So you want to get a Tablet PC
Marc Orchant, Warner Crocker and I had a discussion on the current OnTheRun with Tablet PCs podcast that touched on how to choose the right type of Tablet PC for you. The expanding number and types of Tablet PCs available today makes the task of finding the right one even more daunting than ever.
Context & Ripple Effects
By late 2005 the Tablet PC had moved from curiosity to a small but active buyer's market with real decisions being made in public: days before this podcast discussion, one blogger recorded actually ordering a new Tablet PC, and Eric Mack was lining up his next Tablet PC Challenge. What made the moment confusing was proliferation — slates, convertibles, and different vendor takes meant 'getting a Tablet PC' was no longer a single purchase decision.
First-order effects
- Prospective buyers face a genuinely harder selection problem as the number of Tablet PC types expands, turning podcasts and blogs like OnTheRun with Tablet into de facto buying guides for an enthusiast-driven niche.
- Vendors such as Gateway are competing for these considered purchases, with hands-on write-ups like the Gateway Chronicle first impressions becoming part of how each model is judged.
Second-order effects
- Community wishlists — like Craig Pringle's wishlist for the Tablet PC world — start functioning as informal product requirements, pressuring OEMs to differentiate on pen input, weight, and battery life rather than specs alone.
- As reviewer-enthusiasts gain outsized influence over a niche purchase, vendors have incentive to seed devices with bloggers and podcasters, formalizing an early influencer-review channel.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the 2005-era question of 'which tablet form factor' never gets fully answered by that generation of hardware — instead the slate-versus-convertible tension carries forward for over a decade until hybrid designs finally mature, as traced in the later history of the quest to build a viable 2-in-1 tablet-laptop.
- The episode also foreshadows the durable role of independent expert media in complex hardware categories: when product lines fragment, curation itself becomes a service, a dynamic later categories repeat.
The trend: Pen-enabled portable computing's long migration from 2000s enthusiast niche to the mainstream 2-in-1 hybrid form factor, with independent reviewers guiding buyers through every fragmented phase.