Tablets vs laptops: is the PC dead?

As tablet prices have continued to decline, their capability has steadily increased, and analyst firm IDC recently revised its forecast for the number of tablets that will be sold this year up from 172.4m to 190.9m - suggesting that it thinks tablets will outsell laptops. Its long-term forecast reckons that by 2017 total tablet shipments will hit nearly 353m. That means that in just seven years from the release of Apple's iPad, the tablet will be challenging the PC as the most-sold computing device - if one discounts the smartphone, which has outsold PCs since the fourth quarter of 2010.

Gartner's predictions mirror this, forecasting a decline of 7.6% in 2013 of the traditional PC market of notebooks and desk-based units. This is not a temporary trend induced by a more austere economic environment; it is a reflection of a long-term change in user behaviour, according to Gartner.

As more and more things become available 24/7, our lifestyles are also evolving. We want entertainment here and now. And with our increasingly hectic and erratic working hours, we try to squeeze the most out of our time. Tablets have provided an ideal solution to help us fit everything in, and to make us more efficient.

To buy a tablet or a laptop

So the question for many people today isn't which tablet they should buy, but whether to buy a tablet or a laptop. However, while tablets are capable of many tasks that were previously only possible with a laptop or PC, this doesn't necessarily mean laptops are obsolete.

There are still limitations to what you can do with a tablet. Entertainment aside, tablets are great tools to jot down ideas, and they allow the user to share almost anything instantly without reproducing the text, photo or picture. In terms of organisational capabilities, tablets make it easier for you to manage your life: your finances, schedules, reviews, etc. However, you still can't beat the laptop for content creation.

The obvious difference is that all laptops have a physical keyboard. Typing long documents is easier and more comfortable on real keys, rather than tapping away at a screen for extended periods. While it's possible to buy keyboards for tablets, too, tablets can't compete with laptops on storage, either. Most laptops have hard disks with capacities around ten times larger than a tablet's memory. With a tablet, you'll have to be choosy about which photos, videos, music and documents you store locally. The rest has to be stored online, or on a PC or laptop.

Sometimes, tablets can be tripped up by small things such as drop-down boxes or other controls on web pages which are fiddly to use with a touch-sensitive display. Printing documents is easier on a laptop too, as it's closely tied to the operating system and works with a wider range of software. Printing is still possible from a tablet, but it isn't as easy or versatile.

Of course, few laptops can match the portability and long battery life that most tablets offer. Ultimately, laptops and tablets are complementary devices: it's not a case of one or the other. Tablets are not going to replace all other forms of computing devices. Each has its strengths and weaknesses and is suitable for different tasks. Carrying a tablet, PC and smartphone doesn't make a whole lot of sense, though, so convergence will eventually have to happen.