Tablet PCs have been around for quite some time now, but the expectations that people had from them have been mostly shattered thus far. With Gartner dropping its forecasts and the industry as a whole talking about shipping 3.5 million tablets in 2009, Tablet PCs seem to be having a tough time cracking the notebook segment, and nowhere close to becoming mainstream today.

There are two iterations of Tablet PCs; the first one is what the tablets initially looked like, which is the slate form factor where you just have a touch screen and a stylus to do all your work. Now this for post people seems a bit pointless and when all is said and done, it does limit functionality a fair bit because in today’s computer pervasive environment, people have become more used to typing than writing, which is why the slate form-factor just doesn’t make sense anymore.

From this gap of need and availability arose the "convertible" tablet, where the device looks like a regular laptop except that the screen is 180 degrees rotatable, and once you rotate it, it settles down neatly over the laptop’s keyboard to work like a regular Tablet. This, in my opinion, is how it should’ve been in the first place, and where Tablets are headed in the future (assuming they don’t die-out).

If I, as a buyer, go to the store, and analyzing my various options, realize that Tablets have some added functions that I would love to have, I might seriously consider buying one. When I realize the limitations of slate form factor (say you want to type a lengthy e-mail, but the lack of keyboard is limiting its full potential), I would probably have to either get a standalone keyboard and a mouse, which would certainly sway me away from making the purchase (maybe not the cost of the added peripherals, but the actual hassle of carrying them just so I could use my Tablet PC productively). A convertible, on the other hand, will give me everything I get from a laptop, plus the functionality of a notebook. Isn’t it the best of both worlds? Not to mention that you can swivel around your screen and illustrate others exactly what it is that you are talking about while working on a project.

Even future projections speculate that out of the 3.5 million Tablets expected to retail in 2009, 2.3mn will be convertibles while 1.2mn will use the slate form factor.

The numbers may be completely wrong for if the convertible concept really takes off, it could replace pretty much every laptop in the portable segment, and then obviously, due to the mass acceptance, the price will fall considerably to allow even regular users to get one for the price of a normal notebook. When that happens, the ink would be digitized forever…