Tablet = laptop - keyboard - useful OS - freedom of choice in software - hard drive. Yeah, that's innovation.
Usually I can see where you're coming from, but during this line in particular you must have been drunk or half asleep.
Right, no keyboard, kind of a pain sometimes, but as for freedom of choice in software, have you seen the Android market (and to a lesser extent in terms of freedom, the iOS AppStore?) Think Ubuntu Software Center, tons of apps you can install with one or two clicks. Even without the tons of stuff available there, there's additional software you can throw onto these devices.
Useful OS? Linux not good enough for you? All the OS needs to do is run the desired apps, but if you really want to make it more like a "real" computer, you can always drop to a shell.
No hard drive? Sure, no spinning platter, but who the hell wants one of those anymore, especially on a portable device? Solid state storage works just fine, and throws across the room happily. Obviously if you need terabytes of stuff in your hand at any given time you'll need something more, but as mentioned previously tablets aren't PC replacements and are geared more towards accessing content stored elsewhere.
Tablets <> PCs, right, and most of what you can do on a tablet can be done on a smartphone, sure, but if you can get past the lack of keyboard you really can get stuff done with a tablet without straining yourself.
