What Kind of Tablet PC to Buy? 546
nic barajas asks: "I'm going to be attending college this fall, so I have been looking into a computer to use on campus. My preference has been to looking at the Tablet PC, although they are still in their proverbial infancy. I have been looking at a multitude of vendors, including Sager, Acer, and Toshiba. I'm looking for something that has a sizeable screen (at least 12"), decent storage (40GB+), and a long battery life. What are some of the better models on the market with these characteristics?"
God... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, you can carry it anywhere, but it still performs like crap no matter where you take it.
Re:God... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:God... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:God... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:God... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:God... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:God... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:God... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:God... (Score:5, Funny)
This was making the email rounds a few years ago:
Frequently Asked Questions for Etch-A-Sketch Technical Support
Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has all of these funny little lines allover the screen
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I turn my Etch-A-Sketch off?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: What's the shortcut for Undo?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I create a New Document window?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I set the background and foreground to the same color?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: What is the proper procedure for rebooting my Etch-A-Sketch?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I delete a document on my Etch-A-Sketch?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I save my Etch-A-Sketch document?
A: Don't shake it.
Re:God... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's why I chose the tablet I did.
It was a TRUE tablet, not just these pansy convertibles. I could disconnect the keyboard completely not just fold it over.
Built in wifi (should be a given for any tablet but wasn't at the time of purchase)
Light and sexy form factor.
Ample ram / chipspeed
Here's what I didn't like:
Tablet edition of windows XP feels like a desktop os shoe horned in with scribble recognition/etc into the tablet. It "feels" like a PC with a Pen instead of a tablet (if that makes sense --> haven't put linux on it... yet...)
The screen on this model sucks ass in the sunlight, near useless (which is what we wanted it for -- mobile, outdoors GPS/GIS w/wifi... no love there if you can't see the screen)
if you do use the keyboard, it's counter weighted funny... the screen is heavier than the tablet portion so unless you put the screen at a 90 degree angle it's top heavy and prone to tipping over (or worse *gulp*)
We were kinda hoping to use it as an "uber" handheld, but found it was more an "uber" portable laptop with scribbling enabled.
*shrug* ymmv but figured some of those thoughts would help. Good luck!
E.
Re:God... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've contemplated putting counter-strike on there for headshot's with the stylus/pen, but bet steam would suck on it.
*shrug*
e.
Re:God... (Score:5, Informative)
Your points are pretty good but I'd like to add the stylus itself as a gripe, even after calibration we had problems with its behavior, especially around the edges of the screen (making using scrollbars difficult to do). The stylus was also not quite at one pixel resolution, many times you would hold it to the screen to try to right click (the button on the stylus was nonfunctional) and the pointer would twitch back and forth rapidly between two pixels.
Re:God... (Score:5, Informative)
For the most part, I agree.
It is my job at my college to support ~65 of the HP TC1000 Tablets that we received as part of a grant. I have used this tablet as my only on-campus computer for the last 10 months. I use my tablet throughout the day as my (only) note taking device (mainly in Journal) in my classes.
The good:
The TC1000 is nice for taking notes on. In addition to a wide variety of colors to draw with, when the prof decides to change a drawing or insert something, it is very easy to move objects on the page around. This results in more clear notes, without scratch outs.
The battery life of the TC1000 is excellent. With an aggressive power saving setup, I routinely get 3.5 hours of battery life. It's enough for all my classes and then some.
The TC1000 is very light and easy to carry around. At my college we have a mandatory laptop program. Many students will not bring their laptops to class because they are too heavy and they also have to bring a power adapter, which takes time in class to setup. In addition, taking engineering notes by typing is about impossible due to equations and drawings.
The tablet is wonderful for use at times when using a laptop would be difficult, like standing in the hall waiting for class. Try standing, holding a laptop and typing at the same time! The on-screen keyboard (much like on a Pocket PC) is fine for short URLs, though it certainly isn't the most effecient way to type.
Handwriting recognition, while not perfect, is very usable. Writing big and cleary helps. I don't really use it that often.Being able to annotate power point during a presentation is really useful. This is something not easily done with a standard notebook. Office 2003 integrates nicely with the Tablet's features.
The bad:
The integrated wireless, while a nice idea, is poorly implemented. The reception quality is not good. In areas of campus where I have no problem getting a wireless connection with an iPaq 5450 or an N800w laptop, I have a poor signal or no connection on the TC1000. I attribute this to poor antenna design. Save yourself the money on the intergated wireless and buy a PCMCIA or CF wireless card.
The pen. Maybe I write too hard, but I have broken my pen to the point where it will not stop writing when you lift the point off the screen twice now. At $40 per pen (if I had to pay for it), this can get expensive. Apparently this has been fixed on the TC1100, and I'd like to get my hands on one to try it out.
Performance is less than ideal, but it depends on what you want. The Transmeta processor is slow. The HD is slow, but I haven't seen one crash yet. I wish I could say the same for all our laptops. The new TC1100 uses a Pentium M, so I'm hoping it will be faster.
The base model does not come with enough memory (256MB). The software for the pen and other utilities takes up lots of memory. Add on a virus scanner and you're using ~160MB. Also note that because it is a Transmeta, you loose 34MB off the top. The result is predictable: Windows is forced to swap too often and lag is noticable when switching between Journal and IE. Adding another 256MB helped a lot.
The ugly:
Cost. Perhaps part of the reason these do not sell well is the cost. For $2200 you can get a much better laptop or a really really nice desktop.
Overall, the TC1000 Tablet PC is good at what it was designed to do: it's ultra-portable, has excellent battery life, and is useful for note taking. The hardware (minus the wireless) is high quality. It is a very well designed computer. But, if you intend to use it for Matlab simulations or don't have oodles of cash, buy a laptop instead.
Re:God... (Score:3, Informative)
Tablet PCs seem to be a decent idea that's as yet poorly implemented. You're much better off spending the money on a good laptop.
