[Sonny Yatsen]

I'm talking about the hysteria going away, not the tablets themselves. I thought I made that clear, but apparently not.

Re:Serious question to tablet owners

[crunzh]

I use mine to watch video and surf on the train when commuting. Better at this than a netbook. Its instant on, good battery and easy to use when not have much space and a bumpy ride.

Re:Another overblown bit of hype

[Albanach]

In Q2 2010, PC makers shipped a combined 82.5 million devices. HP and Dell combined to ship over 25 million computers.

Over the course of a year, that's 330 million PCs. Assuming each one has a life span of four years, that puts 1.32 billion PCs in use.

Apple have achieved great sales numbers with the iPad. I've no doubt that they created a new market segment (though one that would likely have been created anyway). It's still useful to be able to place that 4m number in comparison with the billion plus computers already out there (and able to run Flash too!).

Getac E100

[flyingfsck]

Here you go: www.getac.com It is not solar powered, but it is direct sunlight readable and rugged.

Yes they do

[SuperKendall]

I could see if it was a replacement for something like a notebook ( which I carry around daily ), but current tablets don't do that; the input method is clunky and unwieldy

I had no problems typing notes on an iPad at a conference. It's much easier to type on them directly than you seem to think.

Tablets are great for travel, much lighter and better battery life. They are also good for more casual use around the house, like quickly looking up things or in the kitchen.

Re:Useless prediction

[BergZ]

Binarylarry's reasons almost certainly have to be more than just "Apple hate" because he didn't even single out the iPad.
He has declared that all tablets are just a fad.

Re:Rumor!

[clang_jangle]

That's no capsule, it's a suppository!

Butt seriously, considering that worldwide mobile phone sales totaled 269.1 million units in the first quarter of 2009, 4 million iPads isn't that big a deal. I know an awful lot of people, and only two of them own iPads.