For tablet PC users...

J

jedirye

Gawd
Joined
Jun 8, 2004
Messages
635
Which model do you have and how do you like its features, as opposed to a regular laptop? I have finally decided on a laptop and was debating on whether I should get an XPS or a tablet. I am a gamer but haven't been gaming a lot for the past year or so, I don't know why, busy with school, etc. I would still like to casually game but realize with a tablet that would be impossible especially with the games I want to play. Therefore, I was on the fence a bit and have come down to the realization that school is more important to me than gaming and I would probably utilize a tablet's features more so than I would playing games every week. After much research and review reading I think I'm going to take the plunge on Acer's first tablet PC: R1F
http://www.ah163.net/cw/channelimages/0608171142402-show-a.jpg[/

[color=cyan]EDIT: Unless that's your site (and it doesn't appear to be) don't be ganking bandwidth by hotlinking images. - Lethal[/color]

The base model starts at about $1800 (1.66ghz core 2 duo, 80gig 5400rpm hdd, 1 gig ddr2, etc.) but I'll probably bump up all mentioned and it'll end up being $2300-2500. What do you guys think, especially those who use a Tablet for school?

-rye
 
Seen a couple of the ASUS around school, in various states of disrepair.

I personally went with the Gateway CX2xx series, has been a great tablet so far. I think you can get them with x1600s now, so they arent useless for casual gaming.
 
I've used the fujitsu (highest end one...whatever it is) and a Lenovo x41 (I think thats the model...not 100% sure though...too lazy to look it up). Between the two I liked the fujitsu better. We also had one helluva time trying to get the laptop from lenovo as well. It took 33 days I believe. My boss won't be buying any lenovo products again.
 
Lenovo was having customs issues for a while when getting their products, I think these are cleared up now. I currently use an X41 tablet for my day to day portable, but I've used pretty much all of the big name tablets. The X41 has been my favorite for it's portability and light weight although it is lacking in processor power. The new X60 tablets should make up for this with core duo low voltage processors, they were announced last week I believe.
 
I appreciate the insight, guys! Lately I've been getting a lot of feedback about how a Tablet PC is a waste of money and I'm kind of curious as to why. I find it is nothing more but a laptop with some added features so perhaps the person is then regretting a laptop altogether (although I doubt I'll get a fair response as to how useful a laptop is, considering this is the laptop forum). Regardless, I am seeing in the near future a need for a portable computer for work and school, and feel I could use the features of both. Oh well, I guess I'm just rationalizing.

By the way, for what reasons do you guys use your tablets for and how has it been holding up with tasks, etc?

-rye
 
I have the Acer C12somthingorother, and I really like it. Its the one with the 1.73 Pentium M. I upgraded to 2gb ram. My school actually made me get it, and I would really prefer a standard laptop. One thing that I really liked about it is that it is possible to re-flash the video card to a 256mb geforce 6200, with 300/600 clocks. I've been running BF2 on it at 1024x768 and getting about 40-45 fps at medium settings.

I would have to agree with the waste of money bit. If you look around, you find that you pay generally around $300 more for the tablet feature, and I only use it when I am required to by school. All the hype about being able to take better notes is bull as far as I can see, because most of us can type faster than we can write by hand.

From what I've seen, the only one that is truly designed from the ground up as a tablet is the fujitsu. For example, the surface of the screen is not set back at all into the frame. On mine, it is set back in a little, which causes problems because i have my start menu set to automaticaly disapear, and the only way to pull it up while in tablet mode is to puch the pen into the corner, but that's not possible. I would up recalibrating the digitizer so it reads the pen a little lower than it is, so that I can pull up the start menu. The fujitsu is by far the most popular here, and from my use, it works the best as a tablet. I didn't get it because it only comes with integrated graphics.
 
That depends on what kind of classes you will be taking. If you are an english major or something like that, you can type just as fast or faster than you could pen input. But if you are like me, and take technical classes (I'm in aerospace engineering) where you have to write lots of formula/graphs/diagrams, then the tablet feature is indispensable. You could try keeping up with it using paint I guess, but good luck with that. :rolleyes:

Also, the gateway's screen is mounted flush, not recessed. The gateway is one of the larger tablets, but I love having the 15.4 widescreen, since it ends up being about the same size as a standard sheet of paper. All depends on what you prefer, but I dont think I could stand a square screen for long format ("letter" as opposed to "landscape") note taking.
 
Just thought I'd point out that there are a lot of "convertable" laptops out there that run XP Tablet and the screen flips atop the keyboard and is touch-sensative, so if you need to type, you just flip it back around into laptop mode.

Also, if you dont want that, you could look into a roll-up or fold-up USB keyboard for text-input if you're like me and using hadwriting recognition GeTS YOu LO+$ 0f sTr@nqe CasES anb le+ter$ (Dont have a tablet, per-se ATM (looking) but using "transcriber" on my Axim X51v PDA, and I end up with sentances like above quite often...)
 
