Please help me understand today's tablet craze?!

Simple: Extreme portability......................and.......................a touch screen.

I use my tablet to download and read books. If I leave on a two-week trip and want to carry five books, my iPad is far, far lighter and more portable than five physical books. I also download magazine subscriptions and am able to easily read my hometown newspaper, in a very friendly format, wherever I am. When traveling on business, I throw the iPad in my briefcase and use it to read my personal email. I am not allowed to install any of my own software on my work laptop and company IT people are allowed to examine anything on my machine at any time, so I prefer to keep my personal correspondence off of the work machine. Traveling with the iPad is much easier than carrying along my laptop. The iPad makes the best photo album ever; with an internet connection I have access to an unlimited number of photos and the screen shows them off beautifully. Speaking of photography, I use a Sun Tracker app to determine exactly when sunrise and sunset will occur at my current location and to analyze the current angle of the sun in order to plan photographs. I would like to obtain a CamRanger to remotely control my DSLR from the iPad, which would be very handy of I am shooting from a low angle or from a tight spot. I have not yet pulled the trigger on that expensive purchase; the iPad is a key component of that setup, though. As others have mentioned, an iPad or another tablet, comes to life instantly and features a very long battery life.

I have not yet gotten a keyboard for the iPad, although it is good to know that I can, if I want a better way to create content with it.

I resisted buying a tablet until a few months ago. For those who travel, read or have interests that are supported by apps, a tablet can be a much better tool than anything else that I have found.

I think the tablet is a great meeting tool, and wonderful around the house for the family. But as a full blown productivity tool... Not so much.

I take my now three year old tablet with me to meetings for note taking, internal web referencing, and to review documents for the meeting. I no longer take or carry paper with me to these meetings. My family loves to check mail, "google something", use Facebook, Tweet while watching tv or relaxing. The tablet gets passes around all night long!

But I still use my desktop for grunt work. Word processing, PowerPoint development, spreadsheets, server management are all possible from the tablet, but not as easy or quickly productive as the desktop/laptop.

If you need something to fill that niche, you'll enjoy a tablet.

At the moment, it is a fad. People are going to go crazy over it because its something that is more recent. This is how tech has always worked. Companies are going to keep pushing it because they don't want to be left out incase this thing really has a future.
As an individual, we have to make our own choices. I would never buy a tablet/ipad unless the price comes down to $99. Laptops have withstood the test of time and they can do a whole lot more than any tablet can do but some people who can afford ipads are going to buy them and the others who can't afford it are going to follow them. Thats how it has always worked for everything else even stuff non-tech

In my opinion, the popularity of tablets is a triumph of marketing over the human mind. They offer all the power of smartphones (except the "phone" part) and all the portability of laptops.

Oh sure, they're cool in a Star-Trekkie kind of way, what with this unadorned flat panel with a moving picture on it and all, but they don't seem to have any actual use that cannot be performed cheaper, more conveniently, more powerfully, more comprehensively, and with greater versatility, by either a laptop or a smartphone.

One thing that might spur me to obtain one, however, is that I have a Downs Syndrome daughter who might be drawn into using one of them where a desktop is too confining, a laptop too complicated, and a smartphone too easily misplaceable. But she'd break the thing pretty quick, I fear, and they're a little too expensive to be regarded as disposable.

But I'd never use the thing in any event. Style over substance, marketing over reality, "coolth" over usability.

Christmas of 2011 I bought Suzi an iPad 2. I was afraid she wouldn't use it and my money might be wasted. She uses it almost all the time! She is most excited when she shows pictures or videos of our grandchildren to someone.
If you come from the PC world like I do, the iPad doesn't make much sense. Anything you can do on an iPad can be done on your PC or laptop. But if pure convenience, internet use, phenomenal portability, and excellent images are important the tablet is justified.
What follows are my opinions only.
You may say your cell phone is convenient and portable but if you are showing a client a 6" x 8" picture or schematic they will be more impressed. Printing is easy on any wireless network. Immediately printing modified specs or contracts at a clients office will get you the order easier. You say a laptop is better for that. Remember how impressed your clients were when they first saw a laptop? The laptop was portable. The tablet is more portable and better designed.
Internet, internet, internet. Picture yourself in your car. You pull over. All of what follows are easier to navigate and see on an iPad than on a phone. And you don't have to pull out a bulky laptop: Do you use Wikipedia, traffic checks, weather forecasts, best closest restaurant, maps, email, Facebook or Twitter for business, research, calendar, contacts and meeting notes? Other replies have given many more examples. Many will disagree with me on the points I pass along.
The tablet fills the gap between the cell phone and the laptop.

