I’m often asked by friends and family if they should buy a tablet. They figure that the devices are the next big thing in the industry, and they should jump on that trend sooner rather than later.

However, when they ask me for my thoughts on the topic, my answer typically surprises them a bit. I don’t tell them they should buy a single tablet; I tell them they should buy a couple.

I think it makes a lot of sense for people to buy cheap Wi-Fi-only tablets they use mainly in the home; 3G- or 4G-equipped slates for the road; and perhaps an older slate or something else quite cheap that they can kick around and play with when they want to experiment with hacks or riskier apps.

At first glance, such logic might sound odd. After all, who needs anything more than an iPad, right?

More people than you think.

According to consulting firm Deloitte, about five million tablets will be sold this year to people who already own one. That study followed an earlier report from Resolve Market Research, which found that 46 percent of consumers who own a tablet were planning to buy another.

That makes sense when you consider that there are currently two basic segments in the tablet market: high-end devices that come close to matching the usability of lightweight notebooks, and affordable slates that are designed to deliver entertainment and Web browsing, but not much else. The iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 lead the first group, while the Amazon Kindle Fire leads the second.

This market bifurcation creates a hierarchy in multi-tablet homes. Consumers will turn to devices like the iPad or the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to whip up a quick Word document or maybe even edit some video. The Kindle Fire or the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet are a better fit for surfing the Web, checking e-mail, or catching a couple quick YouTube clips.

In other words, depending on what we’re doing, simpler slates might be stocked away when we have more sophisticated needs. But when we want to engage in those simpler activities, we have simpler tablets available to us, so we don’t need to search the house to find our iPads.

In the case of families, I think it’s even more useful to have multiple tablets. Parents might want more capable devices like the iPad, to deliver the full tablet experience. But do they really want their kids using a device that not only costs at least $500, but affords them too many opportunities to get in trouble?

In a family, it might be a better idea to buy a cheaper, simple tablet for the little ones. That way, on long road trips, if they happen to spill some juice on the device or want to sit back and watch a long film, a cheaper tablet, like the Kindle Fire, can accommodate their needs.

Even better, parents can sit in the passenger seat and watch their own films on the iPad without worry of getting it taken away by the kids to satisfy their insatiable desire for entertainment.

Now, let’s say that your company bought you a tablet for the office. Maybe you were provided a Cisco Cius or a BlackBerry PlayBook, and you’re wondering if you really need anything beyond that to use at home.

The quick answer: you bet.

Those devices, which are designed for enterprise use, are just fine for that implementation, but they fall short on the consumer side. Plus, if your company hasn't already, it might place restrictions on your corporate-provisioned tablet that force you to get your own slate in order to do everything you want, like download apps and surf to any site.

Unfortunately, although the iPad comes mighty close, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for tablet implementation for both the consumer and enterprise markets.

But it goes beyond that. Remember the notion of kids using your tablet? According to Resolve Market Research, one of the chief reasons business tablet owners buy another for the home is to get their kids to stop using a device that contains their sensitive corporate data.

Luckily for all those folks, tablets can be bought on the cheap. The Kindle Fire goes for just $199. The Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet is on sale for just $249. And if you’re so willing, you can spend as little as $499 to get your hands on an iPad 2. For $700 -- the price of a single, respectable notebook, you can own two tablets.

Buying multiple tablets might not be an incredibly popular idea right now, but this will change by the end of 2012. The market is in its infancy and over time, as tablets start to saturate the market and new devices that push the industry standard forward start hitting store shelves, many of us will feel we have no choice but to buy a new one.

Rest assured that it will be what everyone else is doing also.