5 years ago, over 100 million tablets had been sold worldwide and the iPad was entering its 4th generation. Your description is more apt for 10 years ago.
Well, according to Wikipedia, the history of tablets goes back to the 1800s. But I know for a fact that I bought two tablets on December 31st, 2011 that were priced at $2000 (after getting a 2 year internet service contract plus a 20% employee discount to reduce the price, I paid $800 up front) and it was kind of the hot new item at the time. And I know for a fact that proliferation of apps we have now was not the norm back then. I had enormous difficulty getting things done on it and I noticed that painfully because I essentially had no other access to computers at the time. I can now do all kinds of things on a tablet bought for under $50 that I could only dream of and wish for 5 years ago.
The first generation iPad launched close to two years before your example in 2010 at $499.
I agree with the previous remarks - the tablet industry was pretty well established 5 years ago and hardly cutting edge tech - 10 years ago is definitely a better comparison at this point, with the crappy tablet devices Microsoft were pushing at much higher price points then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tablet_computers
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