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Major Tablet PC Running Into Problems?
An anonymous reader writes "As Digitimes says :
Global sales of Tablet PCs have not been as strong as expected, and major Tablet PC vendors like Acer and Hewlett-Packard (HP) have even experienced declining sales of the products, sources said.
Acer, which claims it sold about 35,000 Tablet PCs worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2002, saw sales of the product plunge by over 50% in the first quarter of this year. " I actually saw/held my first Tablet PC last week - it was one of Fujitsu series machines, and I was pretty impressed by it. It'd make a good business/school machine, but I don't think you'd want it for gaming and the like.
In other news, I think a dishwasher is a good idea, but won't be using one to wash my clothes any time soon.
Tablet PCs are simply not designed for gaming, so saying you would not use one for gaming is a bit superfluous.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Tablet PCs are sort of like a large pda... At least that's where I see their usefulness. Ipaqs are cool, but the screen is too small to be useful, IMO.
A tablet PC, especially the kind that can unfold to into a laptop, is what I've been wanting for a very long time.
But the price is just crazy, $2600? I'd consider paying $1000. $2600 Could by a pretty slick laptop that cleans the floor with a typical tablet pc.
HP may be having problems selling the pocket PC but other companies are doing fine. Dell's sales have been on the rise every month this year. I guess if you price your products for the masses they sell much better ;)
We don't need no stinking sig!
While I do believe he is correct, I think he may be off base with the PDA. This is one of the only devices that I would like to see be more "all in one". I'd personally like a Sony Ericsson p800 style PDA phone that had the screen from a Clie NZ90, GPS, iPod sized hard drive, megapixel camera, the VERY cool remote control center from Sony, 802.11g and Bluetooth + an Mp3 player and DIVX/MPEG4 decoder. While something like this would be in the high end (probably where the NZ90 is = $800 + $100 802.11 card) I still think it'd fly off the shelf, and possibly be subsidized by cell phone companies, at least in part with service agreements.
I still hope Apple is considering such a device or at least with most of the features listed here with a compact flash & SDIO slot.
I know there's a little link overload, just illustrating how easily this could be done right now!
All of this could be squeezed into a current form factor Sony Clie.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Tablet PCs are cool and just about everyone who plays with one wants one. Then they look at the price and decide to get a laptop with more memory and a faster processor for less...
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
Does anyone here have any experience install Debian GNU/Linux on one of these 'Tablet PCs'? Are features like the stylus and touch-sensitive screen supported? What about the power management features? Will apt-get be supported?
The people who absolutely must have the latest gadgets bought them during the first few months; the rest of us haven't had any reason to buy them.
Next year, there will probably be better operating system and application support, and at that point tablets will actually be useful; but until then the only market which exists is already saturated.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
.. can you run one before you need to recharge?
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
It'd make a good business/school machine, but I don't think you'd want it for gaming and the like
:)
But you see, that's the whole point. A tablet PC isn't effective if you can't hold it in your hands and write on it, and that means it's got to be tiny. If you're going to get a laptop, you're either going to get a small laptop that's not so fast, or a bulky laptop that is blazin'.
It's not much fun sportin' a 7 pound tablet, I mean common we've been out of the stone ages for awhile
- tristan
What do I need a tablet PC for that I can't do with a PDA, or would require something smaller than a laptop? Aside from the 'cool' factor I don't see too much of a market right now. You can't really type on them... Maybe if you had a laptop with a detachable screen that functions as a tablet PC by itself.
They have always struck me as entirely pointless devices. Anyone here actually use one - one they purchased themself for personal use?
Tack on a CDR, and you've just made yourself a laptop with a tiny screen.
Although, Steve Jobs is justifiably wary about PDAs with the failure of the Newton, which I still think is an awesome device.
Vonal Declosion
Regardless of how technically sound tablet PCs are, the market for them isn't going to spring into existence overnight.
The idea doesn't improve significantly enough on my good Rhino to have me making a purchase.
Now, when I see RMS running Emacs on one of these things, then, maybe THEN, I'll plunk down some frogskins...
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
already has a camera (ok, only 640x480!), bluetooth, mp3 player, mpg4 video player all built in - only problem is those proprietary memory stick duo cards rather than smartmedia or similar...
Tablet PCs are physically too large and heavy. Much of that is driven by the requirements of running Windows XP: you need a harddisk and a powerful processor.
The software isn't all that great either. The connected handwriting recognition system is actually not too bad in terms of raw recognition performance, but its integration and user interface is awful. Speech recognition is laughable. Your best bet is the on-screen keyboard or the PDA-like recognizer.
I think a compact tablet with a high resolution 1024x768 screen, long battery life, but without a harddisk and with a low-power processor, would likely be more successful--provided it ran something better than Tablet PC. In fact, even PocketPC would probably be better than TabletPC.
How do the screens hold up to human oils? Or the constant pressure of someones wrist on it? I like the idea but never used one.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Well, I'm sure if Major Tablet PC got promoted to Lieutenant Colonel Tablet PC, he could pull rank and avoid doing the damn obstacle course where he keeps running into things. :P
Ah, but The Newton wasn't Steve Jobs idea, it was Sculley's. (Another minute reason Steve is wary about PDAs=pride). Also, the Newton as described in the article you linked, didn't have Steve's vision or Ive's design.
And seriously, about the CDR, WHY NOT put a firewire port on it? WHY NOT make it run full Mac OSX? (Built in disc burning)
Small screen or not, very useful!
"I'd personally like a Sony Ericsson p800 style PDA phone that had the screen from a Clie NZ90, GPS, iPod sized hard drive, megapixel camera, the VERY cool remote control center from Sony, 802.11g and Bluetooth + an Mp3 player and DIVX/MPEG4 decoder."
And a pony.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
A friend of mine has the Toshiba Tablet PC. It's pen has a tremendous feel and its excellent for sketching, and typing since it folds out to be a full flegded laptop.
Is it worth $2000+ when I can get a laptop for $1000+ that can basicially do the same thing except Now I can't use a pen? No way. That's the problem with them. they are nowhere near price competitive to traditional laptops. If they were then would be selling like hotcacks.
Its a cool technology that prices itself out of the market. pure and simple.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Almost all tablets on talbet PCs are made by Wacom, and there's an XFree86 driver for them. Check out the Linux Wacom Project for more info.
Lets add $15 worth of hardware, $3 worth of software and charge an additional $600 for our laptops. THAT'LL boost sales!
Seriously, you wouldn't buy a slow laptop for $1800 because is came with a funky mouse, drivers for that mouse, and a few utilities that used the extra buttons on that mouse, would you?
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
At my office (which is Windows only, none of that Linux stuff here), we use Tablet PC's because they make sense. Doctors and nurses can review charts, make notes, change scripts and do what needs to be done on the spot without having to open a laptop up and start typing or waiting to get back to their desks (and remember everything they wanted to do/say).
No, tablet PC's are not the solution to everyone, but they are for the medical industry. And Microsoft already has deep roots in the medical industry.
if they gave those thing CPUs that topped the 1.7GHz mark instead of 800-1GHz range they'd sell more :P
Uggh. This is why I hate the state of the mobile device industry right there. There are four major kinds of flash media, all incompatible with each other. Rather than come up with innovative devices that all use the same media (compactflash would have been a good choice since it was the first, and arguably the most open), the companies decided to all come up with their own formats and compete in this space.
Imagine if all the major computer makers had come up with different kinds of floppy disk in the early 90's, all incompatible with each other? Sounds pretty idiotic in retrospect, right? Well, that's what's happening in the industry right now with flash media. SD, MMC, SM, CF, MS, this is not only inconvenient but it's probably confusing as heck to the non-computer literate.
2. For this to start creeping into homes, there needs to be a better public education effort. Freedom from a desk (surf on the couch! in bed!), differentiation from laptops, handwriting recognition features, etc. If there isn't anything to make this a valuable, unique product for other consumers (that aren't in #1)....well....
To be truly sellable to the mass population, the tablet shall have the following attributes:
The focus then becomes an artists drawing pad.
Tablet PC running into Major Problems
or
Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC edition running into major problems.
or
Majority of top-shot CEOs refuse to buy Tablets
or
Viagra tablets sell faster than PC tablets
or
Tablets giving headaches to HPaq, Acer, Microsft
or
etc...
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Do a tablet PC which is cheap, lightweight, integrated wireless lan and has just enough power to browse the web comfortably... Then I'd get one at once so I could lie back on the couch and read articles while my partner watches TV.
For serious computing I'd still want a desktop, but a tablet PC would indeed be perfect for browsing, even if it were a bit underpowered.
