Convince me to get/not get a tablet PC

In My Humble Opinion
1

So my Toshiba NB100 is as good as dead. I’m actually kinda sad even though that dinky computer was a piece of shit from day number one. It didn’t boot up on Christmas day 2008 when I got it. The hard drive died and nearly cost me a semester’s worth of school work three months later.

Yet after having gotten it working well and getting used to typing on the little thing, this past week the DC jack conked out, and it’s not taking a charge. Repair guy said there was a crack on the mainboard, and between fixing that and getting a new power supply, I was looking at a $250-60 repair, and since the NB500 retails for a little over 300, suffice to say I sure as hell ain’t paying to repair it, even though I’m hopelessly sentimental with all my inanimate objects.

If anyone knows of a way of charging the battery externally, or using the battery terminals to circumvent the DC jack, I’m all ears! But since I’m doubtful of that, it’s time to look on to my NEXT teeny tiny computer gizmo.

I’ve seen the ASUS tablet that came out, that minus the smaller hard drive, has more or less the same specs as my laptop. But it’s pricey at a thousand bucks. There’s others now from viewsonic (link), and Fujitsu (link) that have really caught my eye. I don’t want an Ipad, as I’m quite adamant on trying to keep everything as similar as possible.

Is this version of Windows 7 compact? Are there any features missing? Moreover, when I don’t have it propped up at a table with a wireless keyboard, how bad do you find it to type on the screen? Can you go fast? Is it accurate?

I figure if the processor speed is the same, and the ram is the same (and the Fujitsu claims to have a 10 hour battery life - wow!!), there’s no good reason to get the netbook rather than the tablet which I can presently think of. Any extra room I need can be handled with a few high capacity SD cards or USB keys.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Anything I forgot to consider?

Thanks in advance for reading my long winded post! :slight_smile:

2

Do you need to do anything besides e-mail, web browsing, or word pressing? Netbook and netbook-equivalent tablets are slow. What specifically do you need it for? Do you have a desktop?

3

I have a Toshiba tablet that I thought I’d use as a tablet all the time. I don’t. I’ve never used the stylus or any tablet feature, and now that I have an iPad I only use the tablet for flash games and lengthy word processing.

4

The netbook I have was 1.6 Ghz with no optical drive. I did a bit of online gaming, watched youtube clips, checked outlook, did word processing, and checked facebook and my Vbulletin boards on it. Instant messaging as well. With a few “No CD” cracks, I managed to get it to play Risk II and Age of Empires II, but I can afford to sacrifice power for space. I even ran Finale on my netbook to make sheet music.

The way I see it, my desktop is powerful enough to handle my music production tasks, and every game I play runs off one of the three consoles I own. I think this fits the bill nicely between my blackberry and my desktop, and would be a nice travel companion for conferences and the like.

5

Why not, if you don’t mind me teasing that one out of you? What’s the advantage of the Ipad?

6

I should perhaps clarify that by tablet PC, I did mean something that was a touch screen WITHOUT any of the other peripherals (i.e., keyboard, optical drive, trackpad, etc. etc. etc.

7

It’s light. I have the Kindle app, the Nook app, and the I-book app so I can read on it. I don’t do anything techie, most of the time all I really do is email and go online to either see what’s new on the Internet or play Scrabble. I have the 3G so if I’m on a trip with my husband I can be online while he drives. It’s extremely portable. I love it.

8

I had an HP TX1000. You can read reviews about how they burn up right after the warranty goes out. At the time, it was as fast as any other laptop, it was just smaller. After the novelty of the stylus wore off, I only used it to play Minesweeper once in awhile. I spent half as much on the laptop that replaced it and it’s got a bigger screen and it’s faster. It also doesn’t burn my legs.

9

See, I got issues with Apple and its “app” system that basically forces me to use their own pre-approved line of applications. I have a Mac mini, so I’m not an anti-mac zealot, but if this is going to replace my netbook (which at 10.1 inches, that’s the same size as its monitor), then IMO it needs to have either Windows or Linux on it. Or Android; I don’t really know enough about that OS to like or dislike it.

Also, I have a Kobo already, so it’s unlikely I’d ever use any of the e-reader apps on it!