Re:God...[not until 8.5 x 11 fits] (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:God... (Score:5, Interesting)
If these guys, who are both gung-ho MS shills, can't make Tablet PCs work in the way they want, then there's no way I'd consider buying one. These guys both have access to all the pre-release internal MS software, so they aren't even satisfied with Tablets using software that's 1/2 - 1 generation ahead of what us mere mortals are using.
Re:LOL@Moderators (Score:3, Funny)
Troll Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Troll Question (Score:4, Insightful)
I suppose if you are going to take notes in lectures, something that is quick to write with and enables you to draw sketches as and when necessary can be more than easily found in a tablet.
Then, in the really boring lectures just whip open Spider Solitaire and away you go!
Is it obvious I was a bum at Uni? ;-)
Re:Troll Question (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Troll Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Troll Question (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Troll Question (Score:5, Interesting)
Was there a demand for this product or is this a market that Microsoft thought should exist? The last thing I read about those (maybe about 6-12 months ago) was that they were bombing.
Depends. (Score:3, Interesting)
I admit, a lot of the tablets out there are useless. But a minimalist (or maybe maximumist) tablet would be a notebook with a rotating screen and pen input.
I'd be very pleased to spend an extra couple hundred dollars over the cost of a notebook for that. (Apple, are you listening? Because my preferreed laptop to add this feature to would be my 12" Powerbook G4!)
Re:Troll Question (Score:5, Insightful)
i) Read thousands of e-books on my couch, while making notes on it
ii) Browse in a comfortable position, while watching TV
iii) Take Notes in a meeting / classroom.
iv) Pass it around easily to show something
v) Design/Architect solutions while not having to worry about transfering it to PC(the monkey coders at
vi) Reduce endless clutter of sticky pads
and surely each person will have a niche use
Graphic Artists! (Score:3, Informative)
Gabe of Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] got one (hp, IIRC), and he loves it. His workflow is now entirely digital.
In theory at least, that's a very compelling reason to get one.
Re:Troll Question (Score:3, Interesting)
A sketchbook with unlimited colors, the thousands of tools available in Photoshop, Illustrator, and such, the ability to undo a mistake, to work on a sketch for as long as you like without wearing out the paper....
Yeah, sure sign me up for that. Art can be fantastically frustrating in that to do
Me too (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Me too (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't believe the hype. KISS.
Re:Me too (Score:5, Insightful)
Summary: for anything other than truly unique situations, it's not worth it.
D
Re:Me too (Score:3, Interesting)
(BTW, if you go to his website, you'll see he is quite the geek. He spends lab time reading overcl
I predict (Score:3, Insightful)
I got a solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
The bonus is that when transcribing your notes into a computer for safe keeping a filing, you are effectively reprocessing the lectures you go to. One of the best study methods i know of.
Re:I got a solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the bonus is notepads and penciles don't cost FOUR THOUSAND FREAKING DOLLARS.
Re:I got a solution... (Score:3, Funny)
A far better use of money than a tablet PC, not mention classier.
KFG
Re:I got a solution... (Score:5, Informative)
Three other advantages are:
1) Paper notes don't disappear when your hard drive crashes
2) The resolution of paper and ink is still better than computer monitors (save for the IBM Bertha display)
3) Layout flexibility - it's much much much easier to just draw something on paper inlined with your notes than it is to do it in a word processor (though ASCII art in Emacs can be fast
Get a good notebook (or desktop) computer for other uses, but for taking notes, experience has taught me that you still can't beat a pen and paper.
-Chris
That depends on the course work (Score:5, Interesting)
for the sciencey stuff, nothing beats a legal pad and a stiff drink. Drawings come up frequently, diagrams, Rxn mechanisms, metabolism paths etc...
for the Artsy type stuff, nothing beats my ibook, I can type much faster than I can write so I can get down everything prof of the day says. I can also write down a timeline as shown on the overhead projector, then add in details as we go along. Instead of (as with pen and paper) kind of guessing at where the hell the teacher is planning on going today and scribbling in the margins.
for studying, I just pop down to the library, re-read the notes, put them into some sort of format that's presentable form and print them. While I'm doing this I add in my own ideas for good places to start essay questions and maybe future term papers.
Studying in science (FYI): Memorize the fuck out of 400 pages of random acronyms... Promptly forget everything.
Re:I got a solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
I went to law school and found the notebook was too bulky to sit on the desks properly but useful for self-study later in my room, especially given its compact size. I then went to maths/physics lectures and found I couldn't use Texmacs properly because I only had a yukky celeron processor that couldn't handle the stress. And in the odd programming project, forget about it! I borrowed my boyfriend's processor. Rather than getting around with work on CD-RWs, I found I lent them to friends to store movies portably in CD wallets.
Now consider the hassle you're going to go through trying to find drivers and software for your funny little screen. And how the software you do want will be less flexible than just grabbing another pen or turning the page.
Get a nice computer, absolutely, but travel light on campus with a little spiral-bound notebook for notes from each subject, all stored with note paper etc. in one of those folders with a zipper. At home you can have a clever filing system and I found that it helped to have a different coloured document envelope for notes for each current assignment.
Don't even get a laptop before checking that your library has data points and so on. I assumed mine would and they still don't. Other aussie universities have campus-wide wireless or nice unix labs and we get the dregs and pretty scenery. I usually manage to grab a desk near a power point (they need to plug in the vacuum cleaner somewhere I guess) and work there which helps because I live way off campus. Usually I'm only in the library preparing notes anyway and use paper. A tablet would be utterly useless to me.
I do enjoy my palm pilot, but I don't use it as a study tool, rather as a very clever and flexible organizer.
Laptop, pen&paper + a good camera (Score:5, Insightful)
The above should work fine for most classes. With some exceptions, if you think you need a computer to 'type your notes faster than hand-writting them', you might be trying to take too many notes.
If you're taking a class like my Microprocessor Applications course where lots of code is presented that is useful in the labs, a good digital camera comes very handy. Instead of trying to handcopy the code, take a picture of the projection (obviously, with the flash off). I'm able to manage at least 1/100 shutter speed, 1/160+ IIRC so it's not too prone to camera shake. For each picture you take, indicate you've done so in your spiral notebook.