My 2 cents anyway...
.: Max Romantschuk
so what do I need one of these for? stupid fuckin` technology.
I've worked with a few tablet PCs, and I have to say that that there is a huge market for them from college students ... if the price is right.
The tablet PC is fantastic for taking notes during lectures. It's unobtrusive, and you can turn the handwriting recognition off while you're maddly scribbling notes and drawing diagrams. Plug in a mic, and you've got a recording of the lecture for future reference.
Later on you could run the recognition software, reorganize your notes, highlight, e-mail, print, etc. etc. Plug in a keyboard and a mouse, and suddenly you've got a "normal" computer for browsing the 'net, writing papers, and, erm, acquiring music.
The "perfect" tablet for this market would have a lightweight OS, 10GB HD, wifi, low power CPU (Crusoe?) and dimensions roughly the same as an A4 or 8x10 pad of paper (12.1" screen, ~1/2" thick).
How many students would buy one if they were under $1000? What's your personal price point?
As many people have said, one one the big reasons TabletPCs aren't doing well is price. What they aren't saying is that most of that extra price comes from the expensive LCD touchscreen, which is necessary for pointing with a stylus and handwriting recognition.
And it's that latter feature that's killing adoption. People just don't want handwriting recognition, especially the kind of power users likey to be eraly adopters of new technology. Why? Simply because handwriting recognition at this stage is still pretty buggy, and even if it wasn't, HANDWRITING ISN'T AS FAST AS TYPING. As I suspect most power users are fairly good typists, handwriting recognition is of little value to them.
And as a "new generation" of users that have grown up with computers matures, there will be even less incentive for handwring recognition. Anyone notice the trend in PDAs has been towards keyboards and away from recognition? This isn't a coincidence, it's the maturing market base.
I, as many others, repeat my argument: if these things were pressure sensitive, they would have been a hell of a drawing tool, but as they're not, they're just some sort of computers which are in some cases even more limited than normal ones.
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
I think the answer lies in Bluetooth. Give me a Bluetooth phone, my Palm Tungsten T, and a Bluetooth headset and I'll be happy.
LordBodak's journal.
I know there's a little link overload, just illustrating how easily this could be done right now!
All of this could be squeezed into a current form factor Sony Clie.
No, no it couldn't. You've just linked to half a dozen different very expensive products in that form factor. The resulting combined product would be about six times larger, cost more than your house, and have a battery life of about thirty seconds. And nobody would buy it because they'd rather spend all that money on some of whatever it is you're smoking, because it must be some good shit.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
> It'd make a good business/school machine, but I don't think you'd want it for gaming and the like.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
With tablet PCs has generally been positive. We've tried out two different models, the Toshiba 3505 and Compaq TC 1000. Both have their shortcomings but both are incredibly useful as well. I purchased the Toshiba for our CEO who uses it constantly for presentations, notetaking, and normal ultra portable laptop use. The Toshiba itself is, IMO, the absolute best of all the tablets. It was certainly built to a higher standard. The Compaq is pretty well built too (a surprise to me). I was very impressed with the way you can detach the slate (screen) from the keyboard. We're using it as the basis of one of our future products. My only real gripe with Compaq is the Crusoe processor which is woefully underpowered. Good battery life or not, it takes way to long to boot and start background apps. However, for our, less processor intensive projects (it will be running some web based apps) it is just fine. The Toshiba with it's 1.3PIII isn't nearly as bad. It has plenty of power for a business laptop. I was surprised by the gaming comment in the original article since not one of these machines were ever intended for such use. Go buy a Dell Insprion 8500 if you want that (an excellent machine in its own right). The biggest gripe I would have is the price. Tablet PCs are dreadfully overpriced IMO.
/. This product was never meant for Nerds and Geeks. This is a business machine that will find it's niche with Sales, Marketing, and Management departments, not IT. It is pretty darn decent at doing the job it was built to do.
I'm not too surprised to see this product being hacked to death on
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
I hate Grammar Nazi's
the first time I used one (a Compaq/HP). It was sleek, reasonably fast, and had a decent display.
but I don't think you'd want it for gaming and the like.
Tablet PC's - at least the majority of them - are nothing but convertible laptop computers. Nothing more, nothing less. I couldn't play games on my laptop - it's not powerful enough - but my wife sure could on hers. Stick a swivel touch-screen on our computers and bam, they're both tablet PC's. The point being, there's nothing whatsoever about the fact that a PC is a tablet PC that rules it in or out for gaming or any other computing task.
The hype for these things has gone beyond what the actual product is, and I don't think it's served the product well. I'd love to have a tablet PC - it's a laptop with a useful extra feature (especially for design work, which I do occasionally). If you want a laptop, why don't you want a laptop with this extra feature? It's like putting built-in wi-fi into a laptop (which I think is a much bigger innovation, honestly) and then giving those laptops their own product category and specialized launch. It's just a feature, and one that a lot of people would like if they actually got to use it. There's no reason to not want a laptop with this feature if you already want a laptop... maybe you don't want to pay the extra $100 or whatever (that's really about all the premium is), but eventually that won't even be a factor.
btw, I think the word "vendors" was left off the headline of this story - I read the headline and thought that a particular model of tablet PC had developed a defect. I expected to read a story about a recall based on the headline.
Imagine if all the major computer makers had come up with different kinds of floppy disk in the early 90's, all incompatible with each other?
They did that. Now there are just two formats left to support in the world: PC (DOS) and Mac. Since Apple stopped shipping floppy drives five years ago, and Mac OS can read and write DOS-formatted disks just fine, DOS won.
And don't get me started on all the ways you can format a hard drive...
For more information, click here.
The people we've deployed Tablet PCs to love them. We're using the Compaq TC1000 with the removeable keyboard, so it's a great compromise. Along with wireless it's perfect for most managers that end up in meetings a lot. The only problem is the old battery life issue. They are better than notebooks, but not great yet.
...for anything to survive very well other than a vanilla notebook:
= 43 78
As long as you can buy a $899 1.6GHz namebrand pentium notebook at Best Buy, few specialty PC makers can survive.
A tablet PC, which needs to be sold for ~$2000 (since it is still a specialty item), but has no better specs than such a $899 machine is just not enticing for most consumers.
Another example is the AlphaSmart Dana, a notebook built with the Palm OS and designed for schools:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID
At the price this thing is sold for, a school could almost buy true notebook PCs at wholesale. Due to the low prices these days, the day of the specialty PC are over.
Not to step on your rant... but Toshiba, HP (through the Compaq Ipaq), Handspring (via the Treo), & Palm all use SD/MMC cards... Sony is different since they refuse to not use their memory sticks (since they use them on everything except the PS2)... I can't even really think of any other major players in PDA's anymore who aren't going to follow the trend... Those listed above are sold the only ones sold locally in my area... No memory format worries for me...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
As slashnot.com stated:
"The Viewsonic Tablet PC is an excellent way to pay twice as much for a laptop by removing the keyboard, CD-ROM drive and Floppy."
Let's face it, Tablet PCs are essentially expensive stripped down laptops. While they might have some very handy specific uses, for the vast majority of people a laptop is a much better solution, i.e., cheaper with more value.
Microsoft's push for the Tablet PC is an attempt to get people who don't know how to type to buy computers. There are many people who never typed before and are frustrated by computers. The paper/pen metaphor is supposed to appease those people. Unfortunately, anyone who has avoided computers up to now clearly has NO USE for a computer. Especially one that costs SO much!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
My First Tablet PC was from Sony.
It was one of those cool red/yellow/blue -models.
But not until one of these comes out that runs OS X. But I won't be holding my breath for it, especially after reading the Steve Jobs link somebody posted below.
I would love to have one - I'd use it all the time (I dont' play games much, but if I did, I'd use a separate machine of course). The problem is they're too damn expensive. The only one I know of with USB 2.0, one of my main requirements, is the new one from Motion Computing ( http://www.motioncomputing.com/ ), and I can't spend two and a half grand on a computer that slow, when I can get a low power desktop and monitor for just over three hundred.
funny munging
They're positioning the TabletPC as a laptop you can write on. I think that's the big mistake -- trying to make this a laptop, when they can't possibly compete with laptops for the price. You end up with something that's too big, too heavy, runs too hot, eats batteries too fast, and is too damned slow to be as useful as it could be.
What I want is, essentially, a letter-sized PDA. Something I can take notes on, browse the web via 802.11 or whatever, read email, and that's about it. If I want to do CAD/CAM, or gaming, or write a 200-page document, then I'll use a desktop. No Windows, no Linux even -- Palm OS would be ideal.