10

Typing this on an iPad 1st gen I have to highly recommend it. One of the things that I like a lot is its lack of overheating, in fact it stays room temperature no matter if I’m reading an ebook, surfing or playing games. Some things that I don’t like are the lack of arrow keys in the virtual keyboard to correct mistakes, etc. something that my Evo has in it’s slide out keyboard. On the other hand the spellchecker is pretty robust. Other things I don’t like are iTunes being kinda a slowpoke on windows, and the fact that Apple doesn’t release a version for Linux. On the plus side there’s always jail breaking, though I haven’t done it with my iPad, I have done it with my iPod and it worked ok. I would not recommend a tablet without a computer to dock to though, I don’t think that I could live without my Linux laptop and just subsist on a tablet.

11

Oh, I still have desktop PC, but I want something that’s super portable to do mundane work on!

12

The Fujitsu Q550 looks to be a very nice product. I’ve owned two of their convertible tablet computers; one (P1630) is still my main personal (non-work) portable computer. The Q550 is better than mine because it has both a “active” stylus and capacitive touch input.

Beware of the fine print though, I’m pretty sure the 10-hour battery life requires an extra-large battery, which adds weight.

I haven’t really used the on-screen keyboard much. Frankly, the one built into Windows isn’t very good. I think there are third-party onscreen keyboards available though. I believe Swype is available as a beta version.

Mostly I find it easier to just jot down notes in Microsoft OneNote, and save it as handwriting (i.e. not converted into text). It’s just as legible as anything I write on paper, but I can file and manage it electronically. I also have a tablet computer at work and I’ve taken extensive lab notes this way.

13

Do you use OneNote2010 or 2007? I found that the handwriting to text in OneNote2010 works really well. 2007 was kludgy. Really, a night and day difference between the 2 versions if you’re still on 2007 (or even 2003 :o ).

I was asked to start this threadon OneNote if you’re interested.

14

Interesting bump; I ended up fixing my netbook, only to have the DC pin come loose again. I’m typing on an iPad 2 now!

15

Not to pick on you, but posts like this are really not helping me to even want to be anywhere near an iPad. Your reasons for not wanting one are the same as mine. And, yet, somehow, you’ve completely switched sides in a month-and-a-half or so.

As far as I can tell, the jailbreak app has yet to have even been released for the iPad2, and that’s pretty ominous with it being supposedly hacked a month ago. Apple’s really fighting this now. Jobs is still controlling what you can and cannot do with your device.

While I’m not necessarily including the OP in this, I’ve seen even the most vehement detractors change their tune once they get their hands on one, or, worse, when they go into the Mac store. That’s some slick marketing and skillful manipulation. That’s the last thing I want to be a willing part of.

Please tell me that your change of heart was motivated by cold, logical evaluation of what you do and don’t want from a device. I have nothing against that. But this sort of stuff is almost seeming like a horror movie cliche.

16

The iPad is a nice enough device, I got a leftover iPad 1 about a month ago. But while I can see its utility, I just don’t get the hype surrounding it. I pick mine up maybe once or twice a week, and usually only to check a couple of web pages quickly. I can’t for the life of me figure out why people will stand in line or camp out for hours just to buy one.

17

:dubious: … dude, calm down and step away from the bong. The man isn’t out to get you.
Seriously though, why not just use it? I used to be “wtf are all these people on about with this iPhone thing, my Samsung dumbphone works just fine, and I’ve got a no-name Chinese brand mp3 player for $30 that works as a USB stick” but… then I used an iPhone, and I just got it.

Sometimes, you just can’t express what’s good about something in quantifiable numbers. When was the last time you heard a steak advertised as having 15% more favinoids? They don’t market it that way because that’s not why you eat a steak. You eat it because it’s freakin’ DELICIOUS.

And iPads? They. Are. Delicious.

18

:rolleyes:

it may be, but to me it’s just empty calories. I struggle to find much use for mine.

19

This is bizarre. Instead of coming to the conclusion that the device has merits that the people find when they get a hands on use of it. You think they are brainwashed by slick marketing and skillful manipulation?

The iPad is not for everyone. There are a ton of reasons to prefer a netbook or something similar over it. But, if someone is a detractor of the device and they change their mind after using it the obvious conclusion is that they liked it when they used it. Not, that there was some sort of evil marketing force field that magically changed their mind before they could save themselves.

20

Personally I would wait for the Android Honeycomb tablets which will be popping out for the rest of the year. I think the Honeycomb UI makes much better use of the tablet form factor than iOS and also has important functionality like USB support. The first couple of Honeycomb tablets have been a little expensive but I expect they will also drop in price quite soon. I am looking forward to tablets by HTC and Samsung , and Sony just made an announcement that they would release a couple of Honeycomb tablets later this year.