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From the article, by Nathaniel Mott, staff writer, PandoDaily:

Besides, it’s not like students needed iPads in the first place. As 13-year-old Aidan Chandra explained in a guest post for Pando, students need laptops that can handle everything thrown at them, not tablets with limited functionality:

Looking ahead, I think it will be hard for iPads and their sister tablet devices to keep up with larger apps and cutting edge technologies that may enter the classroom. They likely won’t be able to handle larger files or possess enough power and storage to efficiently use a 3D printer and create 3D models. Just as soon as many schools finish spending their budget on iPads, they are likely to find these iPads to be insufficient for keeping up with newly developing educational technology trends.

Let that sink in for a moment. An eighth grader was able to see that tablets — let alone iPads, which are more expensive than their counterparts — aren’t the best investment for schools looking to offer students better access to technology. Yet an LA school district couldn’t figure this out until after the contract was signed?

via LA school district, shocked that iPad program didn’t magically fix everything, demands money back | PandoDaily.

Mott is hardly unbiased. Just as laptops have evolved and become vastly more powerful than even 5, 6 years ago and also lighter, so too will the “tablet” evolve, though probably not quite in the direction most think. The advantage over the laptop is that the “tablet” form factor makes modularity easier. You can add elements, and not just a keyboard. And these need not detract from the form’s signal advantage for the rich, its portability.