When you're done for the day, download any photo-notes to the laptop, and review your hand-written notes with them. If for some reason you wanted to archive your handwritten notes to the laptop, you could transcribe them or take pictures of them.
If you can swing it, get a second battery with your laptop for longer mobility. Other things to look for are 'legacy ports' (parallel, serial). Many new notebooks don't come with serial port, (although you could buy a PCMCIA/serial adapter) and I've seen some lacking the parallel port. You should consider these if your area of study involves using development boards.
Re:Laptop, pen&paper + a good camera (Score:3, Funny)
Its even more useful if you take pictures of someone else's class notes.
Re:I got a solution... (Score:3, Informative)
I bet that in a maths or physics lecture, I could take notes and equations down much quicker than on a laptop.
As I said before, when you copy them into the computer you are going over the lecture again and making sure you can remember it. Reduces study time.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's something to be said about a laptop for doing work while on campus, but I don't think that a tablet is worth the extra expense.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I would be happiest with a standard laptop with a touch sensitive screen so I could draw as well as type.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)
Forget the fact that the majority of college profs barely touch a piece of chalk/dry marker during a lecture. The second time you had to tell a prof to step to the side of the whiteboard so you could snap a picture before he erased and continued, you and your digital camera would be at the registrar with a drop slip faster than you can say "Not in my class you don't".
Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)
What I have found to work pretty well is a Palm + fold-out keyboard. This is also a pretty cheap solution; you can get the Palm and the keyboard for a couple hundred bucks, and it might make it easier to get by without a laptop. Go with a B&W screen model and you won't have to wor
"D" - None of the above (Score:5, Informative)
Also, (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks in advance! Get back soon because my wife is in the car waiting to go
My father had one from work (Score:5, Informative)
Why a tablet (Score:5, Insightful)
Check with your prospective school. See what their requirements are and what sort of discounts/deals they offer to students who buy through the university. That should factor into your evaluation.
tablet comparisons (Score:5, Informative)
Get a 'real' Laptop (Score:5, Insightful)
They are like giagantic PDA's in that respect. If you want a good PC for college, get a VERY powerful system that will last you a good three or four years before showing it's age.
Take a look at one of the high-end gaming Laptops from Dell, Alienware or other high-end laptop manufacturer.
I considered tablet PC's for some of our sales staff, after taking a look at a few models, I found them quite lacking in terms on long-term performance, long-term durability as well as usability. Some of them DON'T have keyboards at all.
If you need serious portable computing power, a Tablet PC is nothing but a really fancy toy.
Get a Laptop (Score:5, Informative)
uhh, (Score:5, Informative)
Since I don't have extra $$$ to burn (and I'm not a mac user), I use Thinkpad and am happy with it. I'm running SuSE on it.
Why tablet? (Score:5, Informative)
I used one for software compatibility testing (it basically is as compatible as an XP laptop would be), but I did find myself using it in laptop mode most of the time though. Passwords and login information are really hard to enter in in tablet mode. Since the pen input usually assumes you're typing in words, it'll tend to add extra spaces when writing login information and passwords. As for other types of writing, it's easier just to type in keyboard mode.
I've only found it useful in Tablet mode for tapping out check lists. Maybe someday I'll find a better use for it.
Re:Why tablet? (Score:5, Informative)
I use mine all the time and would definitely recommend it over a regular laptop. A huge benefit of taking all of your notes with this is being able to perform keyword searches over your entire notebook and (depending on how clear your handwriting is) having it return lecture notes on that topic.
I'd like one... (Score:3, Interesting)
A tablet would be less bulky than a full blown laptop, and a bit more appropriate for this.
iBook 12" (Score:4, Informative)
Get a large screen laptop... (Score:5, Insightful)
Only if. (Score:3, Insightful)
Go Convertible (Score:3, Informative)
Other than that, I can recommend that you stick with a Centrino-powered model- the models based on other chipsets/processors will not be as fast. Centrino gives you a much faster notebook with good support and battery life and you get the performance of the Pentium-M, which is a very impressive processor.
Tablet PCs (Score:4, Informative)
That being said, the handwriting recognition for Windows tablet is pretty good. If I was going to purchase one for myself, I would probably try to evaluation the Motion Tablets [motioncomputing.com]. I was fairly impressed with them, and I wish I had more time to use it. Battery life is a KILLER on these things, and they had a nice little back attachment available (about the size of a notebook, so increasing the width) that would greatly extend the life.
wait for the Apple edition... (Score:4, Funny)
Ducks for cover! Shortly thereafter, a thousand Voodoo2 PCI boards were thrown in his general direction...
Why??? (Score:3, Informative)
Toshiba Portege 3500 && Some general tips. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm going to suggest that you keep below US$2200 though. The price deprecation on the machine will hurt if it's much more than that. Trust me on this. I bought a $3000 laptop (thanks, Uncle Sam for the Tax Credit!) and within 6 months the machine was valued at about 2/3 that. Stay in the middle of the pack, regardless of whatever machine you buy, tablet or notebook.
Also, be sure to consider a convertible tablet, i.e. one with a keyboard. There are many times when it's simply more effient to whip the display around and type out notes in MS Word or whatever. However, at the same time, in certain classes it's much, much easier to draw diagrams, derive equations, and things with a pen. Having both options is very much worthwhile.
Also, think long and hard about an extended warranty. The machine supposedly will travel with you for at least three years, taking quite a bit of abuse along the way. Mine was VERY handy on another machine (Sony VAIO GRX-520), which experienced a sudden failure due to some hardware issues. After 20 minutes on the phone with a tech, they fedexed me an empty box and label, I fedexed the machine, and two days later, I got it back in perfect working condition (Sent it out Thursday, got it back Monday (FedEx only delivers on Weekdays). If I had not purchased that warranty, the service would have cost about $800 and who knows how much heartache.
Oh, and one last thing: Don't splurge and get a machine capable of playing the latest, greatest games. It'll be outdated within a year, and you'll have no upgrade path. Again, buy the middle of the pack and save some money for a replacement battery in two years or so.
