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Analyzing the Microsoft Tablet PC
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet UK has an amusing - but accurate in my view - review of the Microsoft Tablet PC. It may not be the first, but it is the most incisive because of the way it dissects the many fundamental flaws in Microsoft's latest creation."
I've seen lots of posts complaining that the Slashdot editors aren't paying attention to what they post, and for the most part I just laugh and move on. But here's an egregious example - the web page referenced is indeed a review of the ViewSonic V150 AirPanel, but a Microsoft Tablet PC it is not. Rather, this is a "Mira" remote display device that requires a separate Windows XP system that actually runs the programs.
The anonymous contributor can perhaps be forgiven for making the error, but the editors should know better. Perhaps the editors need to first count to ten (or a hundred) the next time they want to post a "Microsoft is lame" article?
Take two and call me in the morning.
graspee
A SmartDisplay is Windows CE with Remote Desktop and a Tablet PC is Windows XP.
See more at MS's faq.
They had a tablet for demonstration at the MS student tour across Canada. I was at one of the demonstrations where they showed an "informational video of a survey conducted by students at MIT, not an ad," as the presenter tried to claim as we chuckled at the attempted brainwashing.
Despite MS evil intentions to force yet another PDA device into our lives, these looked actually useful, because of the advanced handwriting recongnition software. You can literally handwrite your notes, and either save them as plain text, small picture files, or move them to another PC. You can even do a text search through handwritten files. The angle you write at doesn't always stop the words from being found even. Truely an innovation in PDAs.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
After reading the review, this thing sounds like a nightmare.
I don't get it, it costs more then a basic laptop, its much more difficult to setup, it has a very slow processor compare to a lappy, and it doesnt do nearly as much as a laptop.
This reminds me of those portable personal DVD players. They cost about $1000 for a 7" screen and all it does is play DVDs, for the same price you could buy a notebook computer with a 14" screen that plays DVDs and does a whole lot more.
This isnt some easy to use Internet Appliance like the i-opener, it is not priced like one, so just who is this targeted towards?
I would love a tablet PC, I hope they get better and better and cheaper. This appears to be pretty worthless though.
Has a processor, an OS, and memory, but needs a host-pc to run?
It requests that you change your OS to a particular version?
No, it's not really a TabletPC, but it's still something I'd never subject myself to.
Nikkos
(From the review: Whatever the thinking behind Microsoft's Smart Display technology -- a battery-powered notebook screen without a notebook, linked to a PC by wireless networking and taking stylus input -- it doesn't seem to have included what users actually want. Emphasis added.)
-austin
Ni bhionn an rath achx mar a mbionn an smacht (There is no Luck without Discipline)
Am I being Offtopic for discussing TabletPC, but that was what the headline said....?
anyway - having seen Tablet PC, it is the most half-assed bit of design I've seen in ages. One thing struck me right off. Considering the tablet concept is intended to be used in portrait mode, why do precisely zero of the UI elements reflect this? The task menu is a tiny strip along the bottom of the screen and it's proposterously hard to hit with the stylus.
of course, the handwriting recognition is abysmal, but that goes without saying.....
'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it' - Eeyore
... as has already been pointed out. However more importantly, editors please update the headline to acknowledge the mistake. Lots of people may read the comments, see a single +5 comment pointing out this isn't a Tablet, next to dozens of Anti-MS comments and assume the +5 guy is a crackpot. He is not. This is a Windows Terminal Server device used to control your Windows desktop while walking around the house. It's isn't remotely Tablet PC.
... by the Iraqi Information Minister. In the summary I was expecting it to say:
"This is a tablet pc, any who claim that it is not is an infidel. You can see it is shaped as Allah intended, a tablet. This "AirPanel" does not even exist. It is a figment of the imagination of the dogs of the oppressors."
I think this review is VERY biased. For one, its not even a Tablet PC as defined by Microsoft. A tablet PC is a fully functional computer, period. In fact, I just got a Toshiba Portege Tablet PC and use it frequently in tablet mode (it converts to laptop mode for all the wienies that cry about using a pen). Its handwriting recognition is second to none, able to read cursive and messy hand writing. Voice recognition is really good as well, though I am sure there are better products available.
It has builtin WiFi and Bluetooth, 1.4 Gb P3, %12 Mb RAM, and a 40 Gb hard drive. Its a computer and very well adapted to the medical and sales professions.
In all, my experience has been very good with tablet pcs and I wonder when the open source community is going to think about developing such a product. If the open source community does not begin innovating instead of playing catchup to microsoft, it will never succeed. Here is something (the tablet pc) completely new that everyone I show asks "where do I sign to get one"? All of the features are there but the price is still a bit steep. But you have to recoop R+D.
In my opinion these panel things are gay. Tablet PCs rock. Where are the voice recognition and handwriting recognition in the open source community? Are there any efforts? Are we going to let microsoft reinvent the pc while we sit back and simply say... ah... they'll pull it in a year. BTW, they spent millions in R+D and they are not going to simply kill it. They may thorw millions into marketing though which they haven't yet.
