While the iPad fervor has died down to a certain extent (and the shine has started to come off the Apple), from time to time you can see the religious nature of people’s iPad evangelism come out.

Take for instance, today, a throwaway article that showed up today Computerworld:

Some companies have already shown off other tablet-style computers using Atom CPUs from Intel, and those devices will have access to an Intel application download store similar to that run by Apple for its products including the iPad. But Intel executives interviewed this week gave only modest predictions for the growth of tablets, or handheld touchscreen devices often used to view multimedia and surf the Web.

"These new categories are hard to predict," said David Perlmutter, head of Intel’s architecture group, at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in Beijing. "We’re ready with technology to be able to support this market as it evolves."

Tablets may not grow like netbooks have in the last couple of years. Microsoft began trying to promote tablets years ago. Intel’s app store, the AppUp Center, is designed for a range of devices using Atom CPUs, including netbooks and smartphones as well as tablets.

"This is by no means the first attempt at tablets," said Justin Rattner, the head of Intel Labs. It’s more of a "third epoch" for the devices, he said.

When I call it a throwaway article, I mean no disrespect to the author at Computerworld, but the post essentially re-hashes what we’ve all known for ages: pads aren’t a new concept, and they’re certainly an unproven device in today’s world even with the mild success Apple has seen so far.

It’s essentially ten short paragraphs with executives and leaders at Intel coming up with different ways to say: “Pads? Meh, don’t get your hopes up, we’ve been on this carnival ride before.”

But then you see the sort of follow on from iPad evangelists like admitted pro-iPad pundit Sarah Perez that betrays a bit of unbridled and unqualified enthusiasm. Her post at ReadWriteWeb today was entitled “Intel Announces Android Ported to Atom Chips (Also, Apparently Hates Tablets),” and seemed to discount out of hand nearly 30 years of attempts by big tech to sell the consumers tablets:

While that may be true, comparing ye ol’ tablets of days yore to the iPad and its offspring – the Android-based tablets, the JooJoo, the rumored Chrome OS tablets, the WePad, etc. – seems a bit ridiculous. Technology has evolved so much since the first tablets launched years ago. No longer are these clunky, heavy behemoths that require pen-based input, have batteries that barely last for a few hours or run so hot that they get uncomfortable in your lap.

Plus, doesn’t the upcoming HP Slate have Intel inside? According to a leaked spec sheet, it does. HP’s first entry into this new tablet era includes Intel’s integrated UMA graphics and sports a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Menlow Z530 processor – a chip which actually beats the iPad’s custom ARM A4 1 GHz in clockspeed. Maybe the Intel execs could have mentioned something like that instead?

Here’s the thing: Intel knows something that most pundits don’t seem to grasp, and that is that the iPad isn’t a real computer.

I mean look at the thing. I grabbed this from a post my buddy Steven Hodson did about a week ago on Inquisitr. That there, friends, is essentially an iTouch circuit board with two big honking batteries.

In theory, you should be able to buy this thing for $49-$199 plus the cost of a larger screen (accounting for refurb/used market prices). There’s nothing, on the other hand, that can run a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom that can beat that – the cost of the chip alone is nearly the price of an iTouch.

You can’t compare the two, in other words.  One’s a computer, and the other is a toy, as CNet’s Tom Merritt is fond of saying.

That isn’t to say that operating systems haven’t come a long way since the days of the first pads, and it isn’t to say that prices haven’t come down to the point where both the interface, ecosystems and economics could outclass iPad in every way.

I think what Intel is trying to say (and the same thing I’ve been saying since I’ve first recoiled against the iPad hype): “This isn’t our first rodeo. We’ve been here before. We don’t hate the iPad, per se. We just aren’t going to bet the farm on something that has such slim chances for mainstream adoption.”