After all the buzz and excitement surrounding what looked like a game changer, one TechCrunch author in particular is daring enough to fly in the face of pride and humility that keeps other fan boys hanging around and says:

…But this fanboy is listing his iPads for sale on Craigslist. Why? Because they’ve become like the paperweights on his desk.

Those of us at Dinarius have long seen tablet shaped, touchscreen personal computers as the next step in what most users would prefer. Our darling was the Gateway M280. Despite the sense that tablets make, few folks bought in to it. The industry swallowed R&D on tablets and UMPC’s (another brilliant next step that went largely unadopted) and instead found a public ga-ga for smart phones.

See Gizmodo’s YouTube sneak of Microsoft’s kick-ass Courier and see HP’s already realized tablet that left the gate long before Apple.

I recently had a chance to play on some surface computers and developed some strong opinions that no one asked for. Just today, I read news that Microsoft is tipping their toes quietly in the market research area asking consumers what they think they might like about a Surface Computer they’re calling “Oahu,” or ‘the gathering place.’