With such a tablet, I could leave it sitting on my coffee table. We're watching a movie, and someone asks "what else was he in?" I hit pause, pick up the tablet, tap "on", and it instantly comes on, just like a Palm. I hit the web browser, go to IMDB, write in my query, and answer the question. Then I set it down and resume the movie. Total time, from question to answer and back to movie: 60 seconds.
Do that with a tablet PC, running *any* OS.
Keep a little cradle on the side that it can charge from, hook that via Cat-5 to the network, have some kind of synchronization software running on some server, and you've now got the ability to hot-sync, with no computer in your family room. Pick the thing up when you go to work and read all the news, while on the subway, that got synch'd to it overnight. Go to starbucks on your lunch hour and catch up on personal email. Whatever.
Anything you can do with a PDA, you should be able to do just as easily with a tablet. It's a logical extension of the PDA to a larger form-factor for reading full-sized documents, web surfing, collaboration around a coffee table, etc. But it doesn't need to be a full-out laptop.
Really, this seems to me a no-brainer, and it should be trivially easy for a hardware maker to implement. Just take the guts from one of the newer Palm models (with the 400 MHz XScale processor), add 64 MB of flash RAM, a CF slot (bundled with a 64 MB card, obviously the end user can expand that) for long-term storage, stick in bluetooth and 802.11, and build it all into a lightweight 1024x768 portable display. Add recharchable batteries, stir, and put out a press release. Sell it for $700, and I'll buy one tomorrow.
It's not the price for me.
I've been freely able to a tablet for a couple of months now, but choose to use my laptop instead.
Why? Because the tablet is sort of clunky, and as another poster pointed out, it's really not much more useful than a PDA.
Tablets were supposed to be more than a PDA, but so far, the ones I've seen aren't, largely crippled by their PDA-like interface. The stylus input isn't any more easy to use than on a PDA, acting as a bottleneck for intensive use. So you're basically limited to PDA-like uses even though the machine can handle more.
And since a PDA/smartphone/handheld/whatever is much smaller and better suited in that way for the uses that a tablet can do, I'd much rather take the PDA.
Maybe for some price is an issue, for me it's just been the icing on the cake.
While I agree that wireless tablets are probably one way to replace the ubiquitous clip boards that you see everywhere there will be some changes necessary to the marketing literature:
1) BFOD - Critical error causing patient to lose vital signs and throw "General Protection Fault"
2) Do you want to go to the afterlife today?
3) AfterLife.NET
AND
4) 1 Degree of separation between life and death...
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
If you compare a tablet PC to a small notebook they are about the same in power and price. The active digitizer (megnetic pen) tacks an extra $100 on. THe Tablet PCs need to weigh around 3lbs so you can hold it which requires small light weight components which cost more than normal to be smaller. The tablet PC user also generally values battery life over CPU power so lower power processors are used that do no exactly out do some lower end notebooks.
The result is the tablet pc is in the sub 3.5lb notebook price range and category.
I wanted a notebook for college and ended up picking up the cheapest tablet pc (the hp version) I love the active digitizer. It is a bit more discrete then typng during class, does not piss of professors and those around you. Looks like you are jsut writing with a pen.
I would love to see a full size notebook implement the active digitzer pen then I would have the power I want since I do not need to be holding it in vertical atmosphere sitting at a desk in lecture.
Somebody get on the ball and mod this parent Funny +1000
P800 has bluetooth, and SonyEricsson has a few very cool BT-headsets. Go ahead :)
(Yes I have a P800 - it's _that_ good. Just get one!)
it's in my head
I'm suprised to see everyone comparing them to laptops or desktops (gaming?). I want one specifically for things I can't do with a laptop. Lie in bed and sketch. Curl up on the couch and write by hand. Yes, typing is faster, but when working creatively cramming at a table isn't quite as inspiring.
So a new, faster, less power draining processor, has INCREASED sales?
Still does not make up fo price, but it is nice to see that while a small market, it is not stagnant.
Actually, I'm not much fond of the tablets. The solid state units like the MPX8000 have the right idea.
The target audience for those are people who have to stand or sit at a non-conventional workstation and do data entry. Warehouse clerks, nurses, cops, etc.
sure, you can format a HD a bazillion ways, but the analogy you are looking for would be more of a interface thing.
like IDE vs. SCSI
or how about different memmory types?
eventualy, i think we will see one type of removeable media win this out.
personally, i'd like to see cameras, pdas and the like be able to store info on something like a USB thumb drive, compatible with anything that has a USB port...
You're right... the Fujitsu is the nicest of the bunch.... when it works.
I've had to send mine back TWICE for a failed NIC. The first time they replaced the systemboard, and it worked for about a month. It just went back for the second failure. Wireless works great, and the handwriting recognition kicks ass, even with my shoddy penmanship.
The Toshiba is a close second, although it is more of a laptop with a pen than a tablet. The weight difference between it and the Fujitsi is noticable. And even though BOTH are running WinXP Tablet, the Fujitsu's handwriting rec. works better.
Regards,
Grass Roots Marketing
Imagine if all the major computer makers had come up with different kinds of floppy disk...
You are showing your age! (lower, not higher!) That is exactly what happened!
In the early days of smaller floppies (I am not talking 5 1/4" here), there were at least 4 competing physical formats that I can remember. One of them is the current 1.44M 3 1/2" format we use today. The rest are lost to history. Although one of the previous replies to this mentions different "soft" formats, I am amazed that no one remembers the different "hard" formats that existed.
It may have come from Microsoft, but it's an extremely stable and robust filesystem that is very well understood, and will probably be the de-facto standard for many years.
As for Mac and PC format floppies, this is not really the issue I was getting it. Macs and PC's used different filesystems on floppies, but the media itself was exactly the same. This is not the case with the multitude of flash memory formats out there.
when you pull it from my COLD DEAD HANDS!
"Imagine if all the major computer makers had come up with different
kinds of floppy disk in the early 90's, all incompatible with each other?"
Didn't they?
Not the floppy disk, necessarily (although there's, what, 4 or 5
sizes of the 3.5"), but in the 100Mb+ space there was a heaping pile
'o different formats. Zip, obviously, was the big one, but there was
quite a few other high density cartridge formats introduced during
that period. Many tape formats, too.
The same thing appears to be happening with writable DVD's. Heck, there's
also a lot of different CD formats. They're all standardized, but that
doesn't mean every CD writer can handle all of them.
Same shit...
c.
Log in or piss off.
Terrific! Now Acer/HP will be dumping them like the fabled "Internet Appliances" (iopener/audrey/ia1/etc) on the net.
Ive got a ia1 w/ Lignux in my living room, very underpowered and a badish screen just dying to get repalced w/ an 802.11/touchscreen tablet...
Bring on the DISCONTINUED-DISCOUNTED tigerdirect deals!
I've been using the Motion computing one (M1200) for almost six months now and for windows work it does everything I need (mail, documentation, some programming, some SysAdmin tasks). I still keep a linux workstation, but have been relying more and more on cygwin and a linux instance running in VMware on the tablet.
There are some points though that I would like to make in response to a whole lot of messages above.
1) The screen is 12" and 1024x768, but I regularly use the VGA port when at my desk to run dual desktops on a monitor running 1280x1024. With the tablet in portrait mode next to it it works very well.
2) The pen interface is more natural then a keyboard. You just start marking up documents, or jotting down notes. This doesn't replace the keyboard (not by a long shot for some tasks), but more accuratly it replaces paper.
3) These boxes have more then enough umpf for everything except your high end games. With the 1GHz Centrinos coming out I expect that even the games will be OK, but is that really a buying criteria for an office/work machine?
4) Having searching of handwritten notes is invaluable, and makes paper replacement not only viable but desirable.
Alright, given the price and specs they aren't for everyone, but neither is any other machine available. This product fits a large niche, and as the upgrade cycles occur in companies and governments I expect them to be adopted about at the rate PCs were in the mid 80's. That is nothing to sneeze at.
The sharp Zaurus reads 3 of the 5. It doesn't read Smart Media or Memory stick.
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
... like anyone cares?
The cost is WAY HIGH on these things. I am a student & I totally crave one! I put my PoPC to use daily (posting this from one in a bathroom stall before I go back to class). I can see many uses for one note in class... but $2000 for one worth having is loco!
If a tablet pc maker wants to donate to a good cause, Im not above whoring myself out for promos!!!
