I think the grandparent was talking about home use.

Most of the time, anyone you see with a laptop in public is writing, coding, or some other type of "work" -- text-entry heavy activities that a device with a real keyboard will always be better for.

When I'm out, my phone is good enough for casual browsing, reading a few pages of my Kindle book while I'm waiting for something, or watching a YouTube video someone linked from Twitter. At home, picking up the tablet for a few minutes is much less hassle than going to my desk or opening up my laptop. Instead of buying a laptop for casual leisure computing, I imagine a lot of people opting for a tablet, with a cheap desktop relegated to the study for paying bills and catching up on work.