14 DAY TRIAL // The past months have seen quite a few developments on both the tablet and netbook fronts, and with the former having already been found by analysts to be affecting sales of the latter, it might just be that a single element is needed for low-end laptops to really start fading out.
Last year, around the release of the Apple iPad, notebook makers said that tablets weren't going to become popular because they lacked physical keyboards.
Needless to say, the following months proved that assumption wrong, and with so many more slates now running around, or inbound, it might just be that keyboards will become an important factor again.
Quite a few tablets have been released this year, especially during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) and CeBIT 2011 trade shows.Many of the newcomers, like LG Optimus Pad and Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1,use the NVIDIA Tegra 2 SoC, based on the ARM architecture and capable of high-quality multimedia.
There are also models based on x86 chips, like MSI's WindPad 110W (built on an AMD Fusion APU).
One might say that, while priced at more than the recently launched Apple iPad 2, most such electronics are actually stronger than netbooks, save those with better than average specs, like ASUS' updated Eee PC 1015PN.
That said, analysts stated on several occasions that netbooks had slowed down because of the new product type, to the point where their average prices dropped to $341 on average.
This all goes to show that the physical keyboard is far from indispensable, although it may just end up becoming a factor working against netbooks, not slates.Most tablets, by default, have all they need to support an external, auxiliary peripheral of this type, be it USB or a special feature.
Since the performance is already higher than on regular low-end laptops, pairing a slate with one of those things might become a widespread phenomenon sooner rather than later.
In fact, ASUS appears to have been betting on this, having actually created the Eee Pad Transformer, which has support for a keyboard dock built directly into it. The Eee Pad Slider also deserves a mention here.
Granted, there are skeptics who say that keyboards for tablets won't sell well, based on how Apple ended up with oversupply back in 2010, when it ordered a high quantity for its iPad.
Nevertheless, the coming of the iPad 2, and its lower than expected price, made PC makers, like Samsung, reconsider their plans and pricing schemes, meaning that products will get cheaper, making it easier to buy a keyboard on the side.
As such, acquiring a netbook may just become less and less convenient with each passing month.