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2011 Tablet PC Shipments Estimated at Nearly 73 Million Units, More Than 25% of All Mobile PCs

At last year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, you couldn’t throw your schwag bag across the show floor without hitting a 3-D television or Android tablet. This year’s hottest gadget? It looks like it will be the ultrabook.

I recently had a week to test drive a Google Android tablet. After wondering aloud if lawyers can use tablets to replace laptops and following that up with an analysis of your opinions, I began exploring the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 Wi-Fi version, comparing notes with ALM’s editorial director for technology, David Snow, who also had it for a week. We all know that lawyers love the Apple iPad, but could Android cut it just as well?

From my perspective, 2011 was most notably marked by the broader acceptance of tablets and cloud computing and I expect those trends will continue in 2012.

Asus has announced plans to unlock the bootloader on its Eee Pad Transformer Prime and bring Android 4 to the device by January 12. After facing customer scrutiny Monday for locking and encrypting the bootloader on the device, Asus announced plans to release an unlocking tool for the tablet/PC hybrid.