That reminds me: Don't buy generic batteries, or old batteries off ebay. Lithium Ion batteries start to decay from the day they're manufactured.
Just my two bits...
Mike Hollinger
Defending the Tablet PC for college students (Score:5, Informative)
I use my Acer Travelmate T102i every weekday for about 8 hours a day.
I'm a college student and researcher in Biochemistry.
Tablet PCs are _perfect_ for this setting. I can take notes without having to lug around huge notebooks, I can reference professor's webpages on the fly, and most importantly: I can include all the diagrams and drawings needed in my field in with my notes, saved on a computer to search and reference.
You can't type a lot of college notes- there are too many diagrams, drawings, and weird flowcharts to do that.
I haven't used a notebook since November 2003, when I first got my Tablet PC, and it's completely changed the way I get my work done.
I'd reccommend the lightest weight one you can find-- using it like a notebook means often holding it or resting it on your arm for extended periods of time.
What about battery life? (Score:3, Insightful)
Curious, do your classrooms have electric outlets all over? If not, how do you handle battery life? Do you carry spares, or does your schedule just work so you can recharge at the right points?
Battery life is my biggest complaint about nearly every notebook I've owned; the lead-acid battery in the Toshiba from which I type has actually been surprisingly hardy, better than any of the Li-Ions I've had in other laptops. (Who kn
Re:What about battery life? (Score:3, Informative)
But yes, I carry a spare battery around. With wireless on, my laptop lasts around 3 hours / battery, which is more than enough time.
As for brightness- that is an issue I've encountered when using it outside, but in classrooms, which are almost universally fluorescently lighted, I've never had brightness problems.
It depends a bit on what you want... (Score:5, Informative)
My initial impression has been favorable, though you're right on in your assessment that tablets are still in their infancy. Microsoft's handwriting recognition is excellent, definitely the best I've seen. They also have some limited support for gesture and shape recognition, though they don't appear to be using them for much at the moment.
As far as I can tell, there is not yet a "killer app" for the tablet pc platform. The only thing that comes close is OneNote [tinyurl.com], which is pretty damned cool, but not really worth the extra money, imo. The tablet platform still has quite a few warts, the biggest being the lack of decent integration with existing apps. MS's solution to ink input for legacy apps is a rather clunky keyboard/writing area applet that sits above the task bar and transmits your handwriting as text to selected text input controls after a short delay. I suspect that this will get better and better with future revisions of the tablet pc operating system services.
As for the hardware, the Toshiba is a nice machine. It's fast, being Centrino based, though not as fast as some of the other Pentium M machines out there because they've pushed it as far in the battery life conservation direction as possible. Mine gets about 4 - 5 hours under normal conditions. The display is good, and I like the high resolution (1400 x 1050). The graphics accelerator is middle of the road for current laptops. Overall performance is decent, though noticably slower than my Thinkpad T40p.
That said, I do have a few gripes with this particular model. It's much larger than you might expect, especially given that it has a curiously cramped keyboard. It's very thick, and fairly heavy for a tablet. I vastly prefer the form factor of my T40. It is, however, leaps and bounds above the 1st gen HP/Compaq tablet we have, which was based on a suck-ass tranmeta processor and just felt cheesy as hell. Apparently the newer ones are much better.
As for competitors, we have one of the Motion Computing slates, which definitely wins in terms of sex appeal. It's thin, good industrial design, and very appealing. I haven't had a chance to play with it, though, and I think I would sorely miss the keyboard in short order.
To summarize, I think my advice would definitely be NOT to buy a tablet right now . For the extra money, you can get an absolutely kick ass notebook that really blows the tablet away in terms of overall capabilities. I like my tablet, but I like my T40 even more. It's much friendlier to use, and I find myself wishing that I were typing when I take notes on the tablet.
If you just have to have the tablet because of the cool factor, make sure you have an opportunity to play with both types (slate and convertible) before you take the plunge. Buying a convertible is a concession to practicality. When you stop using the tablet features after the first month, at least you still have a decent laptop to use. With the slate, you're pretty screwed unless you use the docking station all the time.
- adam
how about no? (Score:4, Informative)
I have a laptop. An honest to goodness, actually portable, quiet enough to use in class laptop. This is an important point, because everyone at universities nowadays has a laptop, but most of them are of the ~8lbs./non-mobileCPU/1.5 hr battery life flavor. My handwriting is atrocious, and I'm an English major. Those two things together meant that I could actually read my notes (in classes where the class structure lent itself to massive notes on some days), and I could work on papers during the hour or so between classes that I might have otherwise wasted. To be brutally honest, I never, ever wished that I had a tablet, mostly because they don't seem to have any redeeming features for people other than comic artists.
Get a decent desktop. Something small enough to bring into the dorms, maybe one of those Small Form Factor machines, or a mini-tower. Get a nice, 17" flat panel monitor to go with it. Unless you want an uber-gaming machine, you should be able to do this pretty easily for about $1,200. If you really want a laptop, might I suggest an iBook. The 12" models are light enough to carry around (5lbs., which is pretty close to my ceiling for what I will carry around in addition to the big-ass book that that one professor will always want you to bring), they get a good 4 hours or so in the real world (provided you aren't hitting the hard drive or optical drive too frequently; make sure to load it with RAM), and while the polycarbonate finish will get minor scratches, they're very durable notebooks. You can (at least last I checked) get the G3 models with few frills (CD-ROM, 30GB Drive) for $800. Toss in another $125 or so to max it out with RAM, and I managed to get my airport card for $50. At $1,000, it is ever so slightly more expensive than the ludicrously cheap after Mail-in-rebate jobs at some of the retail stores, but it is significantly more lightweight and significantly less noisy.
Honestly, though, outside of a few classes (generally the giant lecture hall ones), I rarely used my notebook. It was mostly for time between classes, but that was only because I lived off-campus and couldn't get home to work on my desktop. If you are absolutely positive that you need a tablet, go ahead and snag one, but I'd otherwise recommend grabbing a desktop and waiting to see if a notebook is something you really want after you've been there for a few months.
