Expert View: Can Tablets Replace PCs?

I carry only my iPad when I'm out in the city, or when I travel. It works well, has great battery life, and has wonderful apps. It even does presentations, with an adaptor for the projector. It's more flexible than the laptop, letting me use it, for instance, when standing and waiting in an airport security queue. For consuming media, such as watching a movie in-flight, it's unbeatable. For heavy typing, I keep the Apple wireless keyboard in my bag.

But I still use a laptop, now a MacBook Air. I use Microsoft Office on it, and some photo-related tools that aren't on the iPad. I find the browser on the computer more capable than, say, the iPad's apps for Facebook and Twitter.

A Windows tablet is different. It's closer to a Windows PC. Unlike Apple, Microsoft hasn't drawn a hard line between PC and tablet. The Intel-based tablets can run all Windows software.

When I used the Samsung Slate 7 running Windows 8 for two months, I was, in the office, slotting it into its little desktop dock. With the wireless keyboard, it was a full Windows PC — running all my Windows apps, including Office. But it wasn't quite as flexible a tablet as my iPad, and it had far less battery life.

Still, the Windows 8 tablet came the closest in my tablet-replaces-desktop experiments (including one with the Aakash 2). But it couldn't really replace my iPad. And that's the challenge the Windows 8 convertibles will have: they'll replace the traditional Windows notebook, but not the iPad.

All of us have long suspected the fact, that in our mobile phones, we have an incarnation of a complete computing device. It has a CPU, RAM, power and suitable IO devices. So it was only a matter of time, that this transition from mobile computing to more conventional computing was to be brought in.

So before we answer the question, let's first analyze what is the laptop and desktop being used for. For most parts 1. It is used as an office assistant, the ability to write letters, mails, browsing, presentations and spreadsheets. 2. For some additional folks, its about accessing workplace applications. Either through local client or through a web interface. 3. And for some people its about coding, hi-tech 3D animations and stuff like that.

It suffice to say, that a majority of the users fall in the first two categories. And it goes without saying, that both of these categories can be potentially replaced with the tablets, mobiles. Add keyboard, and monitor to your existing tablet and there you get exactly what you want. However, there is still the chasm of operating system. Most organization's dependence on Microsoft world, is one of the significant deterrent to this adoption. People are finding ways around it and its a matter of time, that many will find the right balance.

The question is WHEN, and not if the tablets and mobile can replace desktops and laptops. Progressively increasing CPU processing speed and decreasing power demands, arrival of newer innovative peripherals continue to make space for itself-not only by pushing out laptops and desktops, but by finding new places to put the computer in your office, home and field.