The industry needs to stop thinking of tablet sales like cellphones and start thinking of tablets like laptops and computers. We're not going to buy new ones every two years because we spent anywhere from $300-$500 on the damn things: we expect them to work for awhile. The same reason that when the computer I spent over a grand building ten years ago stops being able to run modern games on even the lowest settings, I'm going to load CentOS on it and turn it into a media server: because I want to get my money's worth.

* It also fits very well into an iCade cabinet. Touchpad running MAME4Droid inside the iCade is a popular attraction at monthly gamenight.

I have an iPad 2 that I used a lot for some time after getting it. Reading, browsing on the couch and bed, watching movies, travel research when on the road, etc. I have barely used it since getting an iPhone 6 Plus. My phone screen is now big enough that browsing and reading work well, movies are fine, researching things is straightforward, etc. I don't even know where my iPad is right now.

I can see them being useful for kids still, but can't think of use cases for myself.

iPhone 6 Plus is way too big for a phone for me. Even non-plus is uncomfortable. I could use my 4S comfortably with one hand. Now my thumb movements cover only ~60% of the screen which means I need to use two hands. I dislike it a lot.

The eMMC on mine is toast, I shopped around and couldn't find anything that I liked better and so ordered a new motherboard. Are there any other options around that size that make sense as the Nexus 7 is discontinued?

I forget which model it was exactly (you might need to do some research), but with at least one of them, it appears that Asus basically took the specs/design of the Nexus 7, debranded it, and then tweaked them to be a little more current. So it's almost a Nexus 7 successor, just without Google's branding.[0]

0: http://tabtec.com/tablet-reviews/asus-memo-pad-7-me572-revie...

I've used the iPad mini and it's very very good. It's also twice the price of what I bought my Nexus 7 for.

If I'm just reading a text-based ebook, then an e-ink reader is better, even with the smaller screen. If I'm wandering around somewhere, the phone is more portable. If I'm doing anything that requires an actual user interface more sophisticated than 'tap', then a laptop or desktop is better.

As a consumer device, I found the tablet to be a solution without a problem. It excelled at nothing. It wouldn't surprise me if tablets drop back to specific industrial/commercial uses where a laptop/chromebook is too inconvenient and a phone is too small.

My kids love the iPad. But my parents are the ones that surprised me. They each sit in their recliner and use their iPads for basically all of their free time.

When I'm at home (and not working), my preferred device is the iPad. I much prefer to browse the web on the iPad from the couch than from my desktop. It's also come in very handy recently as a baby monitor screen. The iPad gets used daily in my household. I have a 4th gen device. It's definitely good enough at this stage. I'm not sure what combination of features it would take to make me upgrade to a newer model.

The laptop takes way to long to un-suspend, easily gets too hot in my lap, and the battery life all too easily gets turned into something that is just a few hours by the wrong running program. The power jack is located up in my office. It is a portable computer, but spends most of its time on my desk and is handy for several times a year when I bring it out of the house (and the last time I actually grabbed the ipad over my laptop...).

When I need a quick and dirty question what was that movie that came out in 1984 about that cowboy or whatnot pulling out the phone and browsing it is a perfect fit. Same goes for wasting 5 minutes playing a game, checking stocks, maybe see what is new on hacker news.

But at home while the phone is on me, the ipad is usually around the living room and it has all the apps the iphone has, but with a much bigger screen. After selling the ipad2 and getting the Air my only complaint about weight also went out the window. For casual consumption the ipad is my device of choice. A screen big enough that I can read articles, go to websites like ebay and get a real interface and not their tiny mobile version, read pdf's, netflix, play neat games, youtube etc. Given that it has the same charger as the phones there are several charging spots around the living area of the house so it is not off hidden in my office all day.

I have caught myself a number of times starting to browse the web on my phone only to stop, put the phone in my pocket and grab the ipad to continue where I was. I wont be bringing the ipad to work or around town, that is what the phone is for, but around the house be it the living room, backyard, etc the ipad is my preferred choice.

Lastly for kids while I don't give my daughter my phone or my laptop she can use the ipad. I am not sure how universal that is, but just about every parent I know does the same.

To answer your question the tablet is a better device for longer term consumption around the house than a laptop or a phone is.

The upgrade cycle is slower than the phone, but I am not just spouting my opinion I am putting my money where my mouth is and in fact I am expecting a Air 2 in the mail next week.

* watch movies -- traveling (works ok with hdmi dongle in hotels too), when sick in bed, or when wanting to be quiet (headphones)

* play the occasional game (mostly board games like forbidden island, small world2, lords of waterdeep, etc)

* occasional web surfing if my phone is charging

I thought I would use it more. Occasionally I find I will use it heavily for a few days or weeks, then use it not at all for weeks or months. It is great when I need it, but I don't always need it. I seems to occupy a rather weird place in my digital lifestyle.

