Well there is no question that I loathe Apple, its fanboys, and Steve Jobs, but I honestly don't see any real utility for any tablet like the iPad, Xoom, or Galaxy Tab. They are fun toys, sure. If they were $100 - $150 I might think about having one. But not for the price range they are at. No way.
I already have a laptop and a smartphone. There is not enough increased utility in a tablet for me to even give a tablet one second thought. Sure, there is a bigger screen that makes it more useful than a phone in some cases but you sacrifice the portability you get with a phone. And to me the portability of a smartphone far outweighs the fact that its screen really isn't all that big in comparison to a tablet. I can't really replace my phone with say an iPad, but I can replace 95% of what I would use an iPad for with my phone and get some additional utility such as being able to make calls.
Also, ren, keep in mind that I am not just someone resisting the trend. I demoed an iPad for close to a week, taking it home and carrying it around with me. I found it to be neat technologically, but found its actual utility to be seriously lacking. Maybe I'd like a Xoom better, but everyting is targeting the iPad at this point so I would not expect the experience to differ much. And I truly gave the iPad a fair shake. I didn't hate Apple at the time; I actually was thinking about getting a MacBook Pro for myself around the time I tried out the iPad.
In my opinion, at least 80% of iPad-style tablet owners or people that want to get a tablet have/want one because it is cool and trendy. Even if they don't realize it. It's mostly people succumbing to Apple's marketing machine. Many people that own an iPad that I've talked to rarely ever even use the thing anymore, but of course in typical Apple zealot fashion they defend their purchase as if their lives depended on it.
