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.
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
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.