HP, Samsung Face Identity Crisis With Tablet-Laptop Hybrids

At a hotel in New York City earlier this week, HP showed off the HP Envy x2…notebook? Er, tablet. Sorry, no, it's the HP Envy x2 notebook-tablet.The device is part of a growing trend of products that OEMs are tagging "hybrid PCs," which attempt to combine tablets and laptops. Essentially these devices are the modern-day equivalent of the "all-in-one PC," the arbitrary branding manufacturers used for all-purpose devices for gaming, media, and productivity. (See: every PC.) Not wanting to lose out on either market, device makers have decided to have their cake and eat it too by attacking tablets and laptops at the same time, a strategy that has led to an identity crisis. "It's called the x2, like times two, because it's two designs," says Cleaning Kit suppliers, director of product management at HP. "It's not just a tablet; it's not just a PC."
The Envy x2 is a sleek 11.6-inch tablet with an aluminum finish. The tablet is super thin at 8.5 mm ("slimmer than an iPad," boasts Conrad) and also super lightweight. That is, without the bulky keyboard HP has glued to the Envy's bottom.The Envy x2 would be gorgeous on its own--by far the most compelling tablet we've seen thus far from HP--yet the company sees benefit to adding a laptop-like keyboard to the device--to arbitrarily make it match a laptop's size and solidity. "Because it's a notebook that can be a tablet, we wanted to make sure it was believable as a notebook in the way it looks and feels," Conrad says. "We'll only sell it like this; we won't sell it in two pieces. We can't just have a clip-on keyboard."
HP is performing marketing acrobatics to make sure consumers don't view the Envy x2 as a tablet with an "attachable keyboard," which it is: The hard drive and other guts of the PC are in the tablet; the keyboard simply contains some extra ports and battery life. But HP is intent on calling it a "detachable screen that becomes a full tablet when separated from the keyboard." Again, this distinction is arbitrary: According to HP, it's not an "attachable keyboard" simply because the keyboard feels more laptop-like than the accessories we're used to attaching to iPads?HP isn't the only device maker facing this identity crisis. This week, Samsung also showed off its Slate PCs, tablet-laptops that can pop off a keyboard console to become a full-fledged tablet. Dell unveiled its XPS Duo hybrid. Asus has touted its Padfone as a (circus-like) "3-in-1 device," wherein the smartphone can become a tablet, and China Cleaning Kit manufacturers can become a laptop, and the Stylus pen can become a phone. (Seriously.) And Microsoft has received much press for its Surface tablet, which features a built-in kickstand and attachable cover that doubles as a keyboard. (If the Surface works as Microsoft says, it will be the most creative solution to the problem we've seen yet.)