Get a laptop, save the money (Score:5, Informative)
Hi!
My oldest daughter is a sophomore in college [lynchburg.edu], and she's had both a desktop and a laptop. I've been working with various kinds of portable computing initiatives since 1995--including working with a predecessor of the Fujitsu Stylist in Japan.
How will you use it?
Unless you're going to tote spare batteries with you all day, chances are you won't take your computer to class. There are very few notebook options with real world (as opposed to advertised) battery life records of longer than 2 hours. There are very few college days with fewer than 2 hours of class. Do the math: you either carry extra batteries, or leave the computer in your room. (A survey of Daughter #1's dorm mates: nobody brings a computer to class.)
So a desktop is a good idea?
The big advantage of a desktop is the price--a desktop these days is extremely inexpensive. Taking a desktop to school will save your parents (or you, if you're financing college with loans you'll have to pay back) a ton of money. The down side of the desktop is that it pretty much stays on the top of your desk. So when you're in the library--you're stuck. You take notes by hand, or you stand in line at the photocopier. A laptop makes an enormous amount of sense at the library--and you'll find that most schools have wired the carrels in the library for the campus network. So you can work on your laptop in the library, access Internet resources, and use whatever local file & print resources you have set up with your roommates. Getting a laptop makes a lot of sense.
Do you need a tablet?
In a word, "no." The business case for tablets assumes that the end user either a) doesn't know how to type, or b) isn't in a position to type. If you have enough typing aptitude to submit an article to SlashDot, you know how to type. You will enter a lot more data, with a much higher rate of accuracy, using a keyboard. And the gee-whiz features of a tablet (the reversible, touch-sensitive screen) adds a whopping amount to the price. It's kind of like buying an air-conditioner for your igloo: the feature is undoubtedly cool, but you're not likely to get much benefit from it.
What you should buy instead
First, you should buy a notebook. Second, you should buy an inexpensive, lightweight flatbed scanner. While you will want to take notes at the library, you will also find zillions of times where you will need to photocopy or type information that you find in a reference volume. If you have a scanner with you, presto! Just scan the pages. I strongly recommend the Visioneer 9020 USB scanner. It is very lightweight, it is extremely easy to use, and the work flow (what steps you have to take to scan pages) is very, very simple. The one concern that might surface is that an overzealous librarian might question whether you're violating copyright law by scanning. I'd suggest that you're not doing any more than you would be using the photocopier, but the library may "have a policy" about it. Let me suggest packing the scanner in and out in your backpack, and not make a point of drawing attention to yourself.
Bottom line:
Skip the tablet. Buy a laptop. Buy a cheap scanner (the Visioneer 9020 is $99). Spend fifty bucks taking your parents to dinner to say "thank you" for all they're doing for you, and put the other $950 you'll save aside for other, better uses.
From my experience with them (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Unless you are quite a slow typist and quit a fast writer, you can probably type as fast or faster than you can write. Also probably far more accurately than the computer will recognise your penmanship.
2) You can get laptops plenty portable. Dell offers lots of nice, light, but respectably powerful laptops.
3) Laptops tend to cost less, for what you get. So either save the money or invest it to get more computer.
4) All the tablets I've used have quirks and problems that laptops don't. You don't want to be dicking around with something that will cause trouble when taking notes, you just want it to work.
5) You'll find that for papers, typing is much, much better. It is a much superior interfact for composing, organising, and editing large amounts of text. A large part of what you will be doing is writing papers, so keep this in mind.
6) Depending on your major, you may want to load specialised software to work at home. For example our engineers load a student version of Pspice on their systems so they needn't work in the labs. You are more likely to have compatibility problems on a tablet than a full blown PC.
So, unless there's a real compelling reason, get a lightweight notebook. You'll be far happier in the long run. DOn't let the wow factor of tablets draw you in. They are neat, but not ready for the prime time yet.
I go to the University of Wisc Madison... (Score:3, Insightful)
If your heart is really set on a tablet pc, I would advise you to grab an older generation tablet pc from ebay (like this) [ebay.com]. Or, see if you can salvage one from local companies or relatives.
If you're going to Madison, Wisconsin, contact me so you can get a students' view of things.
How about Motion Computing? (Score:5, Informative)
Second choice is NEC's tablets -- they're light and have good battery life, but the accessories that come with them (stands and such) are cheap and of questionable quality, and they can't convert into a laptop form-factor. The Compaq tablets, like the Motion Computing ones, *are* convertable, but the Compaqs are relatively heavy.
If you're going to be running Linux, I'd look into FIC's Crusoe-based tablets. They gave us a few preproduction units, and we had nothing but trouble with them -- until we tried running Linux on one as a research project; its performance is dramatically better there than it was on Windows XP Tablet Edition! (Granted, it was a *prerelease* of WinXP Tablet; the whole reason we played with Linux on the system in the first place was that its OS had expired).
All that said, though, I'm with (most) everyone else here -- if you want to do the practical thing, get yourself a laptop.
[PS: In Austin? Good with Java, or an exceedingly excellent sysadmin with some system-level programming skills? Willing to work mostly for stock, at least for a while? Drop me a line].
Get a Tablet. (Score:5, Informative)
I bought this tablet after around a month of research into them. I also demoed alot of the alternatives to the one I ended up purchasing. The most obvious difference in tablets is obviously the difference between the hybrids and the purbred slate tablets. Yet you really don't realize how profound this difference is until you go down to a Gateway Store or CompUSA and try both out yourself.
What I'm saying here is do not get a Hybrid Tablet. If you want a laptop get a laptop, if you want a tablet get a slate tablet. Hybrids are bulky and obnoxious. They pretty much take away all the advantages that a tablet gives you. A tablet is ment to be more of a device then an actual computer and these hybrids are attempting to be desktop replacements as well as tablets, which is probably why they don't do so well at both. If you absolutely MUST get a hybrid I would suggest the Toshiba M200 if you are not on a budget or the Acer C110 if you are. The M200 has the highest screen resolution of any tablet, slate or otherwise, out there. If you want to go slightly cheaper then the M200, get the Acer 300Xi (I think thats the model.) It is slightly cheaper and has basically all the same features as the M200, except resolution.
