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Arthur T. Knackerbracket writes:

CNET has an article on the replacement of regular tablets with 2-in-1 hybrid tablet/laptop devices.

Apple CEO Tim Cook once compared a tablet-laptop combo to mashing up a refrigerator with a toaster. The resulting Frankenstein device would do an equally lousy job of chilling your food and warming it up. That was three years ago.

Today, these tablet-laptop hybrids -- which blend the mobility and touchscreen friendliness of a tablet with the capabilities of a PC -- are on track to becoming the fastest-growing computing category. Shipments of so-called 2-in-1 devices like Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 and the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, for example, are expected to grow almost fivefold this year. That's thanks in part to attachable or foldable keyboards and more-powerful hardware, such as Intel's Core M microprocessors, that let slimmer, tabletlike devices hit speeds on par with midrange laptops.

And tablet sales? The market for large slabs of glass that are used mostly for playing games, reading email and watching videos has begun to slide. Sales of slate-style tablets are expected to fall 8 percent, according to a report from research firm Strategy Analytics. Sales in Apple's iPad business, meanwhile, fell 18 percent year over year in its most recent quarter, the sixth consecutive quarterly decline.

Consumers can't seem to get enough of devices that let them have, and do, it all.

"I feel like this took about three years," said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. "You now have very high quality 2-in-1s that are very thin, affordable -- and people haven't upgraded their notebook for a while."

Understanding the rise of the 2-in-1 means charting the decline of the standalone tablet.

Jean Philippe Bouchard, a research director at IDC who's focused on tablets, points to the 2010 Dell Streak, one of the earliest so-called phablets, or phone-tablet hybrids. Consumers and critics panned the Streak for its (then) ridiculously large 5-inch screen. Dell stopped selling it 13 months after release.

"At the time, everyone -- me included -- were all laughing about this product," Bouchard said. "When you look now, the 5-inch is the norm for smartphones."

Larger phablets, such as Apple's new iPhone 6 Plus and the devices in Samsung's Galaxy Note line, have become standard. And mobile software from companies like Microsoft, such as its Word document-editing application, have been tailored to work across devices as business users shift work between screens. Samsung has even managed to re-energize the smartphone stylus as a must-have productivity tool.

These phablets have eaten into the market for standalone 7- and 8-inch tablets, like the 7.9-inch iPad Mini. When your phone is only an inch or two shy, what's the point, Bouchard points out.

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