Was Tablet PC Boom of 2011 an Extinction-level Event for Laptops?

For tablet PCs, the previous year was marked by one of unparalleled success unseen by an electronic device since perhaps the introduction of the CD player. But has the popularity of tablets essentially made the laptop PC a dinosaur altogether?

That’s the opinion of writer Kit Eaton over at FastCompany.com. Despite the possibility that 2012 may be the year of the “Ultrabook,” a super-thin laptop basically a technological response to lightweight tablets, Eaton maintains that Ultrabooks are “proof that the laptop is now an evolutionary dead end in computer history” and that “Shrewd industry observers will suggest the tablet PC is perfectly poised” to “revolutionize portable computing for the consumer around the world.”

Not everyone is sold on this notion, however. In Law.com’s technology news, an assessment indicated that “Tablets are Inefficient Work Devices for Lawyers”: “we found that tablets in general ... are good at helping people read and view content such as documents, multimedia, and web sites, but that touchscreens and speech input are ineffective ways to make your own content.”