If you want to get a slate, which is the path that I recommend, go for the Motion M1300 or the Electrovaya Scribbler 2000. The scribbler is the same speed, has a better screen, slightly less ram (256 or 512 MB built in, then an upgrade slot for one DIMM) then the Motion, but kills the Motion on battery life with a whopping 9 hours. It is however $2600, so that may make you think twice about buying it. The Motion has fully upgradable RAM and a slightly worse screen, however it is older and you can probably get one for around $1700.
Motion rocks! :-D (Score:5, Informative)
When using a tablet, THE biggest issue is weight. Nearly all laptops are heavier than the Motion slate (with the exception of the insane Japanese Sony). This is essentially a NOTEBOOK REPLACEMENT, which means it's going to be carried EVERYWHERE. A 5LB convertible is a big difference when you've got to walk 20 minutes to class.
And for those that claim that a pen and peice of paper is like a tablet, then they obviously haven't tried OneNote. OneNote allows me to RECORD lectures and all I need to do is highlight a sentence and it'll play back exactly what was said at the time the sentence was written. No need to synchronize between paper notes and a tape recorder
Why a Tablet PC is not a terrible idea... (Score:4, Informative)
...from someone who is an IT Manager at a University.
Actually, in many of the Business, Science, and Engineering classes at the University where I work, notes are distributed in powerpoint or PDF format, and the students usually end up printing out full page copies of the slides/PDFs, and marking them up. Then students file those marked up prinouts away, and end up having to look through hundreds of pages of prinouts when studying for finals. A tablet PC is perfectly sufficient for doing what it was built to do. You can check e-mail, browse the web, and use "ink".
We also use have faculty use them in Distance Education classes, because it is the perfect alternative to pointing a camera at a whiteboard or chalkboard, and the electronic notes can be saved and distributed to the students for later reference.
Tablets are also being piloted in our regular Engineering classes. Students don't have to worry about copying down every bit of information before it is erased from the board, because it will be made available to them later. It allows them to focus more on the lecture instead of copying down every little formula.
In short, I would recommend that you don't worry about a huge screen or fast processor. A tablet will handle 95% of what the average will want it to do without problems (nobody is going to use it to compile the nightly Mozilla build). Just pick the lighest model you are comfortable with holding and using the stylus on, and make sure you get Office 2003, since it has native pen support.
Motion Computing is Great (Score:5, Informative)
The specs on two of them are 80GB HD, 12.1" 1024x768 screen, 800MHz, 1GB of RAM. You can get a slightly better [motioncomputing.com] system now.
THE PROS:
THE CONS:
XP Tablet edition isn't as stable as XP Professional. The mouse cursor gets laggy/jumpy sometimes and consume 100% CPU randomly. I've experienced the "blue screen of death" numerous times, and had system freezes even more frequently.
Toshiba M200 (Score:3, Informative)
Go Light, as light as you can (Score:3, Informative)
(I'm assuming you have a desktop of sufficient use for your "power" needs.) It's worth nearly every tradeoff to get those pounds off. How often do you REALLY need a CD-ROM drive when you're out? Or floppy disk? Serial port? Parallel port? Firewire? ZV (rca) port? Heck, 2GHz and the associated bigger battery?
I used to use a 7lb laptop. Now switched to 3.5lb. Still calling it heavy. But much better than before ^^. Drool over the Thinkpad X40, 2.9lb
Portability (Score:3, Interesting)
I would pay $thousands for something that slipped over one or both eyes with a decent amount of transparency (i.e. 80% transparency for the background and 25% for the active window) which took input from speech recognition and a cell phone keypad for data entry.
There are too many situations where it's impractical to bring a laptop with me, and sync issues with PDAs annoy me.
Fujitsu Lifebook P1000 Series, Best Of Both Worlds (Score:4, Informative)
12" iBook (Score:5, Insightful)
Scribbler from Electrovaya (Score:3, Informative)
Been there, done that. Don't do it. (Score:3)
My wife and I noticed the cool tablets at the local CompUSA and thought we had to have one. Bought a Compaq/HP TC1000 after much looking around. A week later the coolness effect wore off and wife and I found oursleves fighting over who gets to use the Thinkpad in the house. I eventually ended up eBaying the tablet. I was shocked to see that some people wanted it and bought it from me right away.
My advice is to stay the hell away. These things look cool. Very cool. But they are useless.
Get the Toshiba, I have a Fujitsu T3010D (Score:3, Informative)
The guys who posted previously don't know jack squat about the benefits of a Tablet PC.
First of all, taking notes with a laptop is not the same as taking notes with a tablet pc.
In my economics class or my Psychology class, I take notes as the prof speaks and I'm able to keep up with 95% of the words that the prof. utters. Combined with Microsoft's OneNote recording feature, I have the whole lecture in audio and text. I'm able to INLINE graphs and diagrams as the prof draws them on the board and it's easier to organize them because I don't have to freak'n rewrite my notes after class - Just cut and paste them.
Install the Office Tablet PC extensions and you can INLINE drawings in MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint and such. All my notes are in Word and I INLINE diagrams. Also, it's AWESOME especially in Powerpoint where ALL my Computer Science courses are done in Power Point. I can directly write on each slide and print them later. (Imagine that you can circle and add questions marks, notes to a powerpoint slide and save it)
To answer your question, Toshiba's latest tablet pc is the most powerful and best in the market.
Things to consider when buying a Tablet PC:
1) Screen - Almost all are 12" except for Acer's 14" clunky monster. 12" XGA screens are 1024x768. With MS's virtual desktop manager, you can 3 additional screens and it's great. The reason Toshiba's the best is because it has an SXGA+ which sports 1400x1024 resolution, but still 12". It might be too small.
2) CPU - get a centrino based 2nd generation Tablet PC model. The 1st generation just sucked and Pentium III and crusoe chips... My 1.4 Pentium M blows my desktop away.