Who is selling a tablet as a productivity improvement? Nobody, because they are not. The device is still trying to find itself even after people tossing billions of dollars at Apple & Co, for the "next cool thing" (even in the Great Recession people seem to find money to play with). I bought one for my wife and am still waiting for one that compels me to buy it for myself (aka justification for the money loss). She uses hers to read eBooks and has to carry her laptop/vpn home weekends to do real work---like many people. We think the tablets remain purely entertainment devices at this point and marketing still targets multimedia primarily.
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Should you buy one? Well, do you NEED one? Do you really like watching movies on a 8" screen like it's 1955? Do you NEED some kind of personal gratification by having an iToy? Must you give in to peer pressure and join the herd? Do you NEED to be entertained all day? Are you a compulsive tweeter? You can't go an hour without a Facebook fix? Is there some app out there that you NEED to buy so you can function? I guess these are the prevalent/dominant reasons for a tablet-- otherwise it would the Microsoft SURFACE flying off the shelves so people could do at least some minimal amount of business or really productive work. This does not seem to be the case. I will wait a while.

Simply put, you have two types of people who like to use computer-driven devices. There are the active users who use programs such as contained in Microsoft Office. They interact with their laptops with more than two fingers.

Then there are passive users. They have no need for intensive interaction with these devices. They are passively watching and reading. They play games and adventures with simple controls requiring just a few fingers. They do not want additional functionality. They want something "cool." A tablet can be a lifestyle statement rather than a laptop's symbolism of work and productivity.

Most first-class frequent flyers I observe carry both. They have the company computer for work, and the personal tablet for entertainment and personal email, avoiding the scanning eyes at the company's server.

There are few functional differences anymore in tablets and laptops, what with modestly priced Windows 8 and touchscreen laptops such as the Asus S200E for around $550 (about the same as an entry-level iPad, and one-half the entry-level Macbook Air). This class of laptops acts like a tablet with the simplicity of touch controls, yet can handle most complex software requiring significant input. There is a relatively minor weight and bulk penalty for this new laptop class, but otherwise you get the benefits of both. Except for the "cool" factor.

Being retired, I have a very specific point of view on digital devices.

Tablets seem to be the latest craze of self promotion, light gaming, and work enhancement. My retired wife has an iPad for when she travels to visit her mother, and for that purpose. It seems relatively useful, short of buying the best and most advanced cell phone on the market. Hers is the dumbest of the smart phones, and so the iPad helps her to communicate with me and the rest of her social circle by email. She also loves the puzzle games, so the larger than a cell phone screen is attractive for her.

There is a definite draw with the iPad, and if I used one more often, I would probably feel it more than I do. Fact is, I'm always working on my desktop machines, editing and converting video tracks and learning new things to do. I usually have one or more of them open and relatively idle, so I can always check email. Social networks are definitely not what I do.

For a dinosaur like me, a keyboard and mouse/trackball work better than smearing my fingers all over a touchscreen, and attempting to use a virtual keyboard. Fried chicken is a definitel no-no for using an iPad. If you need a detachable keyboard, why not save the money and buy a small laptop? I know, that's no fun.

I have frequently wondered what people see in those tablets! And, I have also used and programmed computers for over 30 years. I have a Macbook Air - my vote for the best computer ever (cold starts in 15 seconds)!! Solid state data storage! Also a Macbook Pro - same thing only better specs and only .5 lb heavier. (I converted from PCs to Macs last year - although I still have a couple of PCs.)

So, all I need is the same computers with a touch-screen (no doubt coming soon) - and I have the best of both worlds. Also, I have an iPhone which is a small "tablet" along with being a phone. (Same OS etc).

I am retired and 72 years old - but not out of date yet. I am a gadget person and buy most new gadgets as they appear on the market. I really like new technology. I enjoy playing with a friend's tablet once in a while - but I don't think I will ever buy one.