Do your homework before advocating decisions for the open source community.
Anyone with 15 inches is gonna be popular, and according to spam, is becoming increasingly cost effective.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Sounds like they managed to screw up the best idea they've had in a long time (although terminal services isn't new). I thought Mira might have a turned into a killer app for the home...small simple terminals in the house around a super-fast PC.
And what's this crap about locking out the "server" from being used? Why a licensing issue, if you've paid for both copies of Windows?
I've used LTSP, and it's simply awesome with just the smallest amount of tweaking. Definitely an area where linux wins hands down.
The worst bit about this terrible submission is that Taco will dupe the post in about 3 hours.
Trolling is a art,
You don't even have to read the parent article once to realize that, as the original poster said, it is not a tablet PC. It's not ANY kind of PC. It's just a remote-display monitor. It doesn't run any programs, it just shows you what your main computer is doing.
Kinda funny seeing major business plans aorund doing remote displaying with all the comments going around on the X-Windows topics saying how remote displaying applications in X is supposedly never used and the root of all slowness in X.
Anyways, just because this isn't a tablet PC doesn't make it not cool. I'd often like to have the power of my desktop machine anywhere in the house.
Reading the lengths to which you must go to get a remote display on your Windows machine amazes me.
Give me the same basic hardware, but rip WinCE out and put a lightweight X server into it, and I could remote the display on my workstation without any software changes on it at all (except perhaps for adding a line to my X0.hosts file).
AND if the table spoke SSH, I wouldn't even have to do that.
AND the fact that I could also redirect the displays of my SGI, my other server, my service monitor, and anything else that spoke X Windows system protocol.
For all you naysayers who poop-poo the need for network transparency in your GUI, I say:
BEHOLD
www.eFax.com are spammers
I'm a college student in Biochemistry. I have an Acer Travelmate 100 Tablet PC. I LOVE it. I can take graphical notes in chemistry class, my entire campus is wirelessly enabled, and I can't imagine going back to my days without it. Tablet PCs aren't bad or useless. They have customers who love them and use them everyday. Get over yourselves and make a Linux Tablet PC for me to use. Secondly- This review ISN'T for a tablet PC. Check your facts, please.
This statement is solely an opinion. Kindly take it as such in all cases.
2) Sell ad space to Microsoft
do not read this line twice.
"Tablet is the wrong medicinal analogy: suppository more adequately describes the Smart Display experience."
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
At least CmdrTaco spelled "Tablet PC" correctly...
Perhaps it was the sight of Captain James T Kirk scribbling away on his executive starship tablet...
I remember we actually got a look at that tablet in one of the episodes. About 20% of the space on one side was dedicated to a light labeled 'System Failure' (which was not on at the time). That's right, about 10% of the total potential screen space was dedicated to a light telling you it was broken, implying that this is a 'feature' that is required often. Looking back, I wonder if this is what MS used as a prototype...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This is just another example. The "Micro$oft Office XML fiasco" is another recent one, off the top of my head. This place is becoming more of a Microsoft bashing arena than a place to discuss and learn about open source.
But hey, it sells ads. "Page impressions" I think they call it. Don't get many of those if the story is about some obscure (but interesting) part of the BSD kernel - but virulent anti-Microsoft shit? Ahhhhh. That's where the profit is!
"Cuando tiene usar algo de Microsoft, todo sabe muy mal."
I'm a little surprised this clever bit of satire was modded as troll. It's a reflection of the anti-MS crap that flies around here. What's clever about it is when you translate this into literal english, it sounds like "When he uses something of Microsoft, everybody knows it's very bad." That's what Cmndr Taco sounded like in this flamebait article.
I dont see anything gay about these devices. If they were gay they would be more stylish, have more accessories ,and know how to throw a party.
just a quick reply to part of this..
The "Smart Display" is intended to be a "take for a walk and use seperately" MONITOR for an existing computer. So you finish up your work, take the monitor over to the couch and surf the net while you watch TV.
The "Tablet PC" is a complete computer, basically a laptop that you can write on the screen. Unfortunately the specs on current Tablet PCs are appalling, but I don't think microsoft's spec actually says "please use 4 year old hardware" so I'll blame the vendors themselves there.
The two technologies look similar on the surface, but are not remotely comparable.
Personally I like the smart display concept for use as a second monitor. I'm a graphic designer and programmer, so it's not even close to good enough for a primary monitor, but still, kinda cool.
And as for the "why would you want a windows PC" this is a dumb question. Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Homesite, Debabelizer, Flash, and yes, games. Don't bother saying that those programs are available for Apple, because I don't care. And the first person that mentions the words "The Gimp" or "open source alternatives" gets a personal visit. Oh, and not all games are on PS2 or Gamecube. Not even many. Once again, you're comparing things that are not even remotely similar.
