So the new thing to do is bash Microsoft on Tablet PCs. I recently demoed one at work -- but returned it at the end of two weeks. It was an Acer Travelmate C300. Beautiful screen, but just too heavy. In fact, it reminded me of a pre-hard drive NEC laptop I purchased in college for $100 (and ran Qedit on -- I sold it two years later for $75). And not much relevance to my workstyle. While it is cool that you can annotate powerpoint presentations, frankly no one is interested in my annotations.
But then I found the killer application (thanks Cory Doctorow). Ebooks. A tablet PC is truly a better mousetrap. I think my reading productivity is up at least 10%. Easier on the eyes, easier to hold, easier to turn pages, less weight and volume if you carry more than one book. So when my wife needed a new laptop last week, I purchased her the Fujitsu T3010. The two pound difference is extremely noticeable (though there is no DVD or floppy). It also works quite well for playing online poker and reading the New York Times and Slashdot in tablet mode. The integrated 802.11g is outstanding (integrated reception is much, much better than add-on PCMCIA cards). A great "utility": the factory drive image is saved to another partition and additional user images can also be created and stored. (Right now, I'm trying to prep her old laptop for sale and can't find the original CDs -- so I am especially appreciative).
A tablet PC for the home is a luxury. But it sure is nice.
Comments