3) Get 1 GB of RAM if your doing development. They're coming out with 512MB as standard. My Tablet is my development station so I have alot of things running from apache/mysql, iis/msde, eclipse/visual studio.net...etc. 512mb should be enough for most other application. 1Gb is specially nice when doing art work.
4) Video Card - Most centrino models come with Intel's eXtreme video card that's part of the centrino brand, but once again Toshiba blew the competition away by shipping their Tablet PCs with Nvidia's GeForce 4200 mobile card.
5) Size - most are 12" and that's a really good balance between weight and size. the 14" Acer is huge and heavy. Any other will be very light and mobile.
6) Hard Drive - 2nd generation Tablet PCs now ship 40GB+ to 60GB (Mine is 60GB).
7) Wireless - Centrino will have either the 802.11b or g. the Fujitsu and Toshiba both offer 802.11g cards.
Like I said Toshiba has the best screen and video card. My fujitsu is great and matches the toshiba feature for feature except for the screen and video card. I wish I waited 2 more months(I got my in Sept, Toshiba released theirs in Nov.)
2nd generation Tablet PCs simple rock! They're not a desktop replacement but they're very powerful laptops nonetheless.
Good luck
Look like we're in the next phase of Ask Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll get the next one started: Slashdot - how do I design and install a network for an international comglomerate, integrate with legacy applications and ensure adequate security across the whole mix?
Computers as status symbols ware off quickly. (Score:4, Informative)
For College the freshmans bigest mistake is to buy a bunch of stuff first. The real trick just get things you will know you need. Cloths, Towles, Toothbrush, Then when you are at College buy what you need when you need it. That way you save money and dont overpack.
CS majors generally don't need powerful boxes (Score:3, Insightful)
Compiling code isn't a real-time, interactive task, and generally doesn't take all that
A linux *only* PC/tablet company ... (Score:5, Informative)
Element Computer [elementcomputer.com]
They sell computers/tablets that natively come with linux only. So you never puchase the windows tax.
Not only that, but currently they're openly adopting Debian has their main distro (this must bode well with the Debian bigots, heh)
Sounds like solid Linux stuff to me
Sunny Dubey
You might as well have asked... (Score:3, Funny)
my tablet (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a tremendous variety of things called tablets and they can be very different. For example, mine is very lightweight (3 pounds?) and the keyboard detaches so the tablet can be a true tablet. The built-in wireless and excellent battery life are significant parts of what make this useful. I go well over 3 hours with wireless on. Would I have been equally or more happy with a 3 pound laptop -- maybe.
I know people who have purchased much more powerful tablets (mine is only 1GHz) with permanent keyboards. They have a machine which is heavier with a fraction of the battery life. The result is that they aren't happy.
I'm a professor and I can wirelessly control PowerPoint while writing on slides while walking around the lecture hall. I can hand it to a student to write something for others to see. In that mode I leave the keyboard off and it is easy to walk around with it in one hand and the pen in the other.
I do use it for notes in meetings and I like being able to use handwriting to mark up documents.
The true test seems to be at home. My kids want to use it all the time. Curl up by the fire with the tablet and surf the internet. My son's teacher requires a handwritten first draft so he can write it and then convert it to text for the later draft.
Would I recommend it for college? Well, for my kid going off to college I'm getting a lightweight laptop. However, by the time my other kid goes to college in a few years, the choice may be a tablet.
For the record, I'm not a gadget person who has to have the latest thing. For example, I never figured out a use for a PDA (yes I do know how it is extremely useful for some, but not for me).
I'm using a tablet right now (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, it is running a centrino, and I turn off wireless whenever I am not using it.
I have a docking station and I use it as my primary desktop at work, where I am a system administrator/departmental manager.
It kicks ass during meetings for writing notes and diagrams. When someone sends me anything in electronic format, I "print" it virtually to the journal writer, and write all over it when I am in meetings with them.
I did a lot of research, and the Acer series are really good, and have a larger screen than the tc1100 by HP that I am using right now. I kinda like the HP series of notebooks, and I read really good reviews about this Tablet. I also read a lot of good reviews about the Acer series, but have heard horror stories about their support.
I think one of the things that has held them back is that there really isn't a "Killer App" for them yet. But it seems like MS may have come up with one-- they came out with this app called "OneNote" and it organizes your notes in a very good way. I friggin love it.
Recommendations from experience: Centrino is the way to go. Get a screen protector. It will work well as your primary pc-- it is just as fast or not faster than my previous PIV 2ghz. The keyboard is definately too small for daily use on this one, but it can be replaced with a USB keyboard for daily use.
Right now I wouldn't consider running Linux on it, but there is a project out there to get that all worked out.
I read a lot of complaints from people knocking them in the thread, but I can almost gaurantee that in the future all laptops will be built like this as the technology gets less expensive.
Compaq T1000 (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, Compaq T-1000...
The good.
* Built in WIFI, Ethernet, Most any port you want
* Very cool flip/fold keyboard that is detachable for true tablet PC usage
* Decent handwriting recognition
* Fast processor
* Change between landscape and portrait mode was very nice for notes and reading.
* Screen sucks outdoors - total washout in daylight. Pretty good under indoor flourscent lights.
* Heavy. After several hours cradled in one arm so you can write with the other it a pain. Only useful in laptop mode or on a flat surface. Walking and using not gonna happen easily.
* Battery life averages 3 hours of constant usage with WIFI enabled.
* The Pen. Only the magic pen works on the screen. You find yourself wanting to write on paper, or tap the screen with your finger, but have to constantly switch back and forth. The spring on the pen holder is quite strong and can launch the pen if you bump it in certain positions. Never would slip out, but could shoot out wrong. Don't lose it or your tablet PC will be just a laptop. Replacements are only mail-order in my area.
I checked a few out at best buy, etc but they seemed the same.
My opinion would be to get an ultralight laptop the 1" or less thick kind with serparate CD and floppy drives. They have a nice keyboard, long battery life, light weight, better screens, networking, etc. The other stuff you need like CD burner etc are in your base station.
