The premium is too high, performance too low. Can you believe it? 7 years and still not a single tablet with specs that don’t suck. I’m still waiting for tablets with decent graphic processors :(

That is not even remotely analogous. The pen interface enables you to do _more_ than you can with keyboard alone. It’s not to replace a keyboard in situations when a keyboard is more useful.

“Meanwhile, apple on the other hand, will create a smaller more easy to accommodate laptop, and watch their stocks rise.”

That doesn’t even make any connection with your previous sentence.

Being able to type rubbish at speed doesn’t make a very good argument for the death of non-keyboard interfaces.

I’m in Architecture, and I’d love to be able to draw on the screen in photoshop, illustrator, or other apps (for CAD the mouse is fast, but sometimes it would feel pretty good to be able to manipulate things straight on the screen, for exploration, even if the progs aren’t really made for that, for now).
I don’t really see the usefulness of handwriting though, freehand drawing is much more interesting.

As far as I know there are no tablet PC’s to date with a good Graphic card (that can handle heavy 3d progs), and a 14-15 inch screen in high resolution (1440*900 is a minimum) ! Why do practicly all tablet pcs have integrated graphic cards ??

The real usability of the (convertable) Tablet PC for me is to be found in applications, which use the slate properties of the Tablet PC. Web browsing, E-book and E-periodical reading, watching movies and TV etc. I do use the notetaking capabilities, but it is not my main application.

I personally think the (convertable) Tablet PC has a long life ahead. Simply because the applications of the catagory described above are growing in importance and more an more mainstream users will see the advantages of the “slate mode”.

The simple fact, that most main PC manufaturers sell Tablet PC’s and regularly launch new models of those proves my point. The one thing they should do however is to reposition the product and bypass parts of the traditional distribution channel.

I am convinced that Tablet PCs would have fared a lot better had sales people and consumer been better educated and exposed to the additional (again) additional capabilities of Tablet PCs. It is inconceivable that Tablet PC sales people even today don’t know how to use and showcase Windows Journal, for example, or how to annotate Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents with digital ink; they don’t know how to use OneNote, MindManager or even bother to show how convenient and comfortable Web browsing and reading be with a Tablet PC in slate mode.

I guess, we will have to wait for Apple to come up with a Tablet PC, because, at least Apple knows how to showcase its products and technology, even when they are just mere refinements of stuff that has been around for years. Apple knows how to design, package and sell good technology. PC sales people are never focused and a bit prehistoric at marketing technology, even enabli9ng technology, as tablet, pen and touch computing.