Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Review of the 8 Hour Tablet: Electrovaya Scribbler

Posted by timothy on from the but-there's-an-all-weekend-tablet-already dept.

Lisa Gade, the chief geek over at MobileTechReview.com, reports that they've just published an in-depth review of the Electrovaya Scribbler SC2200. "It's a Windows XP Tablet Edition with lots of the features you'd expect on a high end slate machine like a 12.1" screen you can write on, a Dothan 1.4GHz processor and WiFi. But its real claim to fame is the huge capacity 10,200 mAh SuperPolymer battery which will get you through a work day without a charge."

20 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Keyboard by Stigmata669 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While this looks like a step in the right direction for tablet PCs, the docking style keyboard looks like a recipe for trouble, it looks like it's dangerously easy to break (snapping off because of the upright screen design) or at least damage the contacts from constant plugging and unplugging.

    The burden then relies on XP Tablet edition to get good enough to rarely need a keyboard... something I don't think is likely to happen any time soon. So good in theory, but not quite the magic form needed to bring tablet PCs into the mainstream.

    --
    Yawn.
    1. Re:Keyboard by NanoGator · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Seems to me it alot adu about nothing. Marketing is getting really slick. They keep selling people the same things, just with new names. Just like the republicans..."

      Uh, okay.

      To answer your question: Tablet PCs are more mobile since they don't require a flat surface to operate on. You can use one standing up, for example. That's definitely a huge plus in my opinion. I can carry my TPC around and use it in a lot more places than I could my old laptop.

      Whether or not you care is entirely up to you, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss TPCs as 'the same things with new names'.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
  2. Wait, who cares? by skomes · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sales of tablet PCs are sliding downwards, let's stop focussing on a hybrid of PDAs and laptops that nobody wants, and focus on getting 2 120 gig hard drives, and x800s in laptops, and getting microdrives and better-than-VGA screens in PDAs and standardize CIR in PDAs. Hybrids share some of the benefits of both technologies, but are really just watered down versions of both. I guess I just don't see the use, I can understand some situations, an engineer or whatever, but how well would autocad or something similar run on this boy anyways?

    1. Re:Wait, who cares? by kamileon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The place where I have seen them be HUGELY popular is with graphic artists. Tablet PCs are the perfect configuration for doodling in Photoshop, doing image editing, etc. But I also have a number of programmer friends who prefer them over using a PDA, despite the extra bulk, because of the ease of jotting down notes quickly, with really good handwriting recognition. Programs like
      One Note just aren't available for the PDA. Which I agree that both PDAs and laptops could be massively improved, there is a niche market for the tablets, and it's enough to encourage hardware companies to keep working on them.

      I have to confess, if they made them as durable as laptops, I'd rather have a tablet than a laptop myself. I don't want a watered down hybrid, I want a full force best of all worlds hybrid, and the tablet has the best potential for that.

      --
      To truly understand recursion, you must first truly understand recursion.
  3. Interesting, but I think I'll pass by kennyj449 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can't help but think that, for that pricing and performance, one would be better off getting a more conventional laptop or tablet and keeping an extra battery or two around. It's nice to see a notebook that actually acts like a portable, but sadly the battery life is about the only thing that this tablet has going for it.

    1. Re:Interesting, but I think I'll pass by NanoGator · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Who said anything about desktops?"

      Well, I know you didn't pick a laptop over a desktop because it was cheaper and/or faster.

      I'm not trying to arm twist you into wanting a TPC. Just trying to explain that speed's not everything. One of the things I really enjoy about my TabletPC is that I occasionally do sysadmin'ish jobs around the office. The TPC has built in ethernet and 802.11. I can walk around the office and use it without having to clear a spot to set it down. (Especially great when taking inventory.) Twice as many ghz and a bigger screen would not make this job go ANY easier.

      It's all up to your needs, but I think the whole "well it doesn't perform as fast" argument is fairly weak considering this is the site that constantly makes comments about the average Joe not needing more than 300 mhz.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
  4. Tablet PC's? by caryw · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Honestly, am I missing something? I don't mean to troll, but what is the huge advantage of being able to write on a pc screen with crappy recognition software? I don't understand where the market for this kind of device is. I would much rather have a skinny VAIO laptop or a new powerbook. Do that many people need to use a computer standing up? Perhaps it's for taking notes? I still can type much faster than my fastest shorthand scrawl...
    I understand the need for PDA devices where a full sized keyboard isn't practical, but if the device is going to be laptop sized anyway...

