The tablet a wonderful crossover between phones and laptops and one of my personal favorite has long been overshadowed by the smartphones and due to its own technical limitations.
Be it an Apple (AAPL, Financial) iPad or a cheap local tablet, they never shot to popularity and rather lived in oblivion. So what will be the fate of the tablets in 2015 will they fade or return to fab? Well it is really hard to predict anything in the tech space due to their pace of change. Let us take a look at how the tablets fared through 2014 and what is in store in 2015.
Tablet Facts
The streets are abuzz with Persistent rumors about jumbo tablets from Apple and others, may be point to a mainstreaming of the 12-inch-and-above category in 2015. There is news of a tablet from the Sony (SNE, Financial) shop floor in the 12 to 13 inch category scheduled to hit the racks in 2015. One of the most popular tablet rumors is the launch of the iPad Pro though nothing has been hinted at by Apple. Assuming the supply-chain chatter is close to real, which means 2015, may see the solidification of a market for large, albeit pricey, tablets.
If the benchmark is size alone, Hewlett Packard (HPQ, Financial) was one of the early leaders in the tablet arena. HP was the first to sell a 13.3-inch Windows 8 tablet about a year and a half ago. HP then improvised it with a more refined 13-incher later in the same year and further upgraded its lineage this year. HP 13-inch Windows tablets popularly known as the detachable due to its unique feature of plugging into a keyboard base are heavy sporting an average quality displays. Because they double as a laptop, they come hardwired with Intel (INTC, Financial) Y-series processors.
If thinness, portability, and top-notch internals are the yardsticks, Samsung (SSNLF, Financial) is supposedly the market leaders. The tech giant’s android based 12.2-inch Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 this year, sporting a resplendent 2,560×1,600 pixel display, an octa-core processor, 3GB of RAM, a keyboard as an optional accessory, and apps to make it business friendly. It weighs a tat lighter of around 1.6 pounds. This makes Samsung the blue eyed Tablet.
The 12-inch Surface Pro 3 from the global tech pro Microsoft (MSFT, Financial) strikes a great blend of performance, weight, and size. It has a vibrant 2,160×1,440 display, weighs 1.76 pounds, and has processor options all the way up to an Intel Core i7. Like the HP tablets and Galaxy Tab Pro, it can also be attached to a keyboard. In this case, a more refined keyboard integrated into the flap of the tablet cover known as the Type Cover 2 keyboard.
But as all good things come for a dear price so are the tablet masterpieces. The Galaxy Tab Pro is priced at around $500, the Surface Pro 3 stands at $800, and the HP Pavilion x2 13 flaunts a price tag of $650.
Tablet Future
If you keenly observe, all these high end tablet has a common feature of an integrated keyboard. This clearly indicates that the tablets are evolving from a mere touchscreen interface to a dual interface of touchscreen and keyboard setting a new trend of dual interface tablets. So the question is will both Sony and apple follow suit.
Now since the whole world knows the fact that both Sony and Apple are known for their prowess of technical innovation hence we can expect more than size in the upcoming tablets from Sony and Apple.
Apple has its Mobile First tie-up with International Business Machines (IBM, Financial) for business-specific applications. A larger iPad like device would probably be a good fit for their corporate sales strategy. And Sony could be eying a similar business-use android tablet that Samsung has in Tab Pro 12.2.
Coincidentally this is also the strategic target market for the Surface Pro and HP detachable since these tablets run on Windows 8.1, allowing access to a number of enterprise and legacy applications.
In business applications the screen size does matter for the nature of work, also since the tablet has been losing its shine in the consumer market, driving device makers to new markets with different needs. It also indicates that with the saturated consumer market which saw a lot of activity towards the second half of this year, corporations and B2B channel could be the next business getter in 2015 for the tech big wigs.
Conclusion
Though 2015 has not been a great year for the tablet business and the skies have rather been overcast for them due to the overwhelming success run of their siblings, the large screen smartphones and the popularity of the conventional tablets have rather seen a phase out. But in all probabilities the tech giants would not allow the tablets to run into extinction without a second innings of fight. Just as the year 2014 was the year of smartphones, 2015 might turn out to be the year of tablets. Hence it would be wise to keep a close watch on the global tech big wigs and their tryst with the tablet in 2015.
