Examining a Tablet PC

Mister Buttons writes "There really haven't been any real technical reviews of the new Tablet PC operating system from Microsoft yet. Those marketing stories published on CNET and the like do little more than whet the appetite. Luckily it looks like someone finally took a close look at the Tablet PC. The folks over at AnandTech have a good tablet PC review up which includes information on both the hardware and software that the tablet PCs use. Maybe it's time to break open that piggy bank..."

Comments

One user's views on usability...

[ackthpt]

Aside from the OS infesting it, Mike Krahulik/Gabe at Penny Arcade tried one out for doing his strip, here's a couple links:

Scroll down to: Drawing on a Tablet PC

Scroll down to Alias Sketchbook comment

Compaq tc1000

[aspeer]

I had a chance to use the Compaq TC1000 Tablet PC for about half a day at work. It is easy to dismiss these products if you have not used them (I did), but they do have some fairly innovative features (note that innovative in this context means "new to this form factor of x86/Windows computer" - I am not trying to start a Newton-was-first flame war)

I found the stylus (pen) interface extremely good - the mouse will follow the stylus even if the stylus is not physically touching the screen up to a height of about 1.5 inches. This makes things a lot easier than having to drag the stylus physically across the screen when moving, say, a folder. A single click is acheived by just touching the stylus to the screen for most applications. The stylus on this machine was apparently "active", requiring one AAAA battery - I did not take it apart to verify this, and have no idea how long the battery would last, but it must be a fair while.

The "lazy susan" type keyboard (note: not full docking) station is extremely space efficient, and the key feel is (for me) not too bad for the form factor. The tablet is "smart" enough to know when it has been plugged in to the keyboard base, and rotate the screen from portrait to landscape mode automatically. I was sold - it would be a great setup to take on the road, as it would actually be quite usable in an aircraft, on your lap etc.

Apparently there is a full docking station available (with CD/DVD ROM etc), but we did not have access to it. Under most circumstances, given the inbuilt WLAN interface, the keyboard station would be sufficient.

For those wanting to support Transmeta, this device contains the new 1Ghz Crusoe TM5800 processor. Battery life was claimed "up to five hours", realistically about 3.5-4hr max. Not stunning, but quite good considering the form factor. Speed was not lightning fast, but probably acceptable for most tasks you would envisage for this type of device. ZDNet bagged it in this review, but I did not find it as bad as they make out

I hardly used the digital ink features, so cannot comment on them, but others in my section who tried the journal feature seemed to like it.

When I first saw this device, I pretty much blew it off as a "toy" laptop with a detachable screen, but they really are a bit more than that. After using it for a short while I had to revise my initial hasty opinion, and by the end I did not want to give it back. I would use it in place of a "full" laptop without hesitation.

Naturally for a new product the price is a bit steep for what you get, and since as far as I know no Linux geeks have had a chance to check it out, its Linux readiness is unknown - it is a given that Linux probably cannot support the software augmented hardware features such as the digital ink/journal etc - but even if the device supported a standard linux install with X, and the mouse and wireless card worked, these would be a great portable. workstation.

If I can get my hands on one for a bit longer I will try a Linux install, but will need to be carefult to not blow away the OS if possible - it did not look easy to reinstall the base OS, given the lack of inbuilt CDROM device. Comments from anyone who has tried (even at this early stage) to install Linux are welcome.