Slashdot Mirror
Tablet PCs Enter Reality
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like Tablet PCs are finally hitting real-world budgets. Averatec released a Tablet PC with an AMD Athlon XP-M 2200+ processor and will be at Costco and Staples for $1349. Here is a link to a photo overview where you can see how the pen snaps into the LCD area when not in use, what the touchpad looks like, and quite a few other pictures." Element Computer seems to have radically changed their business model -- I had hoped they'd succeed with their $999 VIA-based tablet.
http://www.averatec.com/notebooks/C3500.htm
The site is already slashdotted, but I assume it is this tablet that was announced a few months ago. It's nice to see that companies are already using AMD's 1.35v Mobile Athlons.
eclecti.cc
Everytime I hear about tablet pcs on /. people post about 'using it for linux' and 'can you run linux on it' and everything. Now, I understand this is slashdot, but is it not missing the point of a tablet pc? The only reason that I see to spend more money on a tablet pc is to get the advantages of the handwriting recognition and to do interactive presentations. As far as I know, Linux either does not have the tools necessary to take advantage of this, or what is out there isn't as good as the windows counterpart. I have teachers at school that are absolutely amazing with the tablet pc and lecturing, but everything they use is ms-centric.
Is there anything out there for Linux that makes a tablet PC worthwhile? I would love to look at someone's post about Linux on tablet pc and say "yes, that would be worth it" but right now all I have to say is you're wasting your money.
I think my principles are reachin' an all time low
Now I can stop sketching on scrap paper at work.
I believe this is exactly what you're looking for. The price is right too.
Actually, my company is deploying these en-masse now. We use them on customer visits for lots of things, like block diagram sketches. You can also write directly on a PDF or other doc, then send that to a co-worker with all your notes intact. It's very cool. A PDA just doesn't have the screen size to enable this stuff, and the cost is marginally higher than for a laptop. Only field guys get them, because a regular suit just doesn't need the functionality.
Sometimes, when a good, hard slashdotting like this takes place, people suggest that Slashdot be nice and create an internal mirror of the site before posting. Then it is inevitably pointed out that this would be copyright infringement and take hard-earned food from the mouths of the developers, ad-clickthrough-sellers, etc.
But no one seems to have a problem with caching proxies -- right?
Therefore, I suggest that instead Slashdot create its own caching proxy specifically for use with the sites it tries to melt. Maybe it would simply forward you directly to the site if the site was still responding, and respond with its internal cached copy if the site was struggling.
Taco? Anyone?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I've seen quite a lot of adversity directed at Tablet PCs which I really don't understand.
I've been using a TC1000 since November 2002 and it's an absolutely fabulous piece of hardware. It's the kind of stuff people on the cutting edge of technology should be embracing, and instead of asking what you'd want one for, finding out what you can use it for. Writing on the screen isn't as gimmicky as you'd think - taking notes, annotating diagrams, documents, roughing presentations is incredibly easy. The form factor means you can pull one out in a meeting without hiding behind a laptop screen, you can pass it around more easily to show people ideas and you can get information into it quicker.
To put it bluntly, since buying a new laptop - because I started to believe that it was a gimmicky toy - I am really missing the tablet functions and realise that I was wrong. Sure, my new laptop is faster, bigger, better, etc. etc. but the tablet functions just opened up a new way of using a PC that I really miss now. I can't comfortably lie in front of the TV and work, and note-taking isn't as easily transferred to emails, document etc. Before I could quite happily rough a document outline up in a meeting and have it mailed off by the end to all present. Can't do that with a laptop, or handwritten notes come to think of it. So, they aren't just giant PDAs, they're a new platform that needs to be exploited by apps like OneNote. I certainly hope the form-factor succeeds and heaven help us if we're tied to desktops and laptops for the foreseeable future, because that would severely cripple the importance of the computer in it.
OK I read people saying things about a tabletpc that just arent accurate. It is NOT a overgrown pda...its..well..its a really cool laptop with many of the pda benefits tossed in. So what can I do with it thats so cool you say:
1. I can read books on it comfortably
2. I can lay outside and surf the net easily and comfortably
3. I can use it as a nice picture fram system when im charging it
4. I can comfortably watch tv on planes during long trips
5. I can print to its journal our documentation, and then mark it up and highlight it before returning it to our tech department
6. I can take notes on it without offending people by using a laptop, or being as loud as many laptops
7. I can start our software, then hand it to a customer with a quick button click to rotate the screen to face them.
8. I can draw things on graph paper on it
9. Its easy to carry around and play with while waiting in long lines-you just can't juggle a laptop to do that very well
10. I can lay in bed and comfortably read.
11. If you have any graphical book, comic book, whatever-you can display it one page at a time in a nice near paper sized format
12. Its cool in a nerdy way-what more could any slashdot guy want?
I have a motion m1300. The one thing most important when choosing one of these is weight. mines around 3 lbs-don't get a larger one weighing more then 3.5 lbs or you won't find it comfortable and easy to use.