All of us who have received (or sent) emails that contained "Sent from my iPad" or something similar, know that the tablet is much more than an electronic version of the one on which the Ten Commandments were written. But what about the phablet? Is there such a term or is it like a person from New Delhi, saying "tablet - phablet" in much the same way they would "chai-shai" or "bank-shank"? Ok, you got me there, a Delhi-ite would most likely say "tablet - shablet" and not phablet. So let me try and connect this to what I am talking about.
Months back, when I got off the flight at Mumbai, I saw a woman dressed in a business suit talking on a mobile device held to her side of the head, something that looked more like a mini tablet and not at all like a mobile phone. I chuckled quietly and said to myself that this was the other end of the "one black coffee please" mobile phone promoted by Ericsson back in the 90s. Now I know that this kind of a device is called a phablet - a mobile device that has a cell phone and the tablet converged into one! Whatever will they think of next?
But that is not the intention of this post.
The kinda tortuous preamble to this post is basically to wonder that given there are these 3 types of handheld devices - the Smartphone, the tablet and now, the phablet, how would you position each of these in the target market?
A couple of weeks back the CEO of Blackberry said that the tablet would be dead in 5 years! I don't know about the time frame and frankly I am not qualified to agree or disagree with Thor Heins, but, I can say this much - I have a smartphone, a tablet & a notebook, but I find that I use one one of these more than the other 2 for writing emails, blogs and stuff and use the smartphone for calls, messaging and PDA stuff. No marks for guessing which gets left out in the Venn diagram of these two sets of activities. So that set up my curiosity and I asked the product marketing manager of a (now) top global mobile devices and consumer electronics corporation to gimme some dope on the tablet. Where & how they are positioning it what the kind of road map. He answered me honestly and off the record that they "really didn't know"!
He went on to say that a tablet by definition is something that is in between a smartphone and a notebook or laptop. That it has the ability to do all the stuff that a notebook can do yet be smaller so that it can be carried around instead of "lugging around a laptop". But isn't today's smartphone exactly that, well excepting maybe the screen size? It didn't convince me in the least.
To me, a smartphone is something that is small & handy enough to be carried and if you were to make it with a 4-5 inch screen and load it with many of the stuff that you can get in a notebook or tablet, then you know that you have the attention of the device-hungry Indian. And if you want to read something substantial like breaking news or your co-workers presentation sitting in the toilet or watch a streaming movie, play some game, etc., then the notebook does very well - it has a large screen - say about 12 inches at least and it has lots of memory, CPU power or graphics capabilities and all that. It is also very easy to pick up and use, especially if you leave it set for "go into sleep mode when lid is closed". The smartphone can be carried around easily in the pocket or purse and kept unobtrusive. The tablet cannot be carried in your pocket but can definitely be carried in a handbag or backpack, but isn't the same true for the notebook as well? That it can be carried around in a handbag? And the argument that the notebook requires net connectivity holds good for the tablet as well, that it requires a SIM card for connectivity to 3G. Actually the notebook scores over the tablet hands down in this aspect because you can hook it up to the net using a mobile broadband USB data card that can give fantastic speeds.
So, is the tablet only to show off and make a statement that you have arrived? That for this very reason, you don't want to carry it around in your pocket, instead you want to flaunt it?
I am not sure what it is but until someone writes in with some decent argument that positions the tablet in the useability scale, I will go with just "tablet-phablet" or perhaps even "tablet-shablet"!
Months back, when I got off the flight at Mumbai, I saw a woman dressed in a business suit talking on a mobile device held to her side of the head, something that looked more like a mini tablet and not at all like a mobile phone. I chuckled quietly and said to myself that this was the other end of the "one black coffee please" mobile phone promoted by Ericsson back in the 90s. Now I know that this kind of a device is called a phablet - a mobile device that has a cell phone and the tablet converged into one! Whatever will they think of next?
But that is not the intention of this post.
The kinda tortuous preamble to this post is basically to wonder that given there are these 3 types of handheld devices - the Smartphone, the tablet and now, the phablet, how would you position each of these in the target market?
A couple of weeks back the CEO of Blackberry said that the tablet would be dead in 5 years! I don't know about the time frame and frankly I am not qualified to agree or disagree with Thor Heins, but, I can say this much - I have a smartphone, a tablet & a notebook, but I find that I use one one of these more than the other 2 for writing emails, blogs and stuff and use the smartphone for calls, messaging and PDA stuff. No marks for guessing which gets left out in the Venn diagram of these two sets of activities. So that set up my curiosity and I asked the product marketing manager of a (now) top global mobile devices and consumer electronics corporation to gimme some dope on the tablet. Where & how they are positioning it what the kind of road map. He answered me honestly and off the record that they "really didn't know"!
He went on to say that a tablet by definition is something that is in between a smartphone and a notebook or laptop. That it has the ability to do all the stuff that a notebook can do yet be smaller so that it can be carried around instead of "lugging around a laptop". But isn't today's smartphone exactly that, well excepting maybe the screen size? It didn't convince me in the least.
To me, a smartphone is something that is small & handy enough to be carried and if you were to make it with a 4-5 inch screen and load it with many of the stuff that you can get in a notebook or tablet, then you know that you have the attention of the device-hungry Indian. And if you want to read something substantial like breaking news or your co-workers presentation sitting in the toilet or watch a streaming movie, play some game, etc., then the notebook does very well - it has a large screen - say about 12 inches at least and it has lots of memory, CPU power or graphics capabilities and all that. It is also very easy to pick up and use, especially if you leave it set for "go into sleep mode when lid is closed". The smartphone can be carried around easily in the pocket or purse and kept unobtrusive. The tablet cannot be carried in your pocket but can definitely be carried in a handbag or backpack, but isn't the same true for the notebook as well? That it can be carried around in a handbag? And the argument that the notebook requires net connectivity holds good for the tablet as well, that it requires a SIM card for connectivity to 3G. Actually the notebook scores over the tablet hands down in this aspect because you can hook it up to the net using a mobile broadband USB data card that can give fantastic speeds.
So, is the tablet only to show off and make a statement that you have arrived? That for this very reason, you don't want to carry it around in your pocket, instead you want to flaunt it?
I am not sure what it is but until someone writes in with some decent argument that positions the tablet in the useability scale, I will go with just "tablet-phablet" or perhaps even "tablet-shablet"!
