When Will Tablets meet Laptops?

Tablets are light, offer decent screen size up close, use touch response which is more intuitive at close distances and have been utilised as a larger mobile screen. Movies on bigger screen, Games on bigger screen, and basically anything on a bigger screen when compared with the ever expanding size of mobiles (which has now found contentment in the 5" to 6" genre).

Laptops on the other hand offer more power and plugin options (HDD, DVD, USB, etc). They offer screen sizes bigger than Tablets but as they are kept on laps, i.e., a bit more away from the eye than the Tablets, eventually they don't seem much bigger to the eye. They offer less intimacy as they usually lack touch option but offer more productivity because of keyboards and also because mouse/trackpads are more intuitive at larger distances from the eye than touch.

Over the past year or so, gaps between Tablets and Laptops are being closed primarily by Software teams who also make hardware such as Apple and Microsoft by offering Pro versions. Although software has never really been a problem for productivity, a lot of emphasis on these models are on the exclusive productivity options provided.  Some ads depicting these productivity options are great. In general these Tabs are great. But at what cost?

These tabs offering the best of both worlds are priced at sum of prices of both worlds. The price of these one off great tabs equals the price of one laptop with similar spec plus the price of a similar sized Tablet.

Inspire of all these wonderful developments, there is a need for something more. This is because I don't want to have both a Laptop and a Tablet. I want my Tabley to replace my Laptop effectively or bring a new genre of hybrid. Although the hardware manufacturers like Dell, HP, etc do offer new hybrids, they don't appeal to me as they seem too bulky to carry around. They seem to be more like Laptops with Touch rather than Tablets with more functionality.

So, what do we want?

Simply, a Tablet. With a detachable Keyboard & Mouse. Bluetooth Headphones connectivity and a 3.5 MM headphones jack so that I have the freedom to connect my own headphones and not proprietary ones. Connect my external HDD. LAN cables and HDMI ports. Charging my Tablet while all of these are connected at the same time. And finally robust browsers to show Desktop versions of website by default as they usually offer much more options than the Mobile Versions.

As can be seen, it's primarily hardware and browser is just a minor tweak. It's not necessary that these options/ports have to be built in to the Tablet. However, it is necessary that these be available within the price of the current Laptop.