You sound exactly like this old IT guy I know.
Back when laptops and notebooks came out and became popularized, he was criticizing non-stop. He kept telling everyone, including me, that laptops/notebooks were useless and no good for anything.
What profession are you in, may I ask? I'll tell you a little about what I do to clear some things up.
I'm a field engineer. This means that I spend half of my time out in the field. Sometimes, we'd have a meeting in a trailer. Here is something that every engineer will tell you. We have to carry around very large 2,000+ page manuals and regulations. Why? Because we're always the ones ok-ing a go ahead. If anything goes wrong or a violation is made, it always comes back to us. The contractors don't really care because they almost never take responsibility. It's always the poor engineer.
In my case, there's the concrete manual, state manual, EPA manual, steel manual, etc. These are all very large books to carry around.
Now, imagine if these could all be compressed down to pdf files with pages, favorites, and search options. Some guys I've known tried to use laptops in the field for these. But in the end, a tablet works infinitely better.
What if the contractor or client needs some preliminary results right away for financial or licensing purposes? Back before mobile devices were available, we'd be making a quick run back to the office to scan in the documents and send them out. Now, I can just use either my phone or tablet to scan in the documents and email them out right there and then at the work site.
Things have been somewhat slow due to all the project cancellations (everyone's been having funding problems). So, I've been going back and forth on a train to our city office. All I carry with me is an hp envy x2, and with visual studio while sitting on the train to and from I've written 2 apps with it. Ever since I published those apps, they've been selling steadily on the winstore.
So, if you're someone that works in an office all the time, sure you're going to see that tablets and hybrid devices are useless. But the American economy does not consist only office workers. Do you not see how hybrids and tablets are a godsend to those of us that don't sit in an office all day?
My brother is the chief engineer in his company, and he and his hybrid device are inseparable. In the last 2 years, I haven't seen him without his hybrid device. Last time I rode in the car with him, I noticed that all his manuals were gone. He's in charge of all the teams (design, inspection, construction, etc.) so he has to refer to more manuals than most engineers. He used to have them all in his car all the time. Nowadays, the only thing he needs is his hybrid device.
The point is productivity does not stop where your imagination ends. The possibilities are endless.
Added by edit.
And why is it that people who don't use something always say it like they're hollier than the rest of us? I've heard guys with no tv always say it like having a tv is somehow a bad thing. Same with guys without smartphones or tablets.
I'm not a gamer. I have no idea how to operate my boyfriend's ps3. Does this make me somehow better than everyone who has a ps3? I don't get this logic.