    Just wondering.
    --
    Fairfax Underground: Where Fairfax County comes out to play

    1. Re:Tablet PC's? by Mumpsman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There is quite a high demand for these kinds of things in the medical field where physicians do indeed need to use a computer standing up. They need to be able to roam from one exam room to the next without having to drag a cart full of paper medical records. They also tend to work long hours and have low tolerances for having to do un-godlike things like swapping out batteries or returning to a docking station to get a new tablet.

      All of which typically would mean that this might be a welcome advance in the medical field except the software is still all crap...

      --
      No battles to the death are recalled. Mumpsman can hit to attack and cause brainsmashing.
    2. Re:Tablet PC's? by tyman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The target market for Tablets isn't the average slashdot user. People who would rather have laptops, get laptops. The highest markets are for corporate installs where the workers are on their feet most of their day. For example, in the medical field where nurses need to fill in hundreds of pages of forms a day and have to move from patient to patient. You replace a clipboard with a Tablet and it functions in the same way, but the forms can be easily coordinated with a server so a doctor can access all documents on a patient he needs from his tablet, as soon as it is filled in by the nurse.

    3. Re:Tablet PC's? by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Agreed. Once people try them for more then a few minutes at a trade show they see the light.
      The Tablet PC takes mobility to a whole new level in a way that no regular laptop could.
      Even the Mac people I work with are jealous.

  5. Just how many days? by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 3, Insightful
    10,200 mAh SuperPolymer battery which will get you through a work day without a charge.

    Just how many days will it get you through, before its capacity degrades below 8 hours?

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  6. 4.5lbs = 2.0kg by fembots · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's kind of heavy for a tablet. I'm not sure if battery life is more important than having to hand hold an additional kg.

    --
    Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
  7. I remember seeing an ad for a MS Tablet PC by Pingsmoth · · Score: 2, Insightful

    and it had a guy in the stairwell writing something on his tablet. The tagline of the ad was something like "For those times when inspiration occurs between floors". The gist of it was that with a tablet PC you are not limited to using a PC at your desk, or some other such stationary place.

    What it left me wondering, though, was why not whip out a note pad or sticky note?

    The tablet PC has yet to prove itself as a device that is truly useful and practical--moreso than any notebook computer, that is. It may function just fine, and it may be a fine product, but it still seems to have very little actual purpose.

    --
    http://www.walkingtaco.com
  8. Re:Not bad by BFaucet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's a joke, right?

    I highly doubt this tablet was designed with heavy computing in mind. 1.4 GHz Intel chip is more than enough to do word processing, email, watch video, paint, even play many popular games.

    I don't know anyone who would get a tablet for heavy processing.

    --
    -Derick
  9. Re:Not bad by lucabrasi999 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    8 Hours is good, but a 1.4Ghz processor.

    Keep using your laptop with a three hour battery. It may take me five more seconds to open up MS Excel each time, but that five seconds will be meaningless when your machine has run out of battery power.

  10. Re:Not bad by OldeTimeGeek · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Then you probably wouldn't be using a Tablet PC, would you?

    You look at your needs and you takes your choices. I have a 1.1Ghz Compaq/HP TC 1100 and for most tasks (even including, surprisingly enough, Photoshop), it works quite well.

  11. Bluetooth? by voidware · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah, but there's no bluetooth. Isn't the point of these things to give me more freedom? Well, I hate wires.

  12. Re:I wonder by mobilebuddha · · Score: 2, Insightful

    yup, i am gonna spend 2000 dollars on a 12.1 inch TOUCHSCREEN so i can run LINUX IN TEXT MODE.

  13. Re:I didn't see any mention of heat... by sholden · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You must have missed this part:

    "When unplugged, the unit stays surprisingly cool and won't toast your arm."

  14. Re:Ah, you ever hear of PEN COMPUTING? by chaoaretasty · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Completely agreed. My handwriting has always been messy, very messy, and not amazingly quick either. But I can type at 60 WPM, more than enough to keep up with my lecturers and be able to concentrate on what they mean rather than just what they say. Being on a physics course thoguh means lots and lots of diagrams making the pen invaluable.