-- Whee
I don't want to start a full size rant against MS, but have any of you seen the OS that runs on these tablets. Once again MS got it all wrong. It is a very clunky and very hard to use desktop with the pen. It does not do what you are expecting it to do and to make matters worse...they don't seem like they did any realy outside testing to find out if the pen based OS was good when used by consumers. Half the time you have to pop up a keyboard at the bottom of the screan to type or enter text. WHY? Did someone forget that the reason to buy a tablet/pen based PC is so that you don't have to use a keyboard? Apple did a better job with Ink than MS did with the PenXP....why does Microsoft contenue to produce a bad half develpoed OS and still make money.....?
David Vasta iSeries(AS/400) Admin & Junkie
The ones I've seen typically cost more than notebooks. What surprises me is that they had such good sales last year.
If you're a billionaire who doesn't need to care about dropping a few grand of electronics on the floor every so often, this is a killer toy. No surprise who the poster boy was. But likewise it's no surpise they're not taking the market by storm.
It's no surprize to me at all that they don't take off!
Every ad that I've seen shows something like a guy drawing on his hand or somesuch to take an important note, and comparing it with him taking the same note on a tablet PC.
If you're going to lug a tablet PC around with you, I don't think it's unreasonable to figure that you could probably remember to carry a good old fashioned notepad. You know. The kind with paper and a pen.
Since the only way they market themselves is basically a $2000 pad of paper, I think it's pretty obvious that nobody's biting..
How somebody get on your balls ... troll
I'd agree that the tablet PC wouldn't be very good for your conventional FPS or any game that required alot of 3D stuff.
However, I do think that the tablet could work for RTS games like starcraft, where your mousing accuracy would no longer be a limiting factor.
If you took it a step further, I bet you could make a bunch of neat strategy style games that a pen interface would be better for. Imagine being able to give your troops walking directions by drawing on the screen.
I'm interested in picking up a tablet and seeing what I could make with it, but the cost is just too prohibitive to do it just for kicks.
Explain your statement. The iPod gets about 14 hours battery life, the p800 about 6, the Lyra about 6, the Clie that was in the parent about 12 and has a little room in it - I see all those devices as easily integrated as the parent supposed.
Tablet PCs seem like a market that's been created just to make money off of the dying PC market.
Steve Jobs said awhile back that we were about to enter a computer "dark age" where there was not a lot of innovation or creativity. I think he's right. There is not a lot new going into computers- just just become more and more beefed up. Really, what differences are there between your current computer and the computer you had three or four years ago? I bet most of the differences are performance based.
My point is, we all have computers, and we all know what they do, and we know what we use them for. That creates a stable market, but not one that grows the way that it has been. Of course computer makers want to make more and more money (I don't know why... who needs more than like, $50,000?) so they created the very stupid tablet PC. Granted, I've never used one, but I really don't see much innovation in the technology as much as the marketing and advertising. "Look!" says HP "This is a laptop with a screen that flips around! uh- you really need this to stay productive!"
Like I said, I've never used one. Hell, I've never even SEEN one, and I go to electronic stores here in New York frequently. They seem like an OK gadget, but I don't think anyone's biting. I'll wait until my Palm Pilot can simply be a remote extension of my desktop computer. And I wont use it for gaming, either.
There are compact flash adapter memory readers for everything except a memory stick. Compact Flash to Smartmedia - Compact Flash to SD/MMC - Compact Flash to XD - Microdive is Compact Flash - and honestly, if you have a multi reader - with some you can transfer data directly from card to card.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
If they made those products cheaper instead of trying to make incredible amounts of greedy profit, then everybody in america could buy one and like the Model T automobile and Ford, they would be rich. At least thats my oppion.
Insert Witty Remark Here ===>____________________________
I remember those "word processor" machines used their own weird floppies, but that's about it.
I don't seem to remember anything other than 5.25" and 3.5" floppies in the mainstream computing world. I know there were some weird formats, but weren't they all used by niche players? (Apple Lisa, those silly word processors, etc.)
The problem with the Tablet PC (and the reason that I never expected it to sell well) is that it's the sort of device that a lot of geeks say is, "cool," but it is NOT the sort of device that solves problems for most people. It's one of those things that many people might take for free (just because the concept seems cool), but the minor benefits of the machine aren't enough to outweigh the cost or the other negatives (for the vast majority).
There might be a few markets where the benefits outweigh the costs (vertical medical applications, maybe?), but I can't think of many where they are truly cost-effective. After trying to use laptops and PDAs for notes and schedules and such, I still find that the easiest thing for ME to use for most of my needs like that is still a piece of paper. The cost ($2 vs. $2,600) and "user interface" of a cheap paper notebook still make it superior for a lot of things, even if it DOES seem cool to geeks to be able to write on a screen with a stylus.
I don't expect Tablet PCs to take off any time soon, and I still think that PDAs as we know them are dying, too. (I thought Steve Jobs was wrong about PDAs in the beginning, but I know fewer and fewer non-geeks who use them.) A Tablet PC is interesting technology, but it doesn't solve a problem that people really want solved.
Exactly. They sell these as lighter than a laptop but they cost more. There is really no reason for them to cost more. The hardware just doesn't qualify for their price range.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Apparently you missed that Wacom is the OEM for most of the tablet digitizing systems?
:(
Take a look at:
http://www.wacom.com/tabletpc/index.cfm
There's link to a download which enables pressure sensitivity for graphics apps (Download enhanced driver for Tablet PC).
Other comments in no particular order:
- there are convertible machines with keyboards (Toshiba's Portege)
- building a Tablet PC is a lot more complex than just removing the keyboard from a laptop and adding a digitizer---cf. Fujitsu's Stylistic (built w/ a dynamic thermal engineering model to keep the machine cool) w/ Motion Computing's M1200 (which comes w/ a warning prolonged exposure to unprotected flesh may be uncomfortable)
- while the idea of playing games like Everquest and Diablo is interesting they don't work well 'cause using the pen for movement and pointing results in a disconnect between pen location and cursor location (hence, when I play Diablo on my Fujitsu pen slate I have to use a mouse)
While I'm a big afficionado of pen computing (I've wanted a pen slate since reading Pournelle / Niven's _The Mote in God's Eye_ as a kid), contemporary systems have the following problems / issues:
- there's no one perfect machine which combines a 12.1" display, cool (temperature-wise) case, long (8+ hours) battery life and Wacom digitizer and light weight. A number get one or two such features, (actually I think the weight on all of them is fine), but nothing has all of them
- TabletPC requires Windows XP and it's erratic which apps work w/ handwriting recognition
- no cross-platform standard for ink
I've posted links here in the past on interesting pen computing URLs / projects, Berkeley in particular has some pretty cool stuff (look up SATIN / SILK at GUIR)
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
I work at an electronics retailer, and we've had the tabletPC's for a while now. They are a complete failure. They are extremely underpowered (pentium3, etc.). and completely off base on price ($2500+).
Most of the one's we've sold have been returned, largely due to performance.
Going from my Athlon2200+ and even my G4/450-MP, to using the tabletPC's is like pulling teeth.
If tablet PC's are "not the solution [for] everyone"--that is, if they are a niche product--how will there ever be enough volume to get the prices down?
No doubt it's possible to sustain a healthy business segment in a niche product. I can see tablets being purchased by those who REALLY NEED them, and are therefore willing to pay enough of a premium to sustain a low-volume product.
But this isn't terribly interesting to the rest of us.
The question that interests most of us is whether tablets are a compelling paradigm for the general user.
I'm still not sure I understand how tablets are supposed to be all that different from Wang Freestyle or GRiDpad or Momenta or Windows for Pen Computing or all the other variations on pen computing that sprung up a decade ago. Why couldn't any of them get any traction if the whole idea is really sound?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
..as You would with a morning paper, the tablet pc is for You.
Even a small portable is awkward in the bed.
The problem is that the tablets (or pcpads as I like to call them) is to high priced - after all, You don't have them as Your only pc. Some of them are also much too heavy.
I want a tablet/pcpad based on standard components and will use it with e g VNC to my desktop for surfing in the morning and other tasks that don't require keyboard or use of advanced graphics.
Mundus Vult Decipi
Just recently purchased the Acer C104CTi ($1699, P3-900, WiFi, DVD/CD-RW, 1394, USB, 10.4" TFT,Convertible,...). I like the college notebook size and the 3 lbs weight (anything less would be too flimsy). At work I use it to capture notes in meetings, translate notes into text, and then email out. With the WiFi, I can maintain connectivity at any meeting w/out wires. At home, I watch TV, cook, workout, etc all while surfing the net. The touchscreen comes in handy when you just want to lay the tablet down and use the pen to click through websites.
