Tablets are fine for browsing the web, reading, etc. but serious work happens on desktops and isn't going to move away from them.
There is nothing more productive than a good desktop workstation with big multiple screens. I recently purchased a new one for a good price, and I am happy with it.
I started programming on a computer that can be comfortably be emulated cycle exact on the cheapest tablets you can get today, so that's quite obvious hyperbole.
At my first company, we did most of our development work on a server that was shared between four of us, yet had 1/4 of the memory of my tablet, and which was about 1/10th the performance of current generation ARM's. Somehow had no problem doing programming work on it. As well as running paint programs (granted, none of us did much graphical design, but what little we did ran on that shared server using our local, much slower, machines as X terminals).
My "IDE" today is, as it was 17 years ago, Emacs. It hasn't gotten that much more resource intensive. My browser has gotten more resource intensive, but still runs ok on a device like that.
> How does the convenient form factor help you beat the competition? Working off hours? No thanks.
It helps me not having to drag a laptop around and/or rush to find a full size computer when server I have responsibility for go down. It gives peace of mind. And yes, I am very well compensated for being the one who gets the calls if something breaks, as well as the freedom to put in the resources to minimize how often it does.
It's also extremely convenient when travelling, such as when I'm heading out to one of our data centres.
It's the text that's an issue, which I solve by using a keyboard when I'm working (and that I leave behind when I'm not).
All the sales numbers shows you're wrong: The desktop market is at best stagnant, while people move in droves to other form factors. In many areas it is collapsing.
There's only tiny niches of "real work" that needs desktops rather than laptops.
And this is despite the form factor of the typical PC dropping rapidly, to the point where my local shops don't even carry full size ATX cases any more, and most "desktops" are "all in one" iMac style machines.
Big screens and full size keyboards are going nowhere, but the form factors are converging on mobile devices with suitable connectivity.
Desktops will likely remain available for a very long time, but they're well on their way to becoming an ever diminishing niche simply for the reason that the computational needs of most workers and for most home use is being met sufficiently well that more speed or disk space is now a secondary factor for a larger and larger segment of users.
I'm not sure about using tablets with keyboard/mouse/big-screen. I haven't seen too much of it happening, and I'm not sure its really an attractive thing to do anyway for a lot of reasons from the office-practical (lots of plugging things in, harder to coordinate everyone, possibility of losing things, etc.) to the purely pragmatic performance-based (can a tablet do all the graphics processing for a big screen? What if you are using a big file - can your tablet handle it?)
Disk space is a huge draw to PCs too. Very few people I know are happy to entrust their life's photo collection to an online storage-as-a-service provider. And I'm yet to see a good 'media center' (though I think they'll come along at some point).
One cable with MHL (power, display) and bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
Some devices, such as the Galaxy S III, uses MHL adapters that also provides a USB port so you can hook up your USB keyboard and mouse to the MHL adapter and have just one cable to attach even if you want a wired keyboard and mouse.
> harder to coordinate everyone, possibility of losing things
How is that any different from today with offices full of laptops?
> can a tablet do all the graphics processing for a big screen?
Yes. My <$130 Allwinner A10 based laptop gives decent performance at full HD (1080p) resolutions today, and it is by no means a high end tablet. Sure, you are not going to get the same performance today on a tablet that cheap as on current high end laptops or desktops, but it is "good enough" for many uses, and this tablet lagged substantially behind the top of the crop tablets already on release.
> What if you are using a big file - can your tablet handle it?
Big by what standard? What it can't handle today, the next generation will handle soon enough. It is not that these tablets and phones will magically be capable enough now, but they are catching up to the type of laptop and desktop performance the vast majority of users are willing to pay for at a rapid rate.
> Disk space is a huge draw to PCs too. Very few people I know are happy to entrust their life's photo collection to an online storage-as-a-service provider.
My <$130 tablet today has 48GB of storage (16GB built in, 32GB sdcard), and can attach whatever size USB storage I want (including easily 128GB USB sticks), or connect to a NAS. Give it a generation or three and you'll be able to put hundreds of GB in these devices.
So again: Maybe some users won't be able to put everything they have on it today, but give it some time - storage on these devices will keep increasingly fairly rapidly as and when usage patterns expand.
>And I'm yet to see a good 'media center' (though I think they'll come along at some point).
XMBC runs on Android: http://xbmc.org/theuni/2012/07/13/xbmc-for-android/