Don't worry if you're finding it hard to buy a tablet guaranteed to ship beofere the end of the year. According to Lenovo, they're about to go the way of the personal stereo.

During a conference call on Thursday to discuss its second quarter earnings, the company's CEO, Yang Yuanqing, claimed that the market for tablets is already cooling and that in future people will move to convertible PCs because they combine media consumption with the other productivity and leisure functions we associate with computers. "I still believe the Yoga type [Lenovo's convertible PC range] of convertible is more usable, more user-friendly. Definitely that's the better product. That will be the future of the PC," he said.

When asked about the growing market for smaller, 7-inch tablets, Yuanqing said that he believed these devices would not mean further competition in the PC market. "The market accepts the 7-inch [tablet] better than the 10-inch. That's a very strong signal, the tablet will not replace the traditional PC... Probably, the tablet will compete with the large-screen smartphone rather than the PC," he said during the conference call.