As for reviews of Tablet PCs, the overall concept is covered well on http://www.winsupersite.com. My personal impression is "Nice concept. Well implimented. Crappy hardware so far." I haven't found any specific reviews, just going by manufacturers specs.
Finally, linux tablet. I see no reason it's not doable. The tricky bit would be actually reading the tablet (drawing) data. I know jack about that sort of thing. I couldn't see it happening, for much the same reason I don't have a Tablet PC myself. There's just no real need.
Matt
HuuHuuHuuuu! SLOTH LOVES CHUNK! This isn't a Tablet PC, YOU GUYS! SLOTH LOVES CHUNK! HEY YOU GUYS! Point taken. Let's just ignore the M$ bashing article now, 'kay? Kay.
OMG! Wau!
Stop giving CmdrTaco hell. This article passed the stringent Slashdot tests for posting:
1. It busts on Microsoft.
2. It busts on Microsoft.
3. errr...uhhh...
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
Yeah, I've seen one or two troll posts like that. The ignorance displayed is a work of art. X is not slow. People use X forwarding everyday and it kicks ass. I'm using X forwarding through ssh right now to post this. It's very nice to see Mozilla displayed with good speed through a 10 mbs ethernet onto a 90 MHz Pentium laptop. My wife could export the same program off a dinky 400 MHz K6/2 without much slow down for me. I use Star Office on her machine to get at pesky M$ formats. From the desktop perspective, any of them can share the PCIMCIA adaptor and so look at and store pictures from the compact flash cards I use. One day soon, I'll rig up a wireless card in one of my boxes and I'll be able to cut the ethernet cable.
Thanks for bringing up X, it's a clear example of how free software is much better than nonfree. X was designed to do this kind of thing back in 1993. M$ has decided that they can't tollerate more than one person at a time using their junk so they have never adopted the technology and they never will. They have struck out against VNC, forbiden such use in their EULA, and this is what we can expect from them. Using X, I could care less. As it is, I have the combined power of all of my computers on any of them. Soon enough, someone will port a reasonable OS to those tablets and I'll be able to buy one off ebay for $40. Cool enough for me, it's got a much nicer processor than my laptop does and might be able to run things without much help. You have to wonder why anyone would cripple such a machine with something crappy like WinCE or XP stripped of everything (even the browser? impossible). Crippled, that's the world of closed source software for you.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
In their haste to bash Microsoft, both the anonymous submitter and the slashdot editor failed to notice that the article doesn't even review a tablet pc. This is what slashdot has come to...
- A real programmer uses $ cat > a.out
This brings a whole new meaning to "assraped by Microsoft"!
If you're happy and you know it read my blog
I'd have a lot more respect for the editors if they'd just come out and admit their mistakes (dupes, inaccuracies).
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
It isn't that hard to tell the difference. Smart Displays are essentially wireless monitors while Tablet PCs are just laptops.
From what I have seen noone uses Smart Displays and Tablet PCs are being received quite well.
Anyone notice how ZDNetUK absolutely hated the wireless display the topic links to, but gave it a score of 6.6 out of 10?
A big 7 for "features"?
Only a 6 for a product that mostly doesn't work and may require the installation of a new OS to mostly not work?
Seems to me I could get an easy 5.0 from these guys by duct-taping a non-functional USB cable to a lead pencil, and sending it in for review.
With a 400Mhz processor and 64MB of ram, this little display has quite a bit of power packed in it. Which begs the question, anyone gotten Linux to run on it yet?
Not only did he label it a review of the Tablet PC, but he certainly must have read it closely because he declared it the "most incisive" review so far.
Of course, since it's not even a review of the Tablet PC at all, incisiveness must simply be a synonym for "critical of MS", as in "Slashdot posts are almost uniformly incisive."
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
I am also disappointed in the lack of diligence demonstrated by the /. editors--usually I'm annoyed by dupes but it is starting to show up in the form of factual inaccuracies as well. However, I digress...
Not only isn't it a tablet PC (it's merely a wireless "intelligent display"), it is a very poorly executed implemetation of what it is.
Firstly, it costs as much as my notebook did nearly two years ago--and it is a full computer. Not only does it not need a host PC--it can also be hooked up to a television and play DVD movies. Why would I pay the same amount for much less? If I want to surf the net untethered I'll throw a wireless PC card in my notbook, thanks.
Second, I am at a loss to figure out why it's so hefty and power hungry. It weights around 2.5kg's (that's over 5 lbs) and the battery life is also comparable to that of smaller sized but fully functional notebooks. Is this merely due to the large touchscreen? I don't get it--basically it looks like this unit is a big screen with the guts of a Pocket PC PDA in it. Why the heck does its WinCE and client software need 64M of RAM? Is the protocol so bloated that 64M is needed as cache to make the thing usable? So much for the "thin client" concept.
All in all, I think the review was overly generous in giving out it's rating--it's a half-baked implementation and thus barely merits a 5 out of 10. The concept is cool though--right now it is about as ready as Windows 1.0 was when it was released. Perhaps 2 versions from now it will be worth considering.