Tablet PCs have stormed the world personal computer (PC) market today. It’s widely speculated that Tabs (as they are widely called) will outnumber the sales of desktop PCs by the end of 2013. If you are not reading this blog post on a Tab there are chances that you might soon browse through this blog on a Tablet PC. Find out what a Table PC is!

What is a Tablet PC?

A Tablet PC (Tab, Tablet or a Mobile Computer) is a personal computer which is slightly larger than a smartphone or a PDA (Personal Digal Assistant), is smaller than a laptop and comes with a flat touch screen. A Tablet is operated with a stylus, digital pen, fingers on a virtual keyboard and even with an external physical keyboard.

Tablet PCs come with an operating system (like Android, iOS, Linux, MAC OS X, Microsoft Windows Phone and webOS) and are available from a number of manufacturers and assemblers such as Aakash, Acer, Aluratek, Amazon, Apple, Archos, Asus, Augen, Barnes & Noble, Beetel, Binatone, BlackBerry, Bookeen, Boss, Cisco, Coby, Creative, CrystalView, Curtis International, Dell, DOMO, DT Research, Ectaco, eLocity, Ematic, enTourage Systems, ExoPC, Fujitsu, HCL, HP (Hewlett Packard), HTC, iBall, iBerry, ICan, Infibeam, KIZTEK, Kobo, LACS (Lakshmi Access Communications System), Le Pan, Leader, Lenovo, LG, M&A Technology, Maylong, Mercury, Milagrow, Motion Computing, Motorola, MSI, NextBook, NotionInk, Panasonic, Pandigital, Pantel, PocketBook, Reliance, Samsung, Sharper Image, SKYTEX, Slick USA, SONY, Spice, Sungale, Swingtel, Sylvania, Toshiba, Velocity, ViewSonic, Viva, Vizio, Wespro, XOVision, Zinglife and Zync.

First Tablet PCs

The first Tablet PC – Kindle – was launched on November 19, 2007 by Amazon primarily as a 6″ e-book reader. All of the Kindle PCs were sold within 6 hours of their launch in USA and remained out of stock for around 5 months. It was the success of Kindle e-Book reader which laid the foundation of future Tablet PCs and today, Kindle comes with features such as apps for shopping, downloading, browsing, reading newspapers, magazines & blogs via wi-fi.

Modern Tablet PCs

The Modern Tablet PCs come with features such as 3G connectivity, touch user interface, handwriting recognition, accelerometer, WiFi, docking station and storage. A waterproof Tablet PC has recently been introduced by Fujitsu in the 2012 CeBIT Tech Fair.

Why should you buy a Tablet?

A Tablet PC is very light when compared to a laptop and comes with more power & storage than any smartphone. Tablet PCs are very useful for students as they need not carry notebooks to their classrooms and can store e-Books in large number on their Tabs. Businessmen too find it useful as the gadget acquires lesser space and it’s very easy to use them while on a travel & in meetings.

Read our product reviews before your purchase if you are considering to buy a Tablet PC for yourself.