Indeed, nearly all the devices shown Thursday could snap into a full-sized keyboard. Some had a separate battery in the keyboard. "Most of the time, when you unplug this tablet piece by itself it will be fully charged," because it's been in a dock all day, said Hewlett-Packard's Fredrik Hamberger, who showed HP's Envy X2.

The X2 uses magnets to make snapping the screen back into the dock a one-handed operation.

Bret Berg of Samsung's mobility group said he expects users to have its Series 5 tablet docked during the day when they're creating content, then undocked at home when they're watching video or listening to music.

All the vendors played up the consumer appeal of their tablets as well, but there was an underlying theme that x86 and Windows are a better fit for the workplace than iOS.

"It's about having a product that can transition seamlessly between the consumer and the enterprise," Reid said.