Port Washington, N.Y. – A new report from The NPD Group sees
the line between tablets and notebooks blurring in the coming months.
NPD’s Ross Rubin, executive director of NPD Connected
Intelligence, said the upcoming introduction of Windows 8 tied to the rollout
of Android 4.0 will give tablets capabilities closer to what is delivered by a
notebook. What this could do is encourage vendors to produce tablets with
larger screens and keyboards.
The NPD report found 40 percent of people intending to buy a
tablet would like a physical keyboard. Of that figure, 40 percent would prefer
an integrated keyboard as opposed to a docking station or detachable keyboard.
Rubin said there is a benefit to vendors that provide a
best-of-both-worlds product, such as “a fluid touchscreen user interface that
can be used without the keyboard for couch-surfing or media-consumption
scenarios, as well as a keyboard that is there when you need it for
productivity or other tasks that require more extensive text entry.”
