Tablet PCs has to have a battery life that matches your usage. I'm in a company environment most times and can find a power outlet often enough, so 3+ hours is fine. The weight of an extra battery pack is not justified at the moment. With a bit of practice you can become skilled at quickly locating power outlets at coffee shops for emergencies.
For me a Tablet PC has to have a keyboard and be light and small enough to carry in a reasonably sized bag without breaking my back. If I'm not taking my bag then I usually won't need a laptop but still have my Pocket PC.
I travel around a lot in Tokyo. There are map services for my mobile phone but most times they are too small. My Pocket PC has map software but the maps are small I would have to buy a 512MB memory card to save them in addition to everything else I want. I could also connect my Pocket PC to the web but it is relatively small.
There other day I needed to find my way to somewhere quickly. With my Tablet PC and wireless data card I quickly found a map using one of the Japanese map web sites. Now here's the difference. I would have looked silly strolling the streets with a regular notebook open, but I simply put my Tablet PC into tablet mode and had a full size dynamic map in an easy to carry and view form ... and I didn't look silly.
Here's a post I made on my personal blog about my Tablet PC purchase. It's long so I'll just post a link.
Downbeat article from ZDNet: Tablet PC shipments fizzle out
Nothing about the sales in Asia, but I believe they are low. Microsoft targeted specialized industries and probably for good reasons. It would not have been good to target the whole market with the first version of a product. I believe Tablet PCs have a huge amount to offer all types of computer.
There are presumably other reasons way sales are low. Non-Tablet laptops are getting cheaper and cheaper and in a slow ecomony people will stick to the basics. There are only a small number of models that combine the Tablet and keyboard.
Will be interesting to see what is in store for the new version of the Tablet PC OS later this year.
I've wanted a Tablet PC ever since they were announced and have finally got one. I'll be posting my thoughts about Tablet PCs and their impact on the way we use computers. I plan to keep posts short and to the point.
