26/11/03 The best tablet on the market?

[dellboy]

This seems a fairly quite forum hence a date in the subject line. What would be deemed the best value for money tablet PC available on the market at the moment?

Any comments welcome.

Cheers

 

[bbegley]

It depends on what you want. We are evaluating several types right now, and what fits our needs my not fit yours.

I don't have model #s in front of me, but most of the companies only make one or two models right now.

We had specific needs and made a couple of decisions up front about what we wanted. We wanted a full keyboard (swivel style) and a non-powered pen, so some of the companies did not have anything we wanted.

Gateway makes a relatively large (I think 15" screen) tablet with a dvd drive.

Toshiba makes a nice mid-sized tablet (the one we will probably purchase, as the gateway is too large for our specific needs).

Acer makes a relatively small tablet that we also evaluated.

For my personal