TabletPC's are not worth the money, and don't seem to have much of a future. To big to be portable, to flaky for a laptop. You have been warned.
m275xl and Tablet PC Buzz (Score:3, Informative)
I am a medical student and I love my Tablet.
Pro's:
Very stable platform.
1.6 GHz P4, 512 Mb Ram, 60 GB HD, CD-RW/DVD,
14" LCD, WiFi, ~5 lbs.
Good battery life w/ hibernation.
Paperless note-taking and patient physicals.
Convertable, so I can quickly fall back to "laptop" if I need to.
Internal optical drive - no wires.
GW service replaced LCD, Keyboard and returned it in 5 days total w/ overnight shipping.
LCD hinge is rock-solid.
Con's:
GW's intial shipping was delay, delay, delay....
Dead pixels on LCD when Tablet arrived.
Key hinges on keyboard flimsy and two keys came loose.
Audio drivers need refinement - sound is either blaring or off when using headphones.
No built in eraser on pen.
Comes w/ MS Works w/ no option for Office when ordering.
I wish it had a touch stick in the keyboard.
Highlights
When I take anatomy notes, I draw conceptually and I can easily switch colors and move objects around. If I get crowded on the page or the prof is disorganized in lecture, I can move ink around to make room or re-organize. The library has wireless, so I can run down there between classes and get my e-mail. I haven't written on paper for school-related reasons in several months. The equivalent of several notebooks and folders full of notes is on my HD and I only carry around one "notebook". I back up everything on my internal CD-RW often.
I love my Motion M1200 (Score:4, Informative)
I've had a Motion M1200 for a little over a year now. I love it and use it every day at the office and at home.
Yes, you can buy a notepad and a pen for a couple of bucks. I went through a lot of those. I started to realize that there was no point in taking notes in meetings. I'd write it down and flip the page for the next meeting. Eventually, the notepad would be full and I'd put it on my desk or file the notes away somewhere. Then when I actually *needed* that info, it was either impossible to find or just not worth the effort. Maybe my organizational skills are just lacking.
With the tablet, I take notes using OneNote (yikes! a Microsoft product!). It has room for improvement, but since I've gotten used to it, I've switched to it as my exclusive note taking app. Many people also like the Franklin-Covey TabletPC vesion of their organizer app. I previously used Journal, which is a simple but very effective note taking program that comes with the TabletPC OS (a superset of XP). OneNote has a tabbed interface and makes it easy to create tabs for projects, with pages within that tab ('pages' can be of any length, it's just a term for the notes within tabs). I can also create sub-tabs, allowing me to create a tab called 'reference' which in turn contains tabs for specific topics, which in turn, contain pages). I can search my entire notebook from one location. It's great to be in a meeting when a topic comes up from a couple of months ago. Within seconds, I have the info at my fingertips.
The handwriting recognition is surprisingly good. A free 'Dictionary Tool' PowerToy from Microsoft allows me to easily add words and acronyms to the recognition dictionary. For the most part, I rarely 'see' the handwriting recognition in action though. Everyone asks if it can convert handwriting to text. It can, but for my notes, why bother? I leave my notes in my handwriting. The search engine still uses the handwriting recognition to enable me to search *my handwriting* for any word in my notes. It's not perfect, but it's better than digging through piles of paper and regular notepads.
As for the hardware, I would suggest deciding on a slate vs. a convertible. I went with a slate. Part of the appeal for me is that I can quietly sit in a meeting and take notes without pecking away on a keyboard. Maybe it's different at other companies, but whipping out a regular laptop and typing while someone is speaking seems a bit rude. Since I knew that the majority of the tablet's use would be in meetings, I decided to not tote around an attached keyboard. It's just a personal preference. Some people prefer the flexibility that a convertible tablet offers. They've really gotten thin and light so my next tablet will probably be a convertible. At my desk, I put the Motion in it's 'FlexDock' docking station and use it much like a regular computer with a mouse and keyboard.
My Motion has an 866mhz Mobile Pentium CPU with 512 megs of RAM. Newer models have a 1ghz Centrino CPU. I guess I won't be able to run Doom 3 on my tablet, but for everyday use it is plenty fast enough. Office runs fine, with no performance issues (and it's ink enabled, allowing me to mark up word docs and excel spreadsheets). Mozilla runs fine, with no performance issues. OneNote runs fine, with no performance issues. Same for solitaire, the Zinio reader and Alias SketchBook (which is where the pen's pressure sensitivity really shines). Maybe I'm not using my tablet for the same things that a lot people want/need, but for everyday use, it performs just fine.
The Motion also has built in 802.11b, which is great for sitting on the couch and surfing the web with the TV on in the background.
My Zaurus PDA is collecting dust. I haven't turned it on in about a year. My tablet wakes up from hibernate mode in a matter of seconds, so I don't really need a PDA anymore. Obviously this wouldn't be the case if I needed phone numbers or appointment info in my pocket, but that doesn't really apply to me. The TabletPC has worked out great for me.
Re:Linux tablets (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,1127
And here's a homemade project that'll run on a Compaq:
http://linux-tablet-pc.dhs.org/
Re:Oh hell no. (Score:5, Funny)
the kid in class that types notes into his PDA using a foldup keyboard has no use for condoms.
Re:Oh hell no. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh hell no. (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been using my zaurus 5500 with a stowaway [pdaed.com] irda kb for a while. The driver [killefiz.de] is reasonably stable and unobtrusive. The combination works _very_ well for on-the-go text entry. I certainly wish I'd had something similar when I was in school a decade ago.
Mac! Mac! Mac! (Score:3, Interesting)
1. They are very small (esp. thin), very light weight, and very powerful.
2. They have 54g wireless, firewire, usb, etc...
3. You WILL buy an iPod eventually
4. OSX is the best OS - Ever!
5. The body is pretty robust.
6. G4 iMacs are cool. This last one you will appreciate after about 1 month of uni/college.
I just wish this technology was around when I was at uni, a