I'm sure we all remember netbooks. They sprung up overnight. I remember Sony and others calling them a "race to the bottom" yet they seemed to disappear almost as quickly as they appeared.

I honestly thought the tablet market was going to be huge. FWIW I use my iPad a ton.

In both cases there was a certain amount of convergence. Costs on laptops came down so you could get good specs for a relatively low cost. The 2nd Macbook Air was (IMHO) game-changing here and it took competitors several years to match the hardware/price point.

With tablets phone have gotten larger to the point where the line between phone is blurry when phones can be 6" and tablets 7". Personally I hate this trend and still have an iPhone 5 because I like the size.

Now I think device longevity has something to do with all this. I'm sure there are people happily using the original iPad, or at least the iPad 2. There's really no reason for most people to upgrade or replace any computer until it dies.

So I don't really know where the market. Laptops/desktops aren't a growth market. If tablets are in decline and netbooks are essentially extinct, what's left? Are phones the only growth area? What happens when that market hits maturity as I'm sure it will at some point?

The tablet market was huge, but it was because people craved cheap, usable laptops (see comment above). Something without a physical keyboard or a stand is simply not very useful. It's a portable TV. People wanted the laptop form factor, and all those keyboard/dock accessories became almost standard.

You're right, though, that device longevity has a lot to do with it. Same with laptops. If you have a decent laptop with a SSD from a few years ago, you're not missing all that much by not buying a new one this year.

I don't really see why there has to be any area for major growth right now. A lot of these form factors have reached relative maturity. We'll eventually get to the point where all the computing power we need fits into our phone, and we can just use "dumb" form factors (TV, laptop shell, etc.) to project our phone. Then we'll really see the decline of the other form factors.

Apparently some vendors feel watches are the answer. I remain skeptical.

Personally my consumption habits are probably outlying: my last Macbook Pro's power connector broke... the machine itself was fine, but there's no easy way to repair it, so I bought a new max spec one in Paris (French azerty keyboard) to wait out the next hardware failure. This desktop, assembled from scratch in a Bangkok computer market, dates from around 2011 (Thai keyboard) and happily processes cluster computing simulations, HD video edits, high resolution photography and 3D games. I was totally phoneless for a year and a half until a few months ago, when I bought the Samsung S6 solely to take photos of my daughter while traveling (my SLR and lenses were too bulky to carry). I bought a cheap tablet (HTC?) for my mother in law last year, which sees some use. Here in China the cable TV system gives you video on demand without regard for intellectual property (kind of like Popcorn Time, but instant and pre-cached with a weird assortment of Asian movies in addition to blockbuster stuff) so nobody really does the Smart TV thing, though people use specific torrent-based apps like PPTV if they really want something obscure. Consoles are in my experience exceptionally rare.

In fact I'd like companies to make even smaller smart phones than they already do. I fantasize of iPhone Nano (iPhone the size of iPod Nano) or Pebble Call (Pebble Time with phone functionality). Because I want more pocket space.

I prefer technology to be way far in the background and I believe so does the rest of the world.

Like the much-heralded death of the PC, I think this is simply a manifestation of the fact that Everyone Already Has One™.

In what world do you think it's a good idea for vendors to not upgrade hardware?

My existing tablet is "good enough" but I'd upgrade for something that is better, otherwise I'll wait until it dies and buy something at a similar price point.

As for memory, I assume you meant of the storage (rather than RAM) variety. That's intentionally not expandable, because they want some way to make your old device obsolete.

Cellular data has been available in tablets almost since the iPad came out, so I'm not sure what you mean there...

This only makes sense if they were increasing storage capacity year over year - but this hasn't been the case for a while.

We've been on the 16/32/64GB system for a preeeetty long time now.

Storage isn't being expanded because the demand for local storage is decreasing for most users - where someone used to sling around gigs of music it's now streamed on-demand. Ditto videos.

Expandability isn't prioritized because most users who bought the old expandable devices never used it, and it creates user confusion when they use it without knowing what they're doing - the lack of an explicit file system in tablet UX means that users don't keep tabs on where their apps/data actually live and then get confused when they eject the memory card.

Expandable storage sadly has always been a niche, power-user feature.

Planned obsolescence is sometimes a thing, but in this case it seems reaching.

Is this a feature that the users want? Or a feature that iTunes, Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify want? It's interesting to me that the "drive for bigger drives" stopped the exact moment monetization of cloud services came on the scene.

Me, I'd LOVE to have my entire MP3 connection on my tablet. I'd also like to have enough space to put a half-dozen movies on my tablet for long car/airplane trips. Hell, give me a 1 TB drive and I can store most of my entire video collection in my tablet.

But they're not making tablets that big. Coincidence?

You're probably right, I don't "need" expandability. I _do_ need more built-in memory.

And until they're better, I'm not buying a new one until this one breaks.

There's been a desperate attempt by the high-end players to keep the price up, but it's failing. The under-$50 tablets used to be something you had to get in Shentzen or via Alibaba. Now they're on Amazon.