But do these waiting rooms have public Wi-Fi so that you can actually do something on a tablet, or is it locked and the key available to employees only? I have more than enough on my 10" laptop to survive a wait of at least a couple hours with no Internet.
You do know that tablets can have 3G (4G)? How about tethering? Even better, in my case since I loathe cellphones, a mobile hot-spot. Just from a security standpoint, I wouldn't use public Wi-Fi anyway, especially if I'm connecting into and operating my network!
So would you get onto the home server whenever you need to do a lot of typing or play games in genres not suited for touch input?
I can't speak for anyone else since cervical bone-spurs are doing a number on my typing, or anything else requiring a lot of motor-control so scratch most non-strategy games right off the bat. For almost everything, I use voice and the Nexus 7 does voice recognition very nicely indeed. Next GUI and yes even on my servers. If a keyboard is required for commands, or my master password, well as I said, typing ain't that good now. A dozen or so weird characters are fine, else use handlers. Frankly, aside from CLI wienies, typing is overrated, especially in the face of handhelds with superior voice-recognition. Do recall that the Unix syntax style was created for TeleTypes, the real deal. As in TTY's! I've used them and I can't see why anyone, save someone who considers cryptic interfaces a "good" thing to keep the unwashed (unanointed) masses away from their altar (OS), would like them. [Aside: The ONLY thing I have good to say about PowerShell is that voice works well there if you keep a finger over the hyphen key.]
I forgot to address your point about keyboards/mice/portability issue, well all told, my 7" tablet, bluetooth keyboard (in the same case), bluetooth mouse, and even bluetooth headset wrap into a small bundle that goes in one cargo pocket, although I usually toss it into my small backpack. I wouldn't want to use anything smaller than 7", but that's due to equally old eyes, and I have no use for 10" here which is pure Goldilock's here.
In the future I can eventually see that we'll go to something like a wrist-bracelet, glasses, headset rig with a roll-out display, all equally comfortable with Swype-type on-screen keyboards, Kinect-style user interaction, voice-recognition, etc. (multi-modal in-depth), as part of a personal network that ties in, and imports our environment, wherever we are and whatever we are doing (and that's context sensitive as well). We are still only in the fourth generation of these devices, at best, or more like second-generation by my count, so change will happen fast. Still, multi-modal, distributed, multi-networked devices seem to be the trend. [Until the Next Big Thing comes along, DNI. Direct-Nueral Interface, probably brought to you by Sony who is doing a lot of work in this area.]
Tablets have the potential to become a disabled (I don't mince words) individuals best friend, especially as Google and Android developers have been approaching things of late. 24/7 access to my medical team, anywhere, the 'net's millions of books, and my own personal (legal) collection of literally (pun intended) thousands more, and all through a device with enough compute power to be voice operated even without a 3G/4G connection. Under $500 even with all the widgets above. Wow! Being bed-ridden was my future before. What's next? [Or as MS used to put it, where do you want to go today?]
I have no idea of how the Microsoft tablet market will turn out and frankly, I don't think anyone really does either. What I do know is the potential is there, despite the crap said in these threads. Talk about FUD! Whatever. We need hands-on by the developer community not blarney. Once the NDA's clear, of course.