Technology is evolving very fast. New segments are being created, which were not heard few years back, and are becoming hit in the market. One should not be surprised if the success story of the likes of i-pads and the likes of kindles is repeated in the months to come.
Traditionally desktops and laptops are used for the everyday computing work. While desktop is used for more powerful and faster tasks but it is usually hooked up at the single location. This is not the case with a laptop, but they are relatively less powerful or faster than a desktop. There is more inclination towards buying a laptop because it can be used wherever you go.
The dominance of laptops is now threatened by a new segment - the tablet computers or simply tablets. The tablets were earlier introduced in a different form - Laptops having a swivel screen. However they were not successful as they were bit bulky and the battery life was poor. Also customers did not want to pay high price for such a device.
An introduction of netbook, saw lite computer users and budget conscious buyers shift their attention away from the costly and relatively bulky laptops. However they still remained a device just for an internet access and some lite computer tasks. Of course because of their good storage capacity, light weight and less cost, they remained hot sellers for quite some time now.
Then came an ipad in the tablet space thus revving up the entire competition. Like it or not, it changed the whole game. Despite having few disadvantages like no flash support, no memory expansion, no usb/ethernet connection slots and an embedded battery, the advantages outweighed these factors and the ipads sold like a hot cake. The main reasons for the success is an attractive form factor, excellent user experience, good battery life and very engaging applications. Some industry analysts had tagged it as costly but looking at the sales number, it has defied this argument raising revenue and profit margins for its maker - the Apple Inc.
An e-reader achieves sub-functionality of a tablet, which it is very good at i.e. to read e-books. The recent kindle has excelled in this department and added few bonus functionalities, like lite internet access free for life anywhere in the world for a 3G version. Avid readers who would not like to carry around bulky books will like owning this device.
It has been noted recently that because of an ipad, the sales number of laptop and netbook computers have dropped.
Though ipad is not an exact replacement of a laptop or a desktop, it will give you more in the user experience department. In my view, this multi functional device should be owned once you have a laptop or a desktop because you will need to take the backup and transfer data through iTunes software which should reside on a laptop or a desktop. The netbook will not be suitable for this task due to its limited processing power however it can manage the task.
If you want to store large number of photos or videos then ipad is not a good option. You can buy more costly version with more memory but you will definitely exhaust it some day. You can try online storage facilities but they are chargeable services and need to be renewed every year. Thus it becomes inevitable to have a companion having good memory storage capability along with an ipad. It was not a surprise that the bulk of ipad customers were already owning a laptop or a desktop.
Kindle e-book reader is for a specific purpose, that is to read e-books. Battery life close to 1 month, relatively cheaper price tag, large collection of e-books, cheaper than their printed counterparts and the free 3G/GPRS data access for life are major pluses. One need to buy a light source though to read kindle at night because it does not have a backlit display.
E-book reader is not a multifunctional device like an ipad but can be bought as an additional gadget. However if you own an ipad, buying an e-book reader is not necessary because it already has an e-reader functionality.
Competition has already announced many models similar to ipads and kindles, but they will not be as successful if they do not give the killer functionality. Apple did a homework well before releasing an ipad, to set the screen size of around 10 inches. Anything less may not be easily usable, people saw this in Dell's tablet. In Steve Jobs words, one need to have sandpaper to sharpen their fingers to use these devices. He may be trying to justify his decision to go for a 9.7 inch screen, but any person with common sense can say the same thing as they have seen mobile phones with less content still struggling to click the links/buttons/keys on the smaller screens.
RIM and Samsung should have considered their tablets with a bigger screen than 7 inches. The time will tell if this screen size has any acceptors.
In e-reader space, the future is devices with glossy colour displays. Otherwise the tablets will eat into its market share.
All in all, this evolution is helping the dissemination of information in the best form.
The future looks very interesting!
Thanks for sharing this great post. It’s very enlightening. I absolutely love to read informative stuff. Looking forward to find out more and acquire further knowledge from here! Cheers!
ReplyDeleteLaptops South Africa