IMHO, tablet PCs are not supposed to do everything that a regular laptop does, otherwise they'd just be laptops. Some people say that they can type faster than they can write. That may be true, but when you're in a meeting and someone is bangin' away at the keyboard, most other people take offense. Of course if you had a Tablet, you can write without annoying anyone (except for maybe the jealous guy next to you).
Tablets are niche products now, but soon they'll be commonplace (just as laptops were once niche products). Of course between now and then M$ will need to firm up the Tablet OS, and more software apps will need to be updated to take advantage of the pen function. I can also envision new apps that will take advantage of the WiFi/pen entry.
I've only had the tablet for a few weeks, but it's definitely a sweet addition to my suite of power tools. With the tablet, I only need to go back to my desktop for gaming, photo editing, and other high-end apps. I'm quite pleased.
My conclusion: A TabletPC is a luxury, but heavy PDA replacement and isn't very usefull as a replacement for a real laptop. Most of the software needs a complete rethinking and the hardware is feeble. So i bought a brand new Apple Powerbook and I'm happy now.
My detailed experiences with TabletPC Software were: Microsoft XP TabletXP Edition was quite unstable (2 crashes a day), Microsoft Journal works fine, Microsoft OneNote Beta was absolutely not usable (imho wrong concept for a notetaking application), Covey TabletPlanner is ok, but you wouldn't need another Outlook (it works fine on a TabletPC). The absolute KilleApp in the note-taking area is from my point of view Mindjets Mindmanager for TabletPC (good concept, consequent implementation, high value).
My experiences with Compaq hardware: The TabletPC's connection between main unit and keyboard is very unstable and could be damaged easily. The built-in WLAN connection is very weak, I needed a extra Orinocco WLAN Adapter to get in working in our office. The missing bluetooth adapter is very unconveniend and I see no reason for that (the price couldn't be an argument).
The 100MB+ formats were never really ubiquitous enough to fit into the same class as floppies. You couldn't, for instance, take a zip disk to a stranger and be confident that he will have a drive to read it in.
This is one of the reasons floppy disks were so ubiquitous for so long; even though they only held 1.4MB, everyone had one. If flash media weren't so varied, maybe it would be ubiquitous now too.
- Battery Life
- Stability
- Connectivity
As long as these are dealt with, I'll agree with you. But if battery life is 2 hours, like my Toshiba, forget it. I want at least 1 week battery life.This is my digital signature. 10011011001
you forgot the new one: xD. Less than half the size of CF cards, but hold up to 512 mb as of now. Cheap, fast, and stable. A new player? Time will decide...
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
What they aren't saying is that most of that extra price comes from the expensive LCD touchscreen, which is necessary for pointing with a stylus and handwriting recognition. -- correction from my damned keyboard pasting the wrong contents... sorry about the repost
,connectors and hardware to retro an Iopener to touchscreen for $100.00 which is 10 times the price a manufacturer will pay.
that's a bold amount of mis-information....
The LCD is nothing different than any other LCD.. the piece of glass that has the capacitive film sandwitched with a piece of mylar that has the same (some are resistive) is the "touchscreen" and contrary to what they want you to believe is relatively cheap as well as the hardware to turn that into a standard mouseing input for a trackpoint pad kind of driver.
every time I hear that argument I shoot them down... It's pure bullcrap, they know it. the touchscreen add's $25.00 to the cost of building the unit.. Hell I can get single quantity the glass plate
so you are flat out wrong... it does NOT add to the price to warrant a doubling of the selling price... add $100 to the price yes... double it? not in any way possible.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Sony - 3"
Phillips - 3", but different
I can't remember the size or inventor of the 4th standard, and I don't remember who actaully championed the current accepted 3.5" standard.
I question your use of "mainstream computing world". At that time, I don't remember that there was such a thing! The closest may have been S-100 hardware and CP/M OS; but they were by no means "mainstream". At that time I was running an ancient and venerable PDP-8/E with OS-8 as my home computer. I lusted after a PDP-11 family mini with RT11 or RSX11; that was mainstream!
Oops! the attendants are here - got to go to the shuffleboard tourney now!
Wow, that's actually before my time. My heyday was late 80's, early 90's. I don't remember these formats; maybe I'm just forgetful.
And the 3.5" standard was championed by Apple; it was the disk format used by the Macintosh and the later Apple II systems.
I agree with you as long as the mobile phone carriers are being d*ckheads.
Why the hell would I want to pay $500 for a 'convergence device' that does everything if I'm going to have to RE-BUY it in three years when I want to switch carriers? This whole business of buying the phone with the service sucks, and it's the major reason I *won't* be getting anything more complicated than a standalone telephone anytime soon.
Check me if I'm wrong on this, but don't they have a different system in Japan where you buy any old phone you want, then your carrier gives you a smartcard or something that slips into the phone and holds everything that makes your phone yours - billing info, address book, ring tones, etc.? I think you can even test drive phones at the store by inserting your own card to make calls on your own account.
When the US mobile carriers can do that, I'll start paying attention.
P.S. (Worthless rant #2) While I'm on the subject (and getting fired up about it) -- Are you trying to tell me you have this enormous international telecommunications and computer billing network that can deny me access to service if my bill hasn't been paid, but you can't tell me how many minutes I have left this billing cycle? Right...
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Personally, I *love* tablets, I just wish I could afford one. (And I'm sure that's what's killing sales--they cost ~2x a comparable conventional notebook.) As for gaming, I'd love to see a tablet with a built-in gyro-based thingie to tell how much it was tilted and in what direction. I think it'd be awesome for racing games--hold it out like a steering wheel and turn it left and right to steer, tilt forward and backwards to accelerate and brake.
Need for Speed III runs on a P200 w/ 4 MB VRAM and runs fine on a PII/450 w/ an 8 MB card, I'm sure a PIII/850-1 GHz tablet with 16-32 MB VRAM would run it just fine. No, you won't get 295 fps out of Quake 7: The Universe Implodes but c'mon, there is such thing as "enough".
I saw a gyro unit like that at Siggraph in 1998 used in conjunction with monitor glasses and running Quake or some other FPS and it was the best thing since sliced raw toast. Why aren't they everywhere yet?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
'non-early adopters don't adopt tablets PC early'
first sales spike because you have early adopter,
then sales drop as all the Early adopters got theirs, and marketing and word of mouth is still ramping up.
Then if the market wants it, sales begin to rise.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
vendors like Acer and Hewlett-Packard (HP) have even experienced declining sales of the products
Therein lies the key. Notice that Toshiba isn't mentioned. This is because Toshiba is cleaning their clock! The 3500/3505 has the right mix of features -- mainly processor speed -- and consumers/businesses have figured this out.
Someone above said a Tablet PC is like a big PDA. Exactly. It replaces your PDA which makes a whole lot more sense than trying to replace your cell phone. I pity anyone who carries all three...
Someone seems to forget 8" floppies, and tape.
Anybody who needs to walk around and take some sort of notes loves these.
Unfortunatly the support technology is not ready.
You need a wireless connection for real time data. Unfortunatly, wireless devices under heavy load in busy areas are not reliable. There are a lot of reason for this, application software wasn't written with this in mind so disconnect fubar. IT admins disagree over which standard b? g? a?
interference with other machines, etc..
I see it very often. SOmebody takes an application, then ports it. sure it runs fie in development, but the have all sorts of issues in the real world that are a night mare to support.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We've purchased over 100 tablet PC's from a major manufacturer, and have had over 25% failure rate. The Windows2000 embedded OS just bluescreens with no warning whatsoever, or fails to boot at all. The docking bays die, or refuse to release the unit, or the CD-ROMS don't work.
It has been a serious cluster-frag.
This was tried like 5 years ago with the WinCE Tablet PCs. Exactly the same idea. No one wanted them then and no one want them now.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
you forgot the newest one - xD. I think its main feature is that its first memory card small enough to fit up your kid's nose.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Which means it will get lost that much more easily.
No thanks. Outside special applications where the device has to be *extremely* small, this is pretty useless. SD is already small enough. The big problem with SD is its proprietary-ness. Is xD any more open?
I would love to have a device similar to those used on StarTrek Enterpeise. They look like under sized Tablet PCs and oversized Pocket PCs, the perfect mix.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
When Tablets are as smooth and, dare I say even "fun", to handle as the new small Apple Powerbooks, then I'd buy one ASAP. Ever hold a new Powerbook? Everything is smooth and clean and simple, with all the ports on the same side, in a nice simple row, and nothing sticking out at you. You can run your fingers all along the sides and feel nothing but smoothness. Come to think of it, it's very much like an ex-girlfriend of mine :) Anyway, great design that really adds to functionality.
