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

Overhyped?

[Nevermore-Spoon]

Does anyone else out there have the same feeling I do, that the Tablet PC is over hyped? The only tangible benefit I can really see is totally comfort motivated. The laptop has never been that comfortable to work on sitting on the couch. The tablet PC would make such computing more comfortable. However when it really comes down to using my PC I really prefer a keyboard over a pen & screen combo.

Re:Overhyped?

[Saint Fnordius]

I think you're right. Microsoft is doing its damndest to convince us that we need this, without really explaining why. (The reason why is simple. Microsoft needs a new source of cash, but don't tell them I told you!) The best-written review of a Microsoft TabletPC can be found here. It's based on real-life impressions with one of these things.

Then again, if Apple came out with one I'm sure reviewers would be falling all over themselves to praise it, because (a) it would be more polished, (b) Apple doesn't telegraph its punches, so you don't get disappointed when it DOES arrive, and (c) Apple still enjoys an image of coolness and scrappy underdogness*.

*is that a word? Well, it is now...

Re:what about caplets

[Mononoke]

and capsules? will they make an oral suspension computer?

Would you like to try this one as a suppository?

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

Re:Not for me

[BluGuy]

Well, you're on /., so you must use your PC for something else other than games. Early adopters aren't always game-playing kids with cash to blow. Many of the (including myself) actually see things like Tablet PCs have a productivity advantage over a laptop. Carrying my laptop around all day is a hassle. If I had a tablet PC in my office, I could go from meeting to meeting, and not have to worry about missing an important email, have a presentation available to show to anyone I happen to bump into in the hall way, etc. Laptops are a pain to carry around, they are exactly the most ergonomic things around, and taking notes on them sucks. So there you.

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[account_deleted]

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Does Anyone Here have A Real Job?

[puto]

I suppose these days the majority of the posters are of university age or just the fact they might soley sit and code all day, do network support, or something desktop centric and thinks makes you somewhat of a computer purist.

This thing will probably go gangbusters in the business world. Do I need to point out again they can use these things in hospitals, docs can carry them around and have instant access to patient data? You can't teach an old doc to type but you can teach him to point and click. Imagine all of the patients records for him to review right there, and also to digitally sign off on medications, release forms, paperwork? I worked in the medical IT in the mid to late 90's and we would have killed for this for our clients. AND our clients were always asking for this portability. You leave your office to do rounds of your hospital patients, you can have all of their records at your fingertips. Your staff can dump the records necessary and hand it to you. Plus keep your drug interaction software, E an M coding stuff. Scheduling, xrays. The screen is bigger than a pda, Doctors are gonna eat this alive.

What inventory sytems. You are doing inventory and rely on a stock numner, you can carry one of this around with wand and it will show you the item as well as give you all the details.

Companies can give these to employees so they can have access, to employee manuals, data, you name it. Much more portable than a lap top.

Sales Departments can configure payments, interest options, the whole shebang, and then slide this sucker across the desk.

Games? This aint for games. This aint for coding. This is for strict ease of use in certain apps. And I am sure if you sit down and put some thought into it you would come up withmany uses.

I tested one and it recognized my chicken scrach, which my wife says could be confuse with Sanskrit.

It is a good product and sad to say MS made it. IT is here now and has pretty damn good functionality for many things. Sure someone will hack up linux to run on it, more power to you. But in the business world you need what works NOW, not what will work, or what you can say can be made to work.

We need to take over the Desktop, then move on. But to downplay something as usefuls as this with FUD from the OSS camp is just ridiculous.

Anyone in IT who has been in it for more than 5 years, done heave support, and has had to be a solution provider will recognize this a a good item.

Puto

How I use my Tablet

[Diamon]

I was a lucky enough b@#%!rd to win an Acer TM C102Ti as the MS Tablet PC launch. After piddling with it for a few weeks I've definitely noticed some interesting usage habits.

For taking notes I use MS Journal, they go in as ink and stay as ink. My recognition of my writing will always be better than their recognition and I don't feel like going through the correction just to get a smaller file size. If I was sharing the notes with someone else I might, but what I keep for myself I keep as ink.

Browsing I do a mixture or pen and keyboard. I definitely like browsing in tablet mode with the pen it just feels more natural, however entering URL's with the pen is still 50/50 so if I have to pull out the keyboard it's back to landscape mode.

Any type of command line work such as admin work or coding simply requires a keyboard, no two ways about it. If I remote accesss in to work I have to use a keyboard (they are running a version of MetaFrame that doesn't support pen). This is where the pen will fail to win over the gear-heads in my opinion.

Also I do find myself using keyboard and pen more than I thought I would. Glidepoints still just don't cut it for me, so I'd rather do the extra grab for the pen.

All in all I'm really happy with it (I should be since it was free) and I can't imagine buying a laptop without Tablet features after using a Tablet.

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.