According to Blackberry’s CEO, Thorsten Heins, tablets won’t serve much purpose as of today in five years’ time they. Heins thinks that by that time, the majority of users would have thrown away their tablet to use phablets in their place.
Thorsten may be right to a certain point. Sale of desktop PCs declined to a certain point as laptops became lighter, smaller and more powerful. Today, it is the sale of laptops which is suffering as a result of the proliferation of tablets. Most laptops still weight about two kilos and carrying them around is not always a pleasurable experience, especially when one is travelling on business travel. The tablet, on the other hand, is much more portable and it permits the business traveler to carry out most of the tasks usually carried out with a laptop.
By using the same method of reasoning, one can come to the conclusion that as the average smartphone size increases every year and as smartphones become thinner and lighter, the phablet market will gradually gnaw away at the tablet market. While a tablet is more portable than a laptop, it is still not possible to carry a tablet in the pocket of your trousers. Not the same can be said of a phablet – a device that can be carried easily in most trousers’ pockets. A phablet can do most of the functions that can be done on a tablet: internet browsing, sending and receiving emails, interacting on social media networks, etc.
Having said this, I don’t think that Thorsten Heins is entirely correct. The desktop PC is still widely used – I still use one at the office and one at home. So goes for the laptop – while a laptop is less portable than a tablet, it is more suitable than a tablet for general day to day home and business use, given the bigger screen, the greater processing power and the better keyboard. When one compares the tablet to the phablet: using a tablet is a more fruitful user experience, mainly due to the bigger screen. While you can do mostly the same things on a phablet, I would prefer working on a ten inch screen than having to use a five to seven inch screen. It is logical that while I cannot carry a tablet everywhere I go, I can easily carry my tablet whenever I am carrying a bag with me.
To conclude, Heins statement may be simply an excuse for saying that BlackBerry is not interested in the tablet market. The truth is that the tablet market is currently saturated with dozens of manufacturers producing every possible type of Android tablet. Tablets are currently selling by the truckloads and as they become thinner and lighter, I cannot see how they will cease to exist anytime in the near future.