Apple! Make a tablet Powerbook (iTab?) and there is a cool $1500 in my checking account waiting for you!
Eight-inch Drives
Density - single or double
Sides - single or double
Sectors - hard or soft encoded (one hole or many holes)
Five-inch Drives
Density - single or double or quad
Sides - single or double
Sectors - hard or soft encoded
Three-inch
Don't know - someone else mentioned these
Three-point-five
Density - single or double
When I got my first PC in 1989, I bought a Compaticard multi-diskette controller ISA card with it. The software had over 200 menu choices for formats.You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
Yeah, that's their individual battery times...and what do you think will happen when they're all drawing from the *same* battery?
Easy solution is lower the cost! Most people can't afford the rediculous price of these small kiddy toys.
I have no trouble whatsoever running Gentoo on my Fujitsu Stylistic 600 or my Fujitsu Stylistic 3400, compete with functioning touch screen, audio, etc.
I just starting making a similiar installation on a Fujitsu Stylistic 4110 active pen system. The OS is installing just fine, after which I will have to experiment with the touch screen device and see if I can get it working.
So, in short, running GNU/Linux on a tablet doesn't appear to be at all difficult, and in at least several cases touch screen support under xfree is working as well. YMMV of course, and you'd be well advised to research the particular hardware you are interested in before shelling out any cash, but as one MS free person to another I can tell you the option does exist, if you have applications that would benefit from a touch-screen tablet (as my employer does).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Every 5-6 years these things come out. Every 5-6 years they flop. These are almost as dumb as the speech processing fad.
People are always suckered in by two fantasies:
1) Writing is more efficient (or easier to perform) than typing. What everyone (re)learns is that keyboards are _incredibly_ efficient input devices. I don't think that writing will ever surpass them for anything but drawing and bitmap graphic capture.
2) Speech processing will be easier to use and more efficient than keyboards. This is only the case when the interface is incredibly simple. . . (single-app) based, or the user has special physical impediments. Until computers become intuitive and understand cultural inflection and nuance, speech processing will have limited usage.
GSM service around here is still pretty poor. Unfortunately I have yet to find a TDMA phone with Bluetooth.
LordBodak's journal.
That's exactly what they did in the early 80's. I had a utility disk which would allow my PC-XT to read more than fourty soft-sectored 5 1/4 inch formats, almost all CPM.
Sounds pretty idiotic in retrospect, right?
Yes, it was idiotic in retrospect, after IBM had come along and left all their little monopolies in shambles. But in prospect, the many little companies[1] saw lock-in, and monopoly profits. It was obvious that the incompatible formats were worst for the purchasers, and eventually worst for the industry, but any one manufacturer who didn't make a uniquely incompatible format was leaving money on the table.
Once IBM had established a standard, no matter how bad, every manufacturer could, in fact had to, use it. Then the industry expanded, and instead of getting large profits on every one of their hundreds of sales, the computer (now clone) manufacturers get small profits on each of their millions of sales.
[1] ``Many little companies'' included Vector Graphics, Northstar, Kaypro, Otrona (a really NEAT little portable), Altos, and dozens of others which have slipped my mind.
See what I've been reading.
I had a second thought on this (in response really to the reply below) - What about a little slimmer Clie NZ90 with all it's current functions (Megapixel camera, WiFi/Bluetooth, Mp3) but a PC card slot to add any of the capabilities mentioned?
I painlessly got Knoppix netbooting with the default bios configuration. The only catch was that the inbuilt mouse + keyboard didn't work and I had to use USB. At least the touchscreen should be able to be coaxed into working with other models as they have the standard brand.
Everyone knows that consumer electronics sales are cyclic. The 4th quarter is usually the hottest (Christmas, etc.), while the 1st quarter is usually the slowest (pay off the credit cards). Even global cell phone sales fell in the first quarter (link)! Granted, they didn't go down as much, but nobody's talking about the demise of the cell phone. (Also, the number cited on the link is for the entire industry. Individual companies may be significantly higher or lower.) Will the tablet PC die? It depends on what the critical mass point is. PDAs aren't for everybody, but they aren't dead, either. The more reasonably priced tablet PCs may end up with sales figures that are 0.5% of PC sales, but that would probably be enough to keep them going. I mean, look at this company.
Dear Michael Sims,
I'm going to be back. With a vengeance.
Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
I'm not trolling. I'm old enough that I had to use a sliderule in school and log tables from a book. I learned how to calculate in my head and on paper and that's still how I work today: I have an A4 block and a pen with me whereever I go at work and it's still the most effective way of working for me.
Steve Jobs explained why Tablet PCs aren't necessarily in Apple's future
"Because we here at Apple have no future..."
I've had the Motion Computing M1200 for almost 6 months. I love it. I hate going to meetings and taking notes on a regular notepad. What do I do with those notes? Nothing. The notepads sit around my desk until I get sick of them and throw them away. I suppose if I had the time or desire to type them into another app they might be useful.
I take the tablet to all meetings. If someone sends me a meeting agenda in Word, I print it from Word to the Journal application. Now I have an electronic version that I can take notes on during the meeting. I can later do a search on both my handwriting *and* the text of the original document.
The handwriting recognition is very impressive. I only use it to search my notes though. There's really no reason to convert your notes to text. But if you do a search the word will be found if it can convert (in the background) what you wrote to text. In other words, it uses the handwriting recognition engine to search your ink.
Meeting notes go into a folder called 'meetings'. Projects have their own folders. One search will find key words across multiple documents, within multiple folders. I'm now more organized and can easily find documents and notes with a quick search.
Microsoft's new One Note is currently in beta testing and while it's a little rough around the edges, it has a lot of potential. With One Note I can click on the record icon at the beginning of a meeting. I take notes as the meeting progresses. Later you can play back the audio of the meeting and the notes you took at that particular time will be highlighted.
Pecking on a keyboard in a meeting is a bit rude (here at least). This gives me a great way to take better notes that I'll actually use.
What if the Hokey-Pokey really is what it's all about?
Actually, plain FAT doesn't support long filenames. You're thinking of VFAT.
I agree, FAT/VFAT MSDOS filesystem is a very conveinent format. I also agree with your comment on it not getting corrupted as easily. I've seen EXT3 and Reiser systems go to shit when you accidentally pull a drive. You wouldn't think that would happen, what with all the journalling and stuff, but IMO it doesn't help that much.
I know you're talking small file systems, but I still wish it would support more than 30GB drives because I use it for larger portable space (firewire & USB hard-drives).
From a hobbyist perspective -- I want something that has a keyboard, smaller than a laptop, bigger than a PDA (screenwise at least), WLAN, Bluetooth, Harddrive, and battery life that supports the ability to listen to mp3's while surfing the internet over the WLAN -- for more than about 3 hours a pop. I have tried a variety of laptops AND PDA's -- and have yet to find one that does not drain in less than 3 hours of actual use. If I am straddled to a power outlet I may as well use my desktop. I don't have to give up screensize or performance.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
My handwriting sucks anyway....why would i pay a thousand bucks to see my handwriting?
Good luck doing a full-text search on your Minidisc.
What you wind up with is the equivalent of unsearchable transcripts of the lectures, organized chronologically--except even worse because you can't skim a disc as easily as your eyes can skim over a transcript. Maybe that's better than ten legal pads filled with your scrawled notes, but not by much if you need to find information quickly.
People are working to put Debian on the ProGear. ($500 on eBay) When the usual issues with the power management and touchscreen are resolved it should be a snap.
is one that caters to the digital artist/graphic designer. Some custom software, a hefty chunk of RAM, and a good screen, and I'm sold.
Are you listening, Apple?
------ What's sadder than realizing you've filtered out your own comments?
I think a lot of folks are missing the point in the value proposition of tablet PC's. Handwriting recognition is nice but as many have noted, keyboards are faster and more practical outside of specialty needs. Handwriting isn't a good reason to buy a tablet PC for most folks. But anyone who has to do sketching or write mathematical formulas with any regularity (students anyone?) should find tablet PCs to be much more valuable.
I would have loved to have one of these as an engineering undergrad. I hated taking notes on paper. But being able to sketch and write equations in addition to typing would have been a real value. Who cares if it can read handwriting or not? Drawing and math is where these are valuable.
A microphone and tape recorder can't copy down diagrams, equations, proofs, figures, references, etc, etc, etc... It can't include your own comments, corrections, additions or notes, either. Basically, a light tablet computer that can function like the pad of paper normally used for notes would be a breakthrough. Especially if you can read your e-mail to boot. However, screen resolution could still use some improvement - writing on my tablet is still a bit grainy and skittery.
