All those lead to tablet PCs unsuccessful debut but starting last year there’s raising interest in bringing back tablets from the dead as hardware evolved, software too and starting prices seem to fall to ‘normal’ values. If you don’t believe in the touchscreen tablet growing trend just take a look at new releases from CES and you’ll see I’m true.

Now everything is OK once problems are solved, right? I believe not as one of the biggest issue, never addressed before is ‘why would I need one and what should I do with it once I get it?’.

That’s the biggest problem touch screen tablets have to solve: getting an answer to this question thus answering consumer’s need for a problem to be solved, if there’s such  a problem to begin with.

A touchscreen tablet

Where are tablets needed?

A good post rising a question wouldn’t be complete without trying to get an answer so I’ll tell you what my solution to the touch tablet/slate dilemma is.

Long gone is the time when computers were not personal as in more than one person used one and user accounts (boundaries) had to be set. When was the last time when you’ve lend your computer/laptop more than a few minutes to a friend? I bet you don’t recall or never did it.

Now back to tablets, they don’t have to be marketed as another personal device as users already have a desktop, laptop, netbook and netbook. Why on Earth would they need another ‘fully functional’ computer (well, not quite ‘full’ as you’ll need a port replicator to have all connections on a touch tablet). Manufacturers should present them as an alternate means to have fun with friends or family by sharing pictures, watch movies together, order stuff online, share an agenda and such. The models with mobile laptop stands included are especially suitable for family use as all you need is to lay it down on the table in the middle of the living room and start the fun.

Television sets were never ‘personal’, nor should touch tablets. They should be something a bunch of people share. What do you think, am I right?

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Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 in white

Starting today I believe things will return to normal for Sony Ericsson as they’ve released the XPERIA X10 Android powered headset, a very hot touchscreen phone. I believe is their first model to come with Android, and the first with a large 4 inch 854 x 480 pixels touchscreen. That’s impressive even by today’s standards and means you’ll have a lot of real estate to do all kind of things on your smartphone. So let’s break down the features of the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 on a bullett list:

• 4 inch 854 x 480 pixels screen (FWVGA resolution)
• 13 mm thick body
• 1 GHz Snapdraggon CPU
• quad band GSM
• 8 megapixel camera with LED flash and face detection
• 3.5 mm audio jack and microUSB charger
• Android 1.6 OS
• WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth
• 1 GB internal memory, 256 MB RAM, 8 GB microSD card in retail box
• Sony Ericsson custom social networking and media UI, built-in accelerometer

You'll listen to good music on Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10

As you can see specs are top notch, the only question that remains is why didn’t they use Android 2.0 and when will it really be available as the problem with the XPERIA X1 was late arrival to market (over 1 year after official announcement). Sony Ericsson says we’ll see the XPERIA X10 on shelves in Q1 2010 and I’m surely very interested to get my hands on it. Hope it lives up to expectations.

Here’s a small video presentation (marketing shot of the phone):

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Touch screen might be the future

The thing is that I’m not a touch screen fan, even if I’ve loved some of my Windows Mobile devices. As I see it touchscreen technology has big disadvantages, but I think this has a lot to do with my mobile habbits and may not apply to many of you, so let’s see them.

Disadvantages of touch screen

• screen has to be really big not to miss things when pressing them with your finger: I only like HTC Touch HD, screen size wise, and big screen means increased size of the device
• big screen leads to low battery life
• touchscreen means screen can’t be read too well in direct sunlight as it applies an additional not 100% transparent
• touchscreen devices usually has no additional keys (see the iPhone) and this means when an app crashes, without crashing the OS, you can’t get to the main menu as the whole screen becomes unresponsive
• touchscreens usually have low precision, virtual QWERTY keyboards being one of the most annoying things
• most user interfaces are not optimized for thumb operation, so a stylus in necessary, and this means using two hands
• screens get very dirty
• these devices require massive computing power which leads to slow devices and low battery life

Advantages of touch screen devices

• big screen is ideal for web browsing, picture and movies
• touchscreen gadgets usually have simple user interfaces, which are more intuitive (iPhone once again is a good example)
• touchscreen devices have fewer buttons that might break after a few months/years of operation

For me, as I use to work sometimes on my Nokia E71 smartphone, I need something fast, that can multitask (copy paste between applications) and a QWERTY keyboard for typing long messages or documents. Size is also important and newer touchscreen gadgets are anything but small.

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