<p>The tablet category is quickly becoming a tricky one to analyze. As in the early stages of any technology category, we are seeing the tablet market splinter into separate markets.</p><p>While I like to point out how large the tablet category is, one can't accurately analyze the tablet category without peeling back its onion-like layers.</p><p>As I and other analysts have continued to point out, the tablet market is really two separate categories. In fact, it may actually be more than that. The challenge that we have is that the generic term "tablet" is actually a term that means many different things to different segments of the market. For example, a tablet that is purchased only to mount in a retail store is lumped into the tablet sales estimates with products like the iPad, Nexus, Kindle Fire, Samsung Galaxy Tab and so on. So while point of sale tablets will be counted among tablets that get sold to end users and are used, we have to wrestle with the question of whether they should be or not.</p><p>The same is true with the many low-cost tablets that are flooding the market but aren't really showing up on anyone's radar. These devices, to the best of our knowledge, are really more appliances and dedicated-use tablets that have weak specs, low-res screens, cheap casing and are primarily being used in emerging markets to just watch movies. These tablets don't go online, don't connect to anyone's services and don't download apps, so should they be counted in the same numbers as iPads, Samsung tablets and Kindle Fires?</p><p><a href="http://techland.time.com/2014/01/06/netbooks-and-low-cost-tablets-are-in-the-same-category/">Keep reading...</a></p>