Get a smartphone that does all that and a 3DS/Vita for gaming.

I assume you have a phone anyways so realistically you're not buying what you wouldn't already have.

This, my smartphone could surf the net easily, Youtube and all and its a piece of crap. You cant play stuff like uncharted, Mario, Resident Evil, Ninja Gaiden, Mvs.C3, etc on a tablet.  IMHO tablets are the biggest wastes of time ive ever saw. they dont have the functionality of laptop and only have a little bit more than your average smart phone, I would question why one would buy tablet

This.

Smartphone  for internet/communication and console for media/gaming. It's a pretty nice option as I can see it.

I'd have to disagree with you on many points.

Smartphones (as well as tablets) run do youtube and pretty much anything else media/entertainment wise perfectly fine. Idk what type you have but, I can do anything on my phone that I can do on my PC. I can even sync keyboard if I wanted to make it quicker for typing etc.

Sure they won't play the same games or run high-end software for many specific jobs. But for casual use, education, etc... its just fine.

Then there's one major difference with notebooks specifically. Portability. A phone or tablet is far more portable and easier to utlize away from a table than a notebook. 

While they don't replace someone's work computer or a gaming machine (yet), they are perfectly fine for anything else.

Hell, a tablet could replace all that so long as it had a dock to make it a touch monitor and sync'd to a kb/ms. No difference then... what do you think Win8 tablets will look like by end of this year?

I like the iPad for watching netflix, surfing the net, listening to my music. It's light, it's practical, it's handy, much more so than a netbook I find.

Having said that, a netbook is much more capable, so if you don't already have a computer, get a netbook. If you have a computer, get an iPad.

If you want a dedicated video game machine, get a 3DS (imho).

@superchunk. I  agree with almost all your points, except I don't remember word processing to be very convenient on the iPad even with keyboard synching. If he doesn't need to do word processing, then that's all good. Also, viewing online pdfs should be a synch, but don't expect to easily sync up your work files with your iPad. I found transferring files to my iPad to be a complete hassle (had to use e-mails)... Maybe other tablets do that better, idk.

To argue Vita's case:

Vita's Internet browser isn't as good as what you'd get on a tablet but does a decent job on most sites and it's browser easily displays pages, multiple windows, and text boxes. A downside is I can't seem to copy text, so unless I'm missing something no copy or paste feature, yet/ever. That included highlighting. You can download photos/mp3/video/music from your browser, I don't have a list of acceptable formats but you can probably find those on the Vita's online manual.

If social media is your thing it has a variety, and an exceptional twitter app I prefer over the website. Facebook is alright, they added a photo upload option but only to your wall, still nice as it is easy to take pictures with.

The camera could be a lot better, but it does a good job as a camera despite low mega-pixels. Which can't be said of many mobile cameras. It also does video.

It has skype so you can call/video call people. Even use it as a phone with skype minutes and a online number, though you might want 3G if you need to be accessible away from wifi. The skype app takes incoming calls no matter what you're doing, even gaming, but you might need the app open in the background but I haven't tested that yet. The mic on it isn't anything special either, but works.

There is a google map app that can get you places but I haven't tried it out much, again more useful with 3G/gps functionality. You can probably chart out directions from a wifi connection and continue to use them while out.

You might think tablets have the edge with apps, but outside of ones found on the PlayStation store, the Vita will be getting PlayStation Suite sometime soon(dev open beta right now). It will provide games and apps similar to what Apple store and Android Market provide. So it will be a diverse multi-tool.

Games. This is where it shines. Unless you need Nintendo IPs, Vita will give you the best gaming experience. Controls are unrivaled in the handheld space. The power of the Vita allows for excellent graphic and gameplay including full online multiplayer that we will see this month with Resistance burning skies's 8 player online matches. Very exciting. Again PS Suite will provide numerous titles but the Vita will have more minis, psn, and psp titles under its belt in time(something like 250+ now?) It will be getting PS1 classics soon and some hope PS2, but there are significant amounts of PS1 titles out there. Vita games themselves will hit their stride later this year and E3 will inform you on them. These games past, present, future, IP, 3rd party will not easily or ever appear on tablet or other handheld devices. Very few devs are seeking out that space, but handheld console from Nintendo and Sony will receive support.

If you have/get a PS3/PS4 you have the advantage of remote play, controller, content manager, cross-play, and free game matching for certain titles. You can use a computer for content management but the PS3 route is probably easier since you won't need to mess with folders, though not hard it's not plug and play like with the PS3.

Battery life is an issue. Reducing brightness/volume, making sure unneeded apps are closed, powering off when not in use, remembering to charge(battery life won't be effected by charging before the battery is low), and not using the livetweet apps backdoor trick to access the browser while running a game in the background will all help keep your battery going all day. Depends on how often you use it, but if your tough on it only expect 3 hours.

Durability and mobility. The thing isn't going to break on you easy, but you need to take care of it so some sort of case is the way to go. The front screen is pretty scratch resistant but the back touch isn't, especially since you put it down on it's back. You can get a larger case or a sleeve if you want to still be able to pocket the thing. I don't suppose this is much different than a tablet except tablets have folding cases while the Vita only has sleeves and zip ups so far.

The UI/OS is pretty good, easy to use and customize. You might find kinks early on until more firmware updates happen. Errors are still few, like lock ups and touch screen sensitivity issues, but are easily fixed by a hard reset. Updates will improve any issues, but you can get insurance if you are worried, though physically breaking it is more likely.

Price point. While more expensive than a 3DS, cheaper than a tablet. Depending on how much memory you need and if you want 3G, the Vita is cheap and packs a punch with its quad core and 5" OLED screen.

Oh, it is currently laming HTML 5 and Flash video playback. I'm sure it will get the soon, but still waiting. It was suppose to have HTML 5 from launch, but don't know what happened. I'm not sure if it contains what it needs for flash but macromedia has talked about developing a flash that is streamable without hardware requirements, so I hope it gets that too whenever that happens.

Oh and it has Netflix, nice on Vita's screen and a functional menu like on PS3. Its wifi card is also of great quality.

Aside from a Vita I have an iPod touch 4, so that's my first hand comparison knowledge. I like them both for certain reasons over the other, but once the Vita gets PS suite and video playback I might drop the iPod.

First of all, why would you get a tablet?

If you are looking to browse the web, watch videos, listen to music, carry PDFs or ebooks, heck even play some casual games then get yourself a good smartphone. The S3 is out and its armed with a quad core processor and graphics card to meet all of those needs and then some. A tablet is just too oversized and a smartphone can fit into your pocket just like any other phone, so you don't need to carry another bigger device which does the same thing.

Once you have that covered, it seems much more plausible to carry another extra device that meets your hardcore gaming needs. That is what the 3DS and Vita are meant to do, don't try to confuse them with an all around device, which they are not.

I am looking at a tablet, because I want to quickly access PDF docs and surf the web conveniently.  I am using a laptop here now.  I wouldn't port it around for web based stuff.