I found myself using my iPad really only for two things:
- Reading – but I since bought a more convenient smaller Kindle that I could read in a wildlife photography hide without scaring off the subject
- Watching a little bit of TV when I went to bed
The reason I bought it originally was to have lots of battery life at conferences. But I couldn’t type with it. The screen keyboard is OK but not fast enough. The attachable keyboards weren’t rigid and you never have a desk at these events. So I ended up buying an Ultrabook.
So my iPad became dispensable. Even though it was an iPad 1, there were no shortage of buyers. And I didn’t even have to advertise it. So it’s not like I’m claiming it’s a dead platform or anything.
So what’s my future on the device front? In my personal lab, it’s a bunch of tower PCs. That’s tied up for a while with work.
My Ultrabook is going strong. It’ll stay on Windows 7 until Windows 8 RTM, and maybe later depending on my work schedule. My work laptop (the Beast) is already running Windows 8 so I can have a mobile Hyper-V base for demos.
My “tablet” for now is the Build slate, a revved up version of the Samsung slate that you can buy in retail at the moment. The Release Preview is running nicely on there. It’s not ideal – it runs hot and the battery life is poor for a tablet style device. Maybe I’ll sell it later in the year before I get a Windows 8 device. Or maybe I’ll sell it as a collectible on Pawn Stars 
I will look at design-for-Windows 8 devices later in the year. I work for a Sony and Toshiba distributor so obviously I’ll look at what they have coming. I haven’t seen anything about Sony’s plans in that space yet. Toshiba have an interesting slider in the but I’d want to try it out. I’m not sure about it as a machine for your lap.
The Asus Transformer goes a more portable route. It’s a laptop and a tablet with an i7 CPU. I like that as an iPad and Ultrabook replacement.
The one making the headlines is the Microsoft Surface. The problem is … what do I want? If I want a tablet, then either the Pro or the RT would suffice. The Pro would be great for things like Photoshop and be dock-able as a normal PC. But I can’t let myself fall into the same trap as I did with the iPad. That keyboard isn’t rigid – so it will suck at conferences and events, constantly flopping.
I don’t know. That’s why I will wait and see.