What it comes down to is that eventually it's better to have 1 thing than 2 things that serve a similar purpose. Many (most?) computer people today have 2 things because the gap is too great. Eventually the gap closes a little, and although it will never close completely, it is better to have 1 thing than 2 things, so you make compromises. I think that is what Jeff is saying here, the gap is closing just a little, and eventually a tablet becomes good enough as a PC.
Yes, exactly. What often happens to me now is 1) I do something on my tablet...an email comes in, I start to respond, then I get in a little deeper and need to research something for a proper response....then 2) I reach for my laptop to finish off the email, likely involving the task of referencing other documents/web pages, to compose the intelligent reply. Better multi-tasking and quick access to a keyboard on a device improves this common use case scenario.
Also, when I travel, I have to take both a laptop and a tablet. As tablets become a little richer in functionality, I could see less of the need to take both with me.
I think the fundamental premise is actually wrong. It often is not better to have a compromise device than specific devices. Can you get along with a compromise device? Sure, sometimes. But the difference between no compromise devices can be surprisingly large in my opinion.
Most people I know haven't given up having a saw and a screwdriver and a pair of pliers just because they can buy a multitool that "does" all of that.
I also feel that a tablet has far more in common with an ebook reader or a smartphone than with a computer. I've yet to see a tablet do a task that a smartphone can't do, and I have to wonder if the "phablet" (god do I hate that term) won't be the convergence you're looking for rather than a convergence with a laptop.
I have yet to talk to a laptop user who wants to trade it in on something that isn't a general purpose computer.
That's a much better argument. Tablets are sofa consumer devices; notebooks are desktop work devices. Surface is trying to bridge that gap. But we should not kid ourselves this is not a laptop replacement, it's a tablet improvement.
Well of course this is true if you don't have an OS designed with touch in mind, and you don't have hardware that supports these interactions. I wasn't a believer in this interaction model until I went to the Microsoft Store last week and played with all of the Win8 devices. Now I want all of my screens to have touch on them.
