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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.
Somebody get on the ball and mod this parent Funny +1000
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