Why Tablets missing from MWC 2016 as Tablet Extinction and smartphone VR cometh

One of the more interesting observations that has largely gone unnoticed at MWC (Mobile World Congress) 2016 is the glaring absence of Tablets.

In fact no new Tablets had been launched at the MWC 2016 as noted in the article “Tablets Are Dead”, published February 25, 2016 by Romain Dillet, Techcrunch.

Samsung, Sony, HTC and LG have launched no new Tablets during MWC (Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona, Spain, which ran from Monday February 22^nd 2016 to Thursday February 25^th 2016. 

Neither did they mention the Tablets they'd launched in 2015 such as the LG G Pad II and the Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet as well as the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 launched in August 2015 as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “How Samsung Galaxy S2 replaces your Laptop at Samsung Unpacked Event”. 

The writing was on the wall when Amazon was willing to sell Tablets for as low as US$50 in September 2015 as noted in my blog article entitled “US$50 @Amazon Tablet for Christmas 2015 - Why Tablets are dying as the world goes VR and AR in 2016”.

The big makers are ignoring Tablets for a reason; they're evolving into hybrids. So why is this happening?

MWC and the Death of Tablets - How VR and AR on smartphones makes larger screens obsolete

The reasons as laid out in the article are ones that seem quite reasonable. 

Tablets are now very cheap thanks to white Label Chinese Tablet makers who can churn out hundreds of them and have them branded with company logos for as little as US$50, all running Google Android.

This makes Apple iPad Mini, their main competitive form factor in the Tablet space, looks like an overpriced toy that can be easily challenged by lesser brands such as Amazon Fire kindle series as noted in my blog article entitled “@amazonKindle Fire battle Apple iPad Mini in 2014 - Why @Amazon Tablet Glory Days fading as Tablet Extinction inevitable”.  

For this reason, many who have a Tablet have no need to replace them, only doing so when their dog turns them into a chew-toy or their baby breaks it thinking it's a frisbee. 

These longer replacement cycles means that even the idea of Apple SIM introduced in the Apple iPad Air 2 and the Apple iPad Mini 3 back in October 2014 to give users more choices for Data Networks as chronicled in my blog article entitled “Apple SIM in the Apple iPad Air 2 - How iOS 8.0 Carrier Unlocked SIM sells Apple iPads in Year of the Sheep 2015”,will not work.

Most smartphones are large enough to do the work of both Tablet as well as cellphone, the so-called phablet phenomenon now being led by the new 5.1" Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge makes a big splash at MWC 2016”.

Along with the 5.3 LG G5, the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge overshadowed Tablets and the need to even have one display. Tablets will thus have to evolve into Hybrid laptops or become e-readers to be used in the Education system in Teacher colleges in order to stay relevant.

This is currently the case in Jamaica with the TIS (Tablet in School) Program as described in my blog article entitled “How Teachers' Colleges getting TIS Project Tablets heralds Projectors and Interactive Whiteboards for Engaging Teaching”.

With the phablet trend now morphing into a VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality) trend possibly coming to regular smartphones thanks to Corephotonics' Dual-Camera System as noted in my blog article entitled “How Corephotonics' Dual-Camera System will result in Smartphones Optical Zoom for VR Content”, Tablets are now on their deathbed.