I'll respond to both your posts:
Imagine if all the major computer makers had come up with different kinds of floppy disk in the early 90's, all incompatible with each other? Sounds pretty idiotic in retrospect, right?
As an owner of a EZ-Drive 135, a SyJet, and a 2.5" floppy drive, I can tell you that the early 90's did have lots of different incompatible floppies. Bernolulis, 2.8MB floppies, SuperDrives, Jaz, Zip, and PocketZip drives have all pretty much dried up. We just have to wait for the next shakeout in solid state media.
I can't agree on your points for FAT; it's terrible for small removable media!
* It's simple, so there is no easy way to tell if the media has been corrupted when rudely removed. It has no journaling capability & little redundancy. It'll be unreliable until chkdsk'ed & I doubt any portable devices are going to implement chkdsk.
* It's not appropriate for FLASH-based systems because it doesn't use a wear-evening algorithm. If you save lots of tiny files on it, you'll wear out the part of memory that holds the FAT and/or main directory, rendering the device useless.
* Long file name support is a kludge. It works ok, but it's tricky to get right. Insert it in a non-long-filename aware OS and the long names can get zapped. (I helped a friend implement a FAT filesystem, so I've seen a bit of this)
I agree with two assertions - it's universal (partly because MS refused to support other file systems), and it's reasonably efficient... but there are better alternatives like JFFS... I just wish they were more widely adopted.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Good grief, why do you slashbots always get into this mentality of one size fits all. Tablet PC's are failing because not everybody wants one?
Good grief. The computing market is huge, there is room for a variety of ideas because there are a large variety of problems to solve. Tablet PC makes sense for certain problems, just like a laptop does.
I just don't get this mentality.
All that's missing is a killer app.
In this case, it`s not so much a killer app - more of a killer infrastructure.
Metered WiFi access, provided by distribution companies who allow customers of any ISP to connect through them - much like the electricity industry in the UK.
Companies are split by area, but can compete for customers in any of them, passing costs of distribution (re: bandwidth) wholesale.
IPv6 and higher bandwidth, higher power wireless networks will really release the potential of these machines.
Mobile phone networks could have provided much of this tech, but the prohibitive cost of licensing has fucked up and entire tech-generation.
/rant
\\ Mitch
This is a direct result of intellecual property and patents (oh yes, please mod me flamebait and troll!) - smart media was a reasonable attempt, as was compact flash. However, neither was a really good thing for small devices, and so SD/MMC was born. However, this format was (naturally) patented by a consortium - so along came xD in short order by the flash memory makers left out of the SD/MMC crowd. (Sony of course went off and did their own thing before SD/MMC was born, like normal - see 'minidisc' for an example.)
And with the exception of MMC, neither of these new consortiums (SD or xD) have produced free Linux drivers or opened the API, making life hard for Open Source developers. Ho hum, life as normal then.
Beep beep.
a) Imagine a beowulf cluster of these
b)
- Bring out tablet PC
- wait for the problem a tablet PC solves
?????
- profit....
i use the happy hacker with my fujitsu tablet. very nice. i hope they make a bluetooth version someday. all the wires hanging around the tablet are annoying as hell. the fujitsu tablet is certainly pricey, but a 60gig hard disk and 768 of ram make it very useful. who uses pda's?
i get about 2-2.5 hours with a cdma card modem and no adjustments. not too bad, but mo is always better.
1. Profit!
2. ??
3. Invest billions
4. Come up with dumb idea
IBM perfected this technique in the 80's - PCjr, anyone?
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
The touch screen jacks the price. Ever look into buying one of those things? Nasty.
A man who can't pronouce "nuclear arsenal" shouldn't have one -sig ends here.
Who's the brain dead moderator that modded the WRONG one redundant???
MOD THIS UP MOD THE WRONG ONE DOWN.
fricking retards....
The Newton was the first of it's kind and apparently did things rather well.
... Apple!!!
Palm and PocketPC have taken over and spawned a variety of different form factors based on newer technologies. The handheld computer is the first true PERSONAL COMPUTER. If you cant take it with, if it's bound to a desk, it's still not personal, it's just can fit on a desk.
Apple could swing into the market with a SlateBook style device about the style of their iBooks. Hell, knowing Apple, they could just replace the entire iBook series with this type of device.
The whole point is that it's personal and you can use it for a LOT of different tasks. Jobs was VERY right to significantly pair down Apple's offerings to 4 distinct lines. I think his reluctance to break new ground in other markets is really AGAINST the spirit of Apple altogether. That's what made Apple
His reluctance to enter the Palm market may be justified from the standpoint that it's already VERY WELL populated. They have a sucessfull iPod handheld device and they are systematically adding PDA and other functionality for it. This is a reasonable form of evolution for a handheld device that keeps Apple from burning scarce cash on something that MAY flop.
However, creating a new breed of iBook that is more verstatile and will fill more roles in a persons life adds value to a portable and ultimately perhaps market share. If it's in the sub-notebook (mini-me) size, it can also be seen as a large sized PDA and effectively double for those functions for folks who would carry this around in a briefcase ANYWAY!!!!.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Bah! I hate that soapy taste!
I suspect that most of the people who might use tablets are already happy with their laptops. If my own laptop hadn't been stolen, I'd be looking at the tablets and shrugging. And I won't get one until I have a job again.
The big hope for tablets is vertical applications, like doctors carrying them instead of paper charts. Except people aren't investing a lot in new technology right now.
It's a shame that LS-120 didn't carry the day. The floppy still has a FEW uses. If had caught on seriously, we would all have relatively inexpensive LS-120 disks at our disposal (plus double capacity standard floppies).
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
I think you have hit on one of my big complaints.
Absolutely true. On the Toshiba, the power button is under one's wrist. I inadvertantly turned mine off a few times, before realizing that Toshiba had provided a tiny mechanical lock switch - just to cope with the misplacement of the power button. (Similar goofy solution to the poor placement of the battery latch.)
The Toshiba also had flimsy doors covering ports, jacks and lights and slots scattered all around the edges in no discernable order, and a matte finish black plastic that showed every speck of dust. And, it felt weird, too -- odd hollow spaces alternating with heavy areas.
Why no LEDs on the batteries?
Not just the Toshiba but all tablets are difficult to take notes on. You cannot read the screen unless you are directly over it - unlike a real pad of paper. The thickness of the Toshiba also made my wrist sore after about 5 minutes.
Fortunately, the tablet to PC screen switch broke after 10 days, and I sent mine back.
I beg to differ.
Compact Flash IS really good for compact devices. It is still the #1 format for flash storage and the undisputed king for mini-IO devices.
The reason, Compact Flash is basically a smaller PC-Card (which is a removeable ISA slot). A manufacturer need only miniatuize their PC-card devices and re-write drivers (for WinCE) to put out an equivalent I/O device in CompactFlash.
In fact, since TabletPC is the original topic, it's relevant to not that MOST TabletPCs have CF slots for I/O expansion. A popular format seems to be a single CardBus slot and a single CF slot.
Finally, CompactFlash is the ONLY memory format based on patents from industry standards groups. Everybody else (including SmartMedia) is proprietary IP.
My guess is that the standards group responsible for PCI will ultimately release the winners in mini/removeable PCIExpress bus devices. This provides the serial/low pin count that the other devices are touting. It also provides a compatibility at the bus level with notebooks which will create an instant market for such cards.
The PCI group will NEVER accept ANY of these other standards as an I/O format for future notebooks and tablets. With the exception of memory stick (which can unilaterally push it's format across ALL levels computing and Consumer electronics) all these formats will eventually fall by the wayside.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
There was an important point in the original article that was missed, "The sales recovered recently after Acer launched its first Centrino-based Tablet PC, the TravelMate C110, in April". The decline in sales is likely due to delayed purchases as customers wait for the next generation with better battery life and higher speed (Centrino or Transmeta TM8000). Since the drop, sales have been increasing, likely a result of having released the first Centrino-based Tablet PC.
- while the idea of playing games like Everquest and Diablo is interesting they don't work well 'cause using the pen for movement and pointing results in a disconnect between pen location and cursor location (hence, when I play Diablo on my Fujitsu pen slate I have to use a mouse)
Ummm...
Well, those things DO have USB ports. You could always just plug a mouse in. There are some very nice mini-targus mice that even "suck-up" their tails (cords) when you don't need them. You could also get one of those wireless models with the mini-trancievers.
Eventually, all wireless mice will be Bluetooth enabled and you'll just be able to bind your mouse to your device. No hookups required.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
shitty resolution shitty software, thats the main reason for it failing. but the concept is good.
