Video: What is a 2-in-1 hybrid device?
As smartphones transitioned to becoming all-touchscreen faces, these newer keyboard-free designs were still considered smartphones. But remove the keyboard from a Windows laptop and you strip its identity, leaving you with a whole other class of device: The tablet[1].
Indeed, the term "2-in-1" for a laptop with a detachable screen[2] is a construct to accommodate iPad-inspired notions of what a laptop should be from a company that argued there really wasn't a standalone tablet category. Still, the term is particularly paradoxical. Microsoft did the most to popularize keyboards as integral parts of tablets, yet those products (like the Surface Pro), with nearly identical functionality, are not considered "2-in-1s" even when the keyboard covers are in the box.
Read also: BlackBerry Key2 hands-on: The good and bad so far (CNET)[3]
In any case, the convention highlights the historically strong association of laptops with keyboards. At the launch of the BlackBerry Key2[4], TCL Mobile justified the continued importance of keyboards on phones were by praising their primacy on laptops. As I argued in my last column[5], it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Despite that, some momentum in the great keyboard debate has begun to flow the other way -- from smartphone to laptop. After all, some of the same justifications for keyboard elimination apply -- more flexibility, larger display area, fewer moving parts, and a thinner profile. Already, the attack on the bezel has already convinced a few laptop makers to relocate their cameras[6] although convertible momentum remains strong[7].
Still, there have been experiments. The first Surfaces[8], for example, said as much about the optional nature of