You're likely right in that tablets aren't about to kill PCs, but suggesting that tablets remain a simple "trendy gadget" seems a bit silly, especially considering Apple's Q1 reports [1].
Perhaps the iPad isn't to your taste, but it was to 7 million others. (And some 16 million overall.) One could argue that Apple does, in fact, have the largest consumer base of early adopters and trend followers of any company, but when you fan base grows larger than many other markets, you kind of have to call it main-stream.
I'm pretty sure that the iPad isn't the second coming of Christ. I'm comfortable saying that. But it's something other than a trend at this point.
If you are going to go calling tablets of any kind "main-stream", then I'm afraid you are devaluing that term to the point that it is meaningless. TVs are mainstream. Cars are mainstream. Computers overall are mainstream, though it is still easy to find homes in which "the computer" is put somewhere "out of the way" and gets maybe an hour of interaction a month. Tablets are not mainstream.
No, I'm really not. That would be one extreme, sure. However reducing the meaning of the term "mainstream" by saying it applies to things as rare as tablets are today is to go to the other extreme.
Perhaps the iPad isn't to your taste, but it was to 7 million others. (And some 16 million overall.) One could argue that Apple does, in fact, have the largest consumer base of early adopters and trend followers of any company, but when you fan base grows larger than many other markets, you kind of have to call it main-stream.
I'm pretty sure that the iPad isn't the second coming of Christ. I'm comfortable saying that. But it's something other than a trend at this point.
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/18/apple-q1-2011/