In no time following the advent of the portable netbook, the tablet PC or touchscreen computers have been adopted by many electronics manufacturers.
They represent a practical synthesis between a mobile phone and computer.
With a larger screen and “mobile” capability combined with the processing power to run video and internet applications.
Although not really suited to writing for long periods, due to the touchscreen keyboard, and not really that great for reading ebooks, with an ebook reader being lighter and readable.
However, for pure content surfing and consumption of information, be it in video/audio and as a sharing tool for social networking, the tablet pc or touchscreen innovation has produced a genuine competitor to the laptop or netbook.
Apple lead the way with the groundbreaking tablet and no top 10 tablet pc site would be complete without the iPad. Much more cost effective models have appeared since.
In fact Apple dominate the bestseller lists in tablet PCs partly because of the iconic branding and styling of Apple products, but also because they have set the benchmark for quality and specification for the slate computer.
With the newest 3G tablets, they pushed the benchmark even higher, though other manufacturers are catching up.
Most notably are the range of clone Android based tablets which are considerably more cost effective, without compromising on core features.
The major drawback with these clones is the lesser quality LCD quality, though this too is improving with every hardware update.
Add to the mix HP introducing their new Web OS and the market gets really interesting.