Will tablets replace laptops any time soon? Some interesting numbers.
I realize that time on the Internet is not the same as in real life but it never fails to amaze me how people seem to think that today’s new shiny toy will kill off off the shiny toy that we all were obsessing about the day before. We have seen this happen so many time that it get to the point that trying to make any serious value judgement about new technology next to pointless.
The newest ‘killer’ that everyone is salivating over is tablets and how they are going to replace everything that came before it. Desktops are history and laptops are headed to the exit door stage left, just like how netbooks were going to replace everything before it. Remember netbooks? Anyone?
Ya they were those silly looking things that anyone with real fingers couldn’t use without wanting to smash their heads against the wall after having to retype every second word, not to mention the need for some serious magnifying eye wear.
Now that we have come to our senses over the pointlessness of netbooks we are trying to get our tech killer fix by suggesting that tablets like the iPad and any one of the thousand Android tablets are hitting the market are going to replace our laptops and desktops.
To try and get a grasp on the reality of this delusion polling company Poll Position decided to conduct a survey where they asked 1,155 Americans whether they believed that tablets would replace laptops or not. They came up with some pretty interesting results from the survey which included the following:
46% believe that tablets will eventually replace laptops
35% said that devices like the iPad or Kindle Fire wouldn’t replace notebooks
20% had no opinion
It seems that the assumption that tablet adoption would be driven by youth might be wrong as well as several age related questions in the survey showed
49% of those between the ages of 18 to 29 do not believe that tablets can replace laptops
37% of those between 30 to 44 don’t believe laptops will be replaced
30% of those between 45 to 64 feel the same way
25% of those over the age of 65 don’t believe that tablets will replace laptops
On the subject when it comes to the different sexes more men believe it will happen than women who do.
53% of men believe that tablets will be able to replace laptops
39% of women think it will happen
As Don Reisinger form Cnet also found out:
If the latest research data on the topic is to be believed, however, it appears there’s no chance that tablets will replace notebooks. Just last week, research firm NPD DisplaySearch reported that 72.7 million tablets hit store shelves last year. That figure was easily overshadowed by notebook shipments, which rose to 187.5 million units. Perhaps most important to this discussion, NPD DisplaySearch also revealed that by 2017, tablet shipments will jump to 383.3 million, but still trail notebooks, which could hit 432 million units shipped that year..
Time to go looking for the next shiny object I guess eh.
