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Linux Based Tablets Are Coming
CrypticSpawn writes "Read some good news on Diracian; there will be a Linux tablet coming out running Lycoris's Linux distribution, Lycoris Desktop/LX Tablet Edition. What's great is the tablet is the Protege by Toshiba, so you get a laptop and a tablet wrapped up into one. I guess I am a gadget fanatic, I love my Zaurus, now I want this. They even have pictures of it here. Also found another reference of this tablet on PC World, without the pics."
I disagree. The laptop/tablet combination is really a neat idea. You have a keyboard with a touchpad or nipple for mouse movement, but also a touch screen and stylus. The LCD rotates 180 degrees so you can have it in a laptop form factor (LCD and keyboard at 90 degrees), or in a tablet form (like a closed laptop, but with the LCD screen facing outwards). That way, you can carry it around like a notepad and write on it in tablet form, but then sit down, swing it around into a laptop, and use it for typing in a meeting.
I've been thinking about selling my current laptop and buying a tablet to replace it, but prices need to come down a bit more before I do that.
Didn't notice if this has been mentioned yet but this tablet is an exact clone of a Toshiba model that has been available for quite some time now. The Protege 3500 runs on the PIII-M as well, only it comes with Windows XP. The price for the Toshiba version with Windows is around $300 cheaper in retail stores.
Speak for yourself -- don't be so quick to determine what "people" want. I have personally owned a Fujitsu Stylistic slate-style tablet PC, a Toshiba Portege 3500 Hybrid style tablet PC, and of course various standard laptop computers. The style I would choose? The hybrid. There is simply no loss of "convenience" as you put it. There is the obvious ADDED convenience of having ONE device instead of TWO.
Um, you do realize that Centrino is just the brand name for a particular bundle of hardware, right? Intel requires a low power proc, wireless ethernet and a couple of other things for a notebook to be certified Centrino. Most of the Centrino notebooks I've seen have had Pentium M processors, which is *gasp!* a PIII! Why? It's more efficient clock-for-clock than the P4 and draws less power. So why the rebranding? For people like yourself who think P4 > P3 without really understanding why they're using the "old" architechture.
Pentium M is not just a PIII, it's a mcuh improved PIII with many features borrowed from P4, like a faster front side bus and sse2. ...also, why a tablet would need a lot of cpu power, pentium m is comparable to p4m running at much higher clockspeeds, so i would not say it's underpowered. Oh, and almost forgot: 1 MB L2 cache.
Wacom's graphics tablets are fully supported by Linux using these drivers. If a tablet PC manufacturer isn't arrogant enough to adopt a Not Invented Here attitude and instead uses the Wacom protocol, their products can work with Linux, today.
All that's needed is some handwriting-input software.
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