Can anyone share their experiences with them?
Re: Tablet/Convertible PC's
Re: Tablet/Convertible PC's
so anyone?
Re: Tablet/Convertible PC's
I own an Acer C315...purchased last year.
I use it primarily as a laptop, though. I thought I would use it for reading, or for note taking (I have a copy of OneNote), but it's just too bulky in my opinion to be used for those tasks. But that simply reflects my preference for reading while sitting down on a sofa.
Overall, I enjoy it, even though I rarely use it as a tablet. It's funny...I always imagined myself waking up in the morning, picking up the tablet and doing a bit of surfing, e-mail checking, etc. in tablet mode as I lean back and watch CNN on TV. Never happens.
If you read at a desk, it's pretty good. Since my tablet is my primary PC, I rarely use it for note taking...I just find it quicker to reach for my pad and pencil :-)
Truth be told, I hate converting back and forth from tablet/laptop mode...I fear the hinge will loosen. I should be clear, that's more paranoia than a fear based on fact. Plus I'm cheap, so I want this thing to last...
The resolution is okay. It has a 1024x768 (or 768x1024 in tablet mode) monitor...one thing I noticed is that in tablet mode, there seems to be this strange fading effect off to the sides of the screen. This can be very annoying if you're reading for long periods of time. Also, I noticed there seems to be more space between rows of pixels in tablet mode. It's a strange visual effect. Further, microsoft hasn't really tuned their clear-type fonts for portrait displays...again, some slightly strange visual effects, imho.
My particular machine is (...okay, WAS)... powerful, 1.7 GHz, so using the tablet has no noticeable lag. The monitor is textured, so it does feel pencil-on-paper like...sort of. I have purchased adhesive screen protectors, as I don't want to scratch up the screen.
Note that the tablets don't use touch-sensitive displays...they use RF transceivers to track the pen. So, it's not like a giant PDA in this regard. You can actually rest your hand on the screen while you write. The monitor won't bleed (like normal LCD's do when you touch them), as there is a hard plastic layer covering the LCD screen.
It's a good technology...once I buy a proper desktop, I think I'll keep this thing in tablet mode, and actually use it as I once thought I would....
The best one on the market is by Toshiba...Tecra M4 I think (not the crud-bucket Satellite). They have a very high resolution display...I can't understate how much more usable a Tablet PC is with a high res display...but, those machines look much too fragile for casual use...and cost $$$.
What are your plans for the machine? If you're a student, or in a profession where you take notes galore...you just may love it...in the end, it really is about personal style and how this hunk of silicon and plastic fits in with your work mojo....
Re: Tablet/Convertible PC's
my unlce bought a 'sotec' last year and the lcd was blank a few days later.
had bad experience.
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^^ Did he ever recharge the battery?
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i have one from HP. absolutely love it. the stylus feature comes in handy when im teaching or during presentations. i can write on top of the powerpoint presentations rather than having to resort to chalk or markers. the screen comes off from the keyboard and it looks like a notepad. but if i wasnt teaching i doubt i would be using it much.
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When you write on the tablet onto a powerpoint, do you have to enter in information in a window at the bottom of the screen, then hit an enter button, thereby transmitting the writing to the screen. And then you have to take a subsequent step of dragging the written sentence/phrase to the place you want it to be on the powerpoint?
Yeah, that seems like too many steps.
I thought the onenote program let you write directly onto the powerpoint slide at any place you want on the slide (???).
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Had one for a while. Like picocio said, it wasn't nearly as useful as I thought it was, in the end I ended up using is like a laptop. I would advise you to save the extra money can get laptop. You can get a really decent one these days for way under $1k.
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It works like this:
-Activate the I-bar cursor by touching a point on your current slide.
-Hold the pen in place for a few secs, then a little icon pops up, and when pressed the pen-input area pops up. It's in a floating window, and appears where your pen is.
-In the input box, scribble whatever words you want. Word completion is there, so it's constantly suggesting words as you write.
-You press the 'Insert' button, and the text is automatically entered at where the cursor is (no drag-and-drop needed).
It's not very useful as a keyboard replacement. My particular tablet has bluetooth, so if you'd want to type while you are in tablet mode, the best thing to do is get a bluetooth keyboard. The pen and wireless keyboard is a killer combo :-)
The motto for the Tablet PC is "ink is ink". It was never intended to replace the keyboard, but provide a form factor for those tasks that are handled best with pen and paper (so rather than inserting text in a power point, it's best for annotating existing slides with notes during a meeting).
OneNote is like a "smart" paper pad. It doesn't really modify the behavior of any of the Office programs. Rather, it is a seperate program in itself.
It's a great way to organize notes (say, one per meeting, or one per subject). It can also seach your written text. So, if you wrote 'car' somwhere, you can type in 'car' in the search box and it will (try) to find all instances of 'car' in your scribbles :-)
Speaking of office, I was disappointed with visio. I thought I could rough-in some boxes and arrows, and it would replace my drawing with viso shapes. Nope. The pen becomes a mouse-like interface. Hopefully, they'll fix that in upcomming versions.
Corel has a bunch of software that does that kind of stuff, though...
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Now, can the OneNote program be used on a traditional laptop? I heard it can, but if it can, then what's the advantage of using a convertible laptop?
I have visited all the local electronical stores, and the only one that has convertibles on display is Best Buy. Even then, they only had the Toshiba, and a Gateway on display. The Gateway had the same features as the Toshiba and it was 500 dollars cheaper. Except that I haven't had any experience with Gateway computers, so I'm hesitant to get that one. The salesman said that right now, the Lenovo Thinkpad is the best one in the market for business purposes, since the battery life on it is so extensive (5 hours). The Toshiba and the Gateway, in comparison, have a 3.5 hour battery life, which for me isn't enough.
I was thinking of getting the Toshiba, since people I know in my line of work have recommended it, but the battery life troubles me.
I just need something that is really lightweight and has a really long battery life, but not so expensive. :-/
What's the battery life on the HP?
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Lollypop man : Does your HP include an optic drive?
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no it doesnt include a flipping optic drive. i had to get it separately. but, do visit pricegrabber before u buy. the battery life also sux. its supposed to be 3 hrs but i will be lucky if i get 75% of that. thats the case with most laptop batteries i have had so far. so i get a spare battery which is handy for plane rides.
one note is MS word with stylus support. nothing special about it. u can use the program on normal laptop or a pc. i use the built in write on program that came with the laptop to write equations with integrals and stuff which are hard to do on the fly on equation editors. it pops open with the click of a button. so im able to email the notes to the students along with slides. another useful thing i have seen tablets used for is highlighting in adobe acrobat. u can also write ur own notes on pdfs. i also saw a few sales people use the tablets to do demos... but that was a stretch.
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Yeah, see, that's the thing I'm not comfortable with. I would rather have a tablet that has an optic drive. I guess they throw it out so they can market the product as being light weight.
I'm kinda looking into the Toshiba's. They seem pretty cool, with batteries that can go up to 5 hours (which would diminish to 4 hours). And buying a spare battery is a really good idea. Plus they're lightweight, and have the optic drives. The model I'm looking at doesn't have that high of a processor speed, but I don't know. I guess that wouldn't be such a big deal. These days its all fast.
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How is the new Toshiba R25 series? Anyone try it yet? The prices on it are also wayyyyyy cheaper than other tablet PC models and I'm wondering if I'm stepping onto a booby trap or something.
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Toshiba sucks
I remember this case at TU Eindhoven in which there were more then 50 laptops with flaws . Toshiba refused to repair them although it was a design flaw. They have jumped to IBM/Lenovo lappys now :D But yeah, you get alot of bang for buck