Hardware Makers Unhappy With Tablet Sales

rocketjam writes "According to The Register, hardware manufacturers, tired of continued low sales of the much-hyped tablet PC, are beginning to speak out, complaining that Microsoft has not marketed the platform enough and has over-priced licenses for its Windows XP Tablet Edition. The predicted demand for the devices has not materialized; faced with the tablet's premium pricing, consumers have continued to opt for lower-priced notebooks."

Comments

Re:This isn't the first time

[jeffphil]

The healthcare company I worked for at the time had a bunch of the original tablet computers from Fujitsu. Microsoft never updated the Pen Windows after Win95, so we were left with a ton of $4500 bricks only months after.

I posted exactly the same message as yours above, a couple of years ago when this marketing hype coming out of Redmond was starting up again for the Tablet PC. I got a ton of replies from the trolls when I posted that the minute the market started going south, you would be stuck with an expensive pen computer w/o drivers. The trolls replies were that "the technology wasn't there in '95" and "now Microsoft was committed to the Tablet PC because the technology is there" and "this was going to be the hottest thing since electronic sliced bread."

Since there are not enough of these devices sold, nobody is going to waste time writing Linux drivers for these M$ abandoned tablets, when there's lots of other things to be done. You will be left with an obsolete brick in just a few years.

Re:1024x768 is a replacement for paper?

[b1t r0t]

Or maybe keep the 1024x768 and make them smaller. I can't help but wonder what would be the response to something between the size of a PDA and a laptop/tablet unit. A sort of "super PDA". The Newton's size may have been a problem for some, but you could still hold it in one hand and write with the other.

Just try writing on a tablet PC with one hand while holding the damn thing in the other. You can't do it. You'll be searching for a table in no time, and probably have to sit down too, because there's no table high enough to use while standing. And if you try holding it with your elbow, it's at the wrong angle for writing. Clipboards work because they're light enough that they don't require much leverage to hold with a grip.

You need something that fits in the palm of your hand, and that means six inches wide at the most.