Tablets: The next big thing?

Tablets, tablets, tablets! That’s the buzz word coming from CES 2010. But, are they all they’re hyped up to be? No. Not yet, anyway. The biggest problems I see for tablets at the time of this writing are as follows:

• Bloated operating systems (no problem with Linux of course!)
• Gaming capabilities are severely limited due to graphics processing and CPU limitations
• Size versus function

Bloated operating systems

As most people reading this would know, there are several Linux distros which pair up beautifully with the constraints placed on small mobile and embedded devices. I still have one of the first computers I built on my own. It’s an AMD K6-III 333 MHz machine, has a video card with 12 MB of RAM with a maximum of 64 MB RAM currently installed. It used to run Windows XP, which is a fairly light weight operating system compared to Vista and Windows 7. XP is the reliable dog of the Windows family: it’s still being used in a trimmed down fashion for quite a few mobile and embedded devices. Of course, Microsoft is phasing out XP and has plans to make all newer tablets come with Windows 7 Starter Edition (which is fairly nice, but you can’t even change the desktop background with it–whats up with that!?).

Windows XP installs fine on that machine, but you can tell the machine is a bit overwhelmed when trying to run anything that requires processing power. Ubuntu and Xubuntu also install fine on this box. With Ubuntu or Xubuntu installed, however, I can still get a great amount of functionality out of a machine that was, quite frankly, dilapidated when I found it on a curb at the age of 14. Let’s face the truth: Windows is bloated. It’s the epitome of going out to a nice restaurant and gorging yourself on food and drink. The food is great, but you vomit and pass out when you get home. While Windows 7 is better, it still has quite a bit of overhead. Besides that, any flavor of Linux is fairly easy to strip down for anyone who would be interested in doing so. Most devices can be made to function fairly easily without programming specific hardware drivers and Linux tends to be a very lightweight operating system in general. Fact is, my old computer isn’t the ideal comparison subject for this review, but the point is that Linux tends to be much faster and much easier on resources. This makes it ideal for tablets, cell phones, microwaves, routers, toasters and anything else for that matter.

Gaming capabilities

I can see a lot of problems and solutions with this. For example, the trend in applications, games included, is to ‘rise up to the clouds,’ or be flash/Web based. This is awesome because it totally alleviates any problems associated with Windows being the dominant gaming platform. Every O/S runs Flash or can be made to do so and Flash apps can run on the web or as a stand alone application. The recent boom in MySpace and Facebook apps is a fairly straightforward example of this. On top of that, at least a few gaming companies have been talking about making some level of Flash based games, particularly as volume price entry-level versions.

The obviously problems here are this: not everyone has broadband (although this is increasingly less so), people feel most comfortable having a copy of a game they own (unless perhaps it is unbelievably cheap), and finally, not all types of games will work best with Flash as it is at the moment and what about screen size? Honestly, this point is somewhat open-ended because I think it depends a great deal on what happens with console games, the as-yet-to-be-released streaming console games, as well as how consumers respond to Google’s cloud OS.

Size versus function

Lastly, people are increasingly buying laptops as their sole computer and I’m not sure I can see this happening with tablets at this point unless serious strides are made in technology. What about students, for instance? Taking notes on a laptop is bad enough, but on a tablet? I personally use my cell phone for a lot of things I might otherwise use a regular computer or laptop for, (SSH, FTP, VNC and so forth) but that is usually because of necessity (i.e. I have no other computer with me). Most consumers aren’t SSHing into a host or sending a WOL packet to their computer so they can download something they need. That said, the iPhone and the Android OS are great examples of the flexibility of cell phones and their expanding role in the future, but will people want to replace their laptop or even their desktop computer with a tablet? What about their cell phone? Many tablets accept SIM cards and some can even make and accept calls.

What is currently taking place may best be described as the fusion of the desktop computer, the laptop and the cell phone. But is there one or two devices to fit all? I can’t say I would comfortably replace my desktop computer with a tablet at this point. I sure haven’t replaced it with a laptop, but I tend to be quite a bit more tech savvy than the average consumer. What I can say is that my cell phone has taken the place of my laptop when it was either inappropriate or not feasible to bring along, but I would certainly use a laptop instead if it were around.

Conclusion?

No matter what happens, the tablet has some major problems to address: it’s too large to be a cell phone, too small to be a laptop and doesn’t pack enough punch to play current cutting edge games. Perhaps the tablet will replace the laptop or become an extension of the cell phone? Either way, I’ll hold on to my wallet until I start seeing major benefits to owning a tablet.