Tablet Sales Have Plateaued but There’s a Future in Business

Tablets always seemed over hyped to me. At the end of the day, the majority of people I know go to work in an office and sit on front of a desktop all day long.

The bigger 10"-or-so tablets certainly have a niche, although convertible laptops may have made that niche even smaller. I don't have much hope for 7" tablets, though. They're bigger than the 4" (or sub-4") smartphones and small enough to carry around. Now that 5" and 6" smartphones have seen some mainstream acceptance, I'm not sure that additional inch justifies lugging an additional device around all day.

My smartphone is nearing the end of its lifetime (it's already nearly three years old, which feels ancient in the tech scene) and I can't see myself spending some 500 bucks on another small-screen smartphone and then spend nearly the same amount to eventually replace my 7" tablet -- nor can I imagine carrying both a 6" smartphone and a 7" tablet around.

I have a Kindle Fire HDX at home which I love, but I have to be honest and state that it wasn't a good purchase for me. I do read on my tablet and browse the web, but I can easily do that from my desktop and my phone (imo the phone is more useful since what I browse for is usually in regards to what I'm seeing or doing at the time). So, I can't see myself buying a replacement for my tablet once it dies. When that happens, I may get a Kindle Paper White, but that's because I like to read. But I honestly don't know a single person that owns a tablet other than myself and my mother (She reads far more than I do). So, I think the tablet craze was a fluke more than anything.

If the trend towards phablets is real and medium-long term, what is dying - Phones or Tablets?

I also think the people reading this list, for the most part, aren't the target market for Tablets. Netbooks, if they were allowed to live, would have pre-empted the tablet market. As they were killed, we have entertainment/casual devices that work well with non-techies. Lots of money satisfying non-techies. But the renewal cycle sucks for such people, particularly if there's no hardware reason to do so.