The Eee Pad Transformer is one of many Android tablets aiming to stand out among the crowd. (Photo courtesy Asus)

If you’ve seen one tablet, you’ve seen ‘em all: a flat slab with a glass front. A few hardware companies want to break that image with a different kind of slate: the hybrid.

It’s based on the idea that your tablet can be more than just an armchair device. Hook your pad up to a keyboard — sometimes provided, sometimes an optional accessory — and it’s an instant laptop solution, a relatively low-cost netbook for times when a touchscreen keyboards may not suffice.

“Hybrid tablets represent an attempt by manufacturers to fully explore the space of design possibilities,” Gartner research analyst Ray Valdes says. Hardware companies need to find a sweet spot with their tablet offerings, or “sustainable market niches” as Valdes puts it, in order to differentiate from what other companies are doing.

As new tablets hit the market every week, manufacturers are doing everything they can to stand out among the crowd. HTC was one of the first to experiment with the option of adding a stylus with its Flyer tablet, and Lenovo also plans to offer a tablet with an accompanying pen. Other companies have played with the idea of the form factor, sizing tablets anywhere from 7 to 10 inches in screen size. The tablet-laptop lookalike is the latest iteration of the theme.

“With hybrids, product designers are moving the needle in one direction and then back again,” Valdes said. “First strip out certain aspects of a netbook or laptop, such as the keyboard, and then reverse course by adding these pieces back in.”

The Asus Eee Pad Slider, for instance, is playing with the idea of the tablet-netbook hybrid. Essentially, Asus takes the concept of a smartphone slide-out keyboard and brings it to the tablet form, somewhat like a gigantic Motorola Droid phone. It’s an evolution of the company’s first big hybrid option, the Eee Pad Transformer.

The aptly named Eee Pad Slider includes an attached keyboard, which slides out from underneath the tablet screen. (Photo courtesy Asus)

Similarly, Lenovo plans to debut its ThinkPad tablet this fall, easily the most interesting of three tablet devices the company will release this year. Aimed at the business crowd that needs to respond to e-mails quickly, the ThinkPad comes with an optional folio-style case, complete with keyboard attachment. From what we’ve seen, it looks like a nice compromise between a carrying case and a functional peripheral input device. Keeping in line with the ThinkPad laptop heritage, the signature red-dot arrow controller appears smack in the middle of the keyboard.

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