Business users in the United States are replacing laptops with tablets, and nearly half of tablet users expect to buy another tablet in the next six months.
This is according to Californian-based Resolve Market Research.
At present, tablets are beginning to penetrate the Barbadian market.
Tablets are mobile computers and they are the latest wave in personal computing.
Tablet computers typically vary in size from seven-inch screens to 12-inch screens and from 0.3 kilogrammes to 0.9 kilogrammes. These dimensions make portability their primary selling feature. The most recent tablets often offer a touch-screen instead of a keyboard, adding to their ease of transport.
A recent mobile survey conducted by Prosper Mobile Insights revealed that many consumers are using Tablets to replace “older” technology devices such as their alarm clock, GPS, digital camera, landline phone, mp3 player, personal planner and laptop.
Tablets have been around for a while, but they did not catch on, in large part due to high costs.
However, behind the introduction of the iPad in 2010 and Apple Inc.’s design and marketing prowess, the tablet concept quickly rose in popularity. Competing computer manufacturers followed suit and began producing tablets in greater quantities.
With the market being flooded with an abundance of options, the cost for businesses and individuals to purchase a tablet has been significantly reduced, making tablets just as affordable as many laptops and desktop computers. Online retailing giant Amazon was reported to have recently ordered more than 1.2 million tablets.
Logistics administrator Stacey Brathwaite, in the Purchasing Department of retailer Courts Barbados, said Courts had seen moderate success with tablet sales. They had been selling the iPad since last year and recently offered a Coby model as part of a promotion. They’ve now added a Samsung model to their inventory.
Courts sales associate Kenny Sealy said customers had been asking for tablets and similar products such as the Kindle e-book reader. He said that tablets seemed like they would eliminate the market for netbooks, which were smalls laptops designed primarily for surfing the Internet.
“Tablets have more memory and the batteries last longer than netbooks,” said Sealy.
Nevertheless, despite their features, tablets do present some disadvantages when compared to laptops and desktops. These can include the lack of a physical keyboard, slower processing speeds, less storage and increased risk of physical damage.
For the business user, there are further concerns as tablet present difficulties when it comes to installing custom software and setting usage restrictions for data security.
Yet these disadvantages will likely not deter their penetration into the Barbadian market. Research in Motion recently told Barbados Business Authority they were looking to launch their Playbook tablet here this summer.
Meanwhile, Courts was only offering two models of tablets compared to over a dozen models of laptops, as they continued to gauge the market. “The real test will be the Samsung,” Brathwaite said.
