Would tablets be better with more ports or different ports?
Unfortunately, I can't find any better device to prove a point I have than this one of the Toshiba Thrive. It's one heck of a nasty screen size for us here, but let's just get past the picture, okay?
Anyway, you'll see that the Thrive is, as far as tablets go, quite loaded in terms of ports. USB, HDMI, and mini-HDMI round out its wired connectivity options. But for people like me who have incredibly slow internet, that may be one of two things: not enough ports, or too many.
Since you've clicked past the break, let me take the opportunity to break away from that Toshiba thing and talk about how those ports should translate into the smaller devices that we talk about.
There are so many times that come up for me when I need to download something quite large from the internet, that I also have on some type of media around my house, but it's for a small device. Whether it be an album, a DVD, or even a restore file for my iPhone, I can't viably download it from the internet due to its speed. (Don't tell me it's my fault, either; it's the fastest I can afford.) What would come in handy are USB/FireWire ports with which I can transfer files between my devices.
Is that what we need? More ports for faster data transfers?
On the flipside, however, too many ports might make our devices too big and bulky to carry around. FireWire is huge, and so is USB, to an extent. That Thrive (last time it's being mentioned, I promise!) is a relatively thick tablet. So what if we had one port to rule them all? I've talked about Thunderbolt giving both smartphones and tablets more capability, and I think that's what it's going to come down to, especially as more and more people start buying tablets in lieu of their desktops and laptops.
What do you think? Is that a lost cause? I know a lot of you have insanely fast internet, but I'm here in Farmtown USA, still with a connection that tops out at 1.5Mb/s down.
