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.

Comments

Gaming?

[TheRaven64]

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.

bang for the buck

[cheese_wallet]

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.

Re:bang for the buck

[angle_slam]

$2600 Could by a pretty slick laptop that cleans the floor with a typical tablet pc.

$2600 buys a decent $1000-1500 laptop with enough left over to buy a 3GHz desktop gaming machine.

Re:bang for the buck

[Lumpy]

No, the point is that Tablet pc' have been and always be a Vertical market item.

When tablet Pc's came out in 1988 and when they were re-introduced as the "new thing" the last time in 1995 by microsoft at Comdex with Windows 95 for pen computing... thay also failed miserably in the broad market.

They are not for the general user. the general user hates them after the initial "geee.... ohhhh" period wears off. they are perfect for Insurance adjusters, doctors, supplier's and inventory management. for anything else they are 100% worthless except for the part that they are still a computer.

Microsoft was completely idiotic for trying to push them, HP was blindly stupid for even trying to get into Fujitsu's and Panasonic's world by selling a crap version of a real Tablet PC. (A real Tablet pc can take lots of abuse as they are know to be put in the abuse realm because of their job.)

Tablet Pc's have their use, I use one with my SL-5500 to manage my IT sphere of 3 offices and it's WAN better than anyone else in the huge company I am a part of...(can you say 10,000+ offices) because I can adapt this vertical technology to my uses and adjust my work patters to fit with the tablet PC. asking a home user, or sales person to alter how they work is asking a orange to be an apple.... it ain't gonna happen.

so this news of it's dismal failure is no suprise. Everything that Microsoft has tried to push that is radically different is a massive failure... The auto-pc being one of their largest failures next to BOB...

I am just more suprised that we keep seeing them trot out last decades failures over and over and over again.....

It's the price

[Jack William Bell]

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...

Re:It's the price

[tmark]

And there are some of us who think laptops are cool but when we look at the price we go and buy desktops with more memory and a faster processor for less.

If you can't afford to pay the premium for the very features that make tablets(laptops) cool, then you probably don't need a tablet(laptop) in the first place.

Not surprising

[cperciva]

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.

The Problem is the price

[Deathlizard]

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.

Try working in the BioMed industry...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Unattractive to early adopters

[rtechie]

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.

Let's see, two grand toy you hold in crook of arm.

[ahfoo]

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.

Just scrapped my TabletPC

[iceblade]

I bought a Compaq TabletPC last year. I wasn't in search of a problem, I wanted this technology to solve my problems: Non intrusive note-taking with text an graphics mixed during meetings and workshops, store all information in one place where could search for it. Because of the high-end price it should replace my old laptop for business modeling, project planning and presentations.

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).