$49.00 usb attached drawing pad and save a ton of bucks. I've got one that doubles as a mouse pad when not in use and it works great for network diagrams and such. I think someone was counting on the ' coolness ' factor of this, and like the segway, cool just ain't enough...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Compaq's TC-1000 uses a Crusoe TM-5800 1 GHz, and is actually more energy efficient(at least, longer battery life) than the Centrino Acer, iirc.
Right, as I noted, I do use a mouse when playing Diablo on my pen slate.
My point was that game UI would need to be adapted somewhat for a lot of games, esp. those which involve scrolling.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
These things only come with an OS I have learned to hate.
Now if they ran any flavour of any Free OS...
I reviewed the Compaq T1000 TabletPC for doing building inspections. The device would have been perfect since the users are basically going to be checking off items on a large simulated form.
The major issues I ran into...
1. Cost 1 TabletPC = about 4 Regular PDA's - lots more if you go with the super cheap Dell Axim.
2. Screen - Building inspectors have to go outside and the screen is invisible in full sun. With a PDA you can shade it with your hand at least, but the TabletPC was too big to cover the whole thing.
3. Battery Life - the real killer. The T-1000 averaged only *2* Hours of battery life when the real inspections were done on it.
Good things? Existing apps works and the convertable keyboard made sucky handwriting recognition not so bad. Still need a laptop size base to set it on while typing.
While it really is a cool device until those things are fixed we wont be using it. A custom modified app designed for TabletPC will be great I'm sure, but not at this price/performance point.
PS. I hate Dell, Gateway and the like having different prices and plans for home, business, schools etc. Tell me the prices and let me decide what I'm doing to do with it. If there are volume discounts then state that. GRRR
I'm interested in tablet PCs, mainly because I'm a Mac zealot and it's interesting to see Microsoft moving into an area way ahead of Apple. Also, I saw Bill Gates demo one at a conference.
I was in O'Hare airport last week and they had a kiosk set up with several models. I went up to play with one, but they gave me a canned demo instead. From this I conclude that they do not hold up well upon first use. Is that accurate? If so, how long does it take before using one feels natural?
Free, legal music for iTunes users.
USEABILITY, you choose which sacrifices you are willing to make...I carry a usb drawing tablet (8 oz.) and a usb micro mouse( maybe 4oz) along with me becuse the track point thing is awful and I like being able to sketch quick diagrams. :)
You are certainly carting along some extra attitude so why not drop it and then you might have room for some equipment
Hope the rest of your day turns out better...Arch
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Funny you should mention this, but the xD card that came with my new digital camera had a warning about keeping away from children because of its size.
The other advantage of xD (I hear) is that it has a higher theoretical limit on size. I believe they will be able to grow to 8 gig.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
I've seen the iPad idea floating around a number of times, and I would love to see such a device. Think of a 12" screen with an iPod bolted to the bottom, with a little form factor to make it easy to hold, then use OSX and have a USB and Firewire port with Bluetooth and 802.11g. If I want a tablet I don't want it to convert into a laptop, I want it to be a tablet and that's it, but I want it to connect to my Powerbook and use iSync, etc. I want to be able to check mail, write, take notes and draw and then drop it all to another machine where I can really bang on the keys. Or let me plug a keyboard into it. I think a 900mhz G3 w/ DDR would do this excellently. I can hook it to my camera, etc. This should be the future of the iBook, the true light, versatile computer for students, etc. IMHO only Apple will be able to do this correctly.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
The only thing I can think of that a tablet PC is good for is browsing the web while in the bathroom -- but that in and of itself should make it popular with the /. crowd! However, at $2000 it seems these things are priced much higher than their functionality would justify. Bring the price down to $500 and you might actually sell some of them!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
English speaking persons may have trouble to understand this, but to people with any mother tongue other than English, dual languages capability is a must. We need to interact with friends in our mother tongue and we need to interact with the Internet in English. Bilinguism is not an option. It is not an "entreprise feature" as Microsoft seems to think. It is a basic capability and an absolute requirement to make the product usable.
The Tablet provide the ultimate in mobility because it can be used in situations where a keyboard is inacceptable. The argument that the flip tablet is an oxymoron doesn't work with me. The keyboard does not add much weight and shields the hand from the uncomfortable heat that comes from the CPU. And if you need a keyboard for laptop-like input, there you have it.
However no matter how I loved the concept of a Tablet, I can't use one as it stands now.
I bet several entreprises in non English speaking countries got the same conclusion. They need their mother tongue to conduct business in their own country and English to interact with the world. An unilingual device is useless. They must have purchased one or two for evaluation and then stalled all other purchases.
you have no problem running Gentoo, well good for you, fuckhead. Who fucking asked you?
Yes it's nice to directly interact with a screen. Back then it seemed like a no-brainer too, so why did the Concerto die a death along with most of the other pen computing platforms? I'm not sure, maybe it just doesn't get integrated into the mainstream so it doesn't ride the price-performance curves as well as a standard laptop. If Wacom Cintiq technology were a cheap $200 upgrade on every monitor I'd spring for it on laptops and even desktops, but clearly most customers don't perceive $200 of value in being able to interact and scribble on a screen. Meanwhile for nearly everything you do on a computer a pointing device and keyboard work just fine.
I worked at GO (later EO) on PenPoint (Byte's Magazine's operating system of the year! :o), and the MS pre-emptive announcement of Windows for Pen Computing was one of several nails in that coffin. (At least PenPoint really went for it with a gestural direct interaction UI, the original and still best implementation of gestures.) It's touching to see several die-hards from those efforts banging their heads against the same wall 10 years later, at least it's at Microsoft's expense.
=S
The Amstrad PCW range (all of two computers) used 3" floppy disks. There's still a market in the UK for these disks as although the manufacture of PCW machines stopped years ago there's still quite a few chugging around, mainly used by authors (a niche which seems to be filled mainly by the G3 iMac now.)
I believe some of the popular Atari computers used the same format disk.
"What if they're using IE?" "I've dumbed Mozilla down to cope with it." - BOFH
I think you mean a 'SIM card' which you can swap between phones and the new phone automatically becomes 'yours' - i.e. you get billed for your calls in the normal way, you still have your address book intact, same number etc. We have this in Europe as well as the Japanese having it, given what you said, I think the States / Canada are one of the few places that don't have it (in fact, I thought you did have!)
Personally, I'm very pro-Bluetooth (though I don't have it on my phone yet, it's a couple of years old.) That way I can just use my laptop or PDA to access the net with my phone in my pocket, and if I want to go to the beach / pub / club I can take a tiny phone rather than big integrated device. I was at a BBQ the other night with someone who was using this system and it's great - allows you to use niche products which are good at what they do, and can communicate with each other really easily. Neat.
"What if they're using IE?" "I've dumbed Mozilla down to cope with it." - BOFH
The smallest memory media now a days is 64MB. In a couple of years time it will be 512MB or 1GB,
FAT fragments badly and wastes too much space.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
1000 as an student?
Either your dady is mighty generous or you live in a parallel universe were students can spend 1000 like nothing.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... don't need to cuddle in the coach to write. They sit on their desks, normally at predetermined hours of the day, and write. That is they work and most people don't do their work on their pajamas in the couch.
If you are a programmer, then maybe you have got a point. More lazy code (literelly) could then be coming our way.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Thanks but no thanks.
Not joking, non techies I know did not buy it for that only reason. They are tired of fighting agains MS software and the prospect of yet more nightmares put them off even trying these things.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The LCD is nothing different than any other LCD.. the piece of glass that has the capacitive film sandwitched with a piece of mylar that has the same (some are resistive) is the "touchscreen" and contrary to what they want you to believe is relatively cheap as well as the hardware to turn that into a standard mouseing input for a trackpoint pad kind of driver.
You may be right in terms of production costs. I don't know.
What I do know is that for most hardware manufacturers there is a MAJOR price premium attached to touchscreens of any sort. For example, in a POS project I was involved in 3 years ago, our POS units were originally spec'ed with 15" LCD touchscreens, which at the time cost a little less than $2000 a pop. This was nasty enough to force a redesign to a CRT touchscreen (which coust about half as much). According to colleagues at Palm, their color touchscreens weren't exactly cheap either (cut un here any time Bob). Maybe things have changed drastically in the last few years.
Assuming you're right, how then do you explain the price premium attached to Tablet PCs? AFAIK, Microsoft doesn't charge a premium on the tablet version of WinXP, and the "compact" (no keyboard, fewer ports and slots, relatively small screens) nature of the TabletPCs should make them CHEAPER than laptops. The ONLY unusual piece of hardware I can think of on these TabletPCs is the screen.