AppleInsider reports today on new figures from NPD Display Search, which project that sales of touchscreen tablets (but really they mean the iPad!) will surpass sales of notebooks by 2016. NPD believes that tablet shipments will rise from 121 million in 2012 to 416 million by 2017, in contrast to the trajectory of notebook shipments, which NPD says will rise to just 393 million from 208 million in the same time span.

"Consumer preference for mobile computing devices is shifting from notebook to tablet PCs, particularly in mature markets,” said Richard Shim, NPD DisplaySearch senior analyst. "While the lines between tablet and notebook PCs are blurring, we expect mature markets to be the primary regions for tablet PC adoption. New entrants are tending to launch their initial products in mature markets. Services and infrastructure needed to create compelling new usage models are often better established in mature markets."

On an interesting side note to this story, John Gruber at Daring Fireball remarks on how certain stories, such as this report from NPD, and another report on GigaOm, refer to “tablets” when they really mean “iPad”, and wonders why this should be.

Source: Led by Apple's iPad, tablets projected to surpass notebooks by 2016
Daring Fireball Linked List: 'Tablets'
NPD: Apple iPad sales will surpass notebook sales in 2016 - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Tech

Projections are great, but how do you define a notebook vs. a tablet? Basically a netbook has a keyboard and that's the only major difference. I think that we'll see a real convergence of devices over time where these distinctions no longer matter.

Tablets (particularly this ipad) still fall short. I am a power user of the ipad and love it but am able to overcome limitations. Others in my family find it difficult to transition from notebooks and find difficulties, particularly with the truncated browsing. Setting up Terra or Mercury browsers as "desktop browsers" creates crashes that frustrate. The more we move to "the cloud", the more important browsing easily becomes! Apple and others cannot rely on hardware alone: they must facilitate the transition with good software (and no crashes!)