The tablets digitizer is pretty good, I rarely have problems and my handwriting is pretty bad. Much better then any PDA I've used and I have an Axim x50 for reference. When you need to draw things out or do a table or a chart, it's much easier to just do it on the screen then to try and do it within word. I did like the fujisu's convertible, we pretty much bought two of each type to try them out, what I definitely didn't like was fujitsu's slate or the motion computing slate style, I've never been able to use one as a full function laptop, they were just too limited without a full keyboard.
 
I got the Fujitsu 4020 last summer. What I like about the convertable feature is that in classes where there are a lot of diagrams or equations I can write'em in tablet mode and if I take an elective class where it's faster to type the notes, I just switch back to laptop mode.

I use my tablet with a program called gobinder to keep my notes organized and it's helped a lot. I'm normally quite disorganized w/ paper notes and I hate it when I'm trying to draw an elaborate diagram and I end up running out of space on a piece of paper. With my tablet I just expand my page as much as I need.

Main reason I went for the fujitsu was because it was convertable and I didn't want a slate since there are classes or things I may want to do that are just easier/faster on the keyboard and also, at the time, it was one of the few tablets that had a built in optical drive.

In the end it's personal preference when it comes to its use.
 
I guess what I had been looking at were "convertible tablets" that function as a laptop too. Perhaps why people are saying it's a waste of money is because they thought I was talking about the UMPC's (ultra mobile PC) instead of the convertible (the R1F is a convertable, by the way).
Well I'm going to be taking some classes where typing notes is not ideal (chemistry, math, etc.) A main reason why I wanted one, although right now it may be a situation of too little too late, is so that I can keep records of all my notes. I've been going to college since 2001 (hey, I was still in HS, I'm not old) and I had about 10 or so 1-5 subject notebooks full of notes. I recently cleared my closet and threw them all out, but realize this semester they would have been good references. Sure, I still have my reports saved on my computer, but still!
I appreciate all the input, etc. Thanks!

-rye
 
Ciggarillo Himself said:
id take lappy over table anyday.
Click to expand...

if it weren't for my note-taking requirement, I'd probably agree with u. I don't know what I'd do with a pure tablet outside of school.
 
[RCKY] Thor said:
That depends on what kind of classes you will be taking. If you are an english major or something like that, you can type just as fast or faster than you could pen input. But if you are like me, and take technical classes (I'm in aerospace engineering) where you have to write lots of formula/graphs/diagrams, then the tablet feature is indispensable. You could try keeping up with it using paint I guess, but good luck with that. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm a computer engineer, and typing out math or whatever is just impossible. I've personally solved that by going back to a good old paper notebook.

Just to clear things up, I am talking about a convertible tablet.

jedirye: All in all, I would say go for it. If you really want to take your notes on a computer, then it will work fine for that. I would recommend windows journal, which I believe comes with most tablets. I like it much better than the rest of the programs I've tried.

I guess what burns me about tablets is how much more than a similarly equipped laptop they cost and the fact that I don't have any problem taking notes on a normal piece of paper. It really bugs me to be forced to use (and pay for) technology just because it will help the college make headlines for being the first ones to try this out. Ah heck, don't listen to my complaints. Buy a tablet.
 
It's nice to hear the valuable info people have posted regarding their tablet experiences. I've been trying to decide between a convertible laptop and a normal one for my grad school work. I don't know if I will get the most use out of the tablet portion during my 2 year master degree in Zoology, although I do heavily use my whiteboard for drawings and other diagrams, and being able to duplicate that in a tablet would be wonderful. I also plan to go to law school in a couple years and in other law classes I've drawn many diagrams on paper that would be handy to have via tablet.

As to software, I use Microsoft OneNote beta currently. I think it's a fantastic piece of software even without tablet functionality. My laptop is too slow to run it at optimal speed though. :(

My friend just ordered a lenova x60p and the shipping date is 2 months away. Excellent laptop, long wait. The consensus seems to be that Toshiba makes an excellent tablet. The big deal that has kept me from getting a convertible so far is finding one with a good res(1400), and something other than onboard graphics. I don't plan on playing games much on this thing, but I prefer the option of having it available.
 
Eh,
I went back and forth with it for a while, and there's just too much gamer in me to go to a tablet :mad: I still recommend Asus though. Actually, the laptop I've decided on is the Asus G1 which is yet to be released. It's a nice notebook with a respectable video card with 512mb of dedicated RAM and looks hottt. It's extremely similar (specs wise) to their A8JS minus the screen but the latter is geared more towards business, etc. Oh well. I'm glad some people have gotten some use out of this thread!

-rye
 
Budget : HP TC1100
Intel Pentium M


New / Better : Lenovo X60 Tablet
Intel Core Duo - Vista Capable
 
I really like the Gateway convertibles over the others. Bigger and heavier yes, but you cant even compare the widescreen to a square when using it as a tablet.
 
I really loved my motion computing tablet when I had it, only reason I got "rid" of it is so my sister could afford a reasonably priced tablet for her school.

I going to be ordering an x60t tablet from lenovo as soon as they are done with the pre-order stuff, I don't like the configs they have.

Depending on your major you may get more or less use of the tablet - as a biology major it is VERY helpful.

One thing a lot of people don't talk about but I really like about tablets is it takes very little pressure to write on it which will significantly reduce fatigue if you are doing a lot of note taking.
 
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