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Mark Mark Spoonauer nails the taxonomy and probably adoption for "Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), Tablets (Media Tablets), and Smartbooks in his Laptop Mag piece. There's a place for media tablets, good name for them BTW, but they will no doubt cannibalize the adjoining segments a bit. I'm looking forward to more options in the 10.1 capacitive area, which is just about the same size as a trade paperback. I'm also looking forward to studies on how LED back-lighting works for eReading, since eInk has made so much of the eyestrain issue. And finally, while I'm all for touchscreens you can manipulate with your finger, I'm hoping that someone develops stylus technology that offers drag (the kind paper's tooth gives) and pressure sensitivity. Of course, I've been waiting for tablet to take over since Bill promised they would some years back, but their time may well have come.

For every company that’s excited about creating a device that falls between smart phones and netbooks, there are five others that tell me that they’re still trying to figure out what problem these tweeners are trying to solve. From smallest to biggest you have mobile Internet devices (MIDs), tablets (not to be confused with Tablet PCs), and smartbooks.

But what are these things really?

What makes defining these relatively new gadget categories complicated is that there is some overlap between them. For example, just yesterday ABI Research said that four million “media tablets” shipped this year, and that by 2015 that number will reach about 57 million.

(Source: Laptop Magazine)