Almost all of the posts so far have pointed out that they key element that people like about tablets is the portability and entertainment factor.

Portable entertainment.

That's it, that's all, nothing more, nothing less.

And that is why I don't, and probably never will, have a tablet. I don't need a portable web browswer/e-reader/tv/movie player/music player.

I honestly don't understand why people are so addicted to the utter uselessness of portable entertainment. When "on the go" perhaps they should try actually engaging with the real world directly, with real people directly where they are at, instead of relying on electronic leash to strangers half-way round the world that they 'friended' on facebook but don't actually know at all, or otherwise shutting out the real world in favor of staring at an electronic gizmo. But that's just me ... I'm just an old fart and not so much into reality-avoidance at all costs.

Tablets aren't supposed to replace the mobile computer like a laptop or anything, but they are great for what the general public wants.

In this modern day and age most people only use the computer for one thing - surfing the net!

Sure they may also play the odd one or two games, but quite a lot of what people do on their PC's uses very little of the computers full capabilities - in most cases people could work with a 286 and not notice much difference (apart from the behemoth of an OS that Windows has become over the years).

So PC's have become too powerful for someone who just wants to type a letter, or e-mail a friend - you don't need a quad core 2Ghz processor with 16Gb of RAM and a 2 terrabyte hard disc for that - it will still only operate as fast as the user inputting the letter can type!

So now we have the tablet - tablets are ideal for someone with very little PC knowledge, most tablets just boot up in five seconds when you turn them on, you can then go straight into the web browser (which is where most people want to be), or use Apps that are very basically program, and linked online to SQL databases.

The other advantage with a tablet over a PC is that it is a bit harder for it to be hacked and gain a virus (I didn't say impossible - just a little bit harder), and even if it does get some kind of malware on there, normally there is an easy fix - just do a quick reset, and most things are back to normal, or if it really does lock up there is always the manual reset (normally by holding two buttons down), and finally the factory reset (which does of course wipe out all your data as well).

There is none of this going into the mysterious world of Safe Mode, and then letting Windows try and fix the problem for you (and eventually hashing things up so bad that you end up calling a techie out). It's just a simple reset.

Also with tablets most devices that are for a tablet are already built in, or can be added using bluetooth connections - none of this messing around trying to find drivers, coming up with a message like "Windows found an 'unknown device'" for a device that is inside the computer.

Tablets are just very simple and ideal for the general public because they work, just like the old Commodore Amiga's and Atari ST's used to - you just plugged them in the TV, turned them on and shoved a disc in and you were off.

Plus tablets can also be plugged easily into TV's - none of this messing around, getting Windows set up with multiple monitors and ensuring which desktop looks good on which screen rubbish, again with a tablet it's just plug in a HDMI cable and go.

I went from owning ZX Spectrum, to Amiga, to PC and when I went to the PC I actually thought we'd taken a major backwards step there and the PC was about as far away from the home entertainment market as it could possibly get, however now with tablets we're going more back towards incorporating the computer with the TV.

Also the entire architecture of the tablets are so much better than ye olde 80x86 architecture. The old Intel 80x86 is very lucky to have lasted so long. Zilog's Z80 years were much shorter, until we had the Motorola M680x0 and Intel 80x86 architecture battle and unfortunately the 80x86 came out on top possibly because of it's heavy office presence. But the 80x86 has a lot of major flaws in it's design that causes it to waste resources - for example the joke 640k memory limit. Thankfully these new tablets might seem under-powered in comparison to a desktop PC, but they have one main thing at their centre that means they don't need that power - an ARM processor - developed by Acorn, originally for the Acorn Archimedes. It does away with the wasteful resources of Intel so it doesn't need anywhere near as much power.

As for the on screen touch keyboard being an issue on tablets - that isn't always an issue - a number of firms all make bluetooth keyboards so you can turn your tablet into a full mini-laptop similar to an ASUS Eee PC. Arnova do a tablet with a cover that doubles up as a keyboard, and the good thing is if you don't want the extra weight of a keyboard - just leave it at home and use the onscreen one.

Tablets are a universal media device that can be used in a number of ways, but obviously if you want to do hardcore stuff - like say major video editing, intense 3D gaming, etc the PC is still the fore runner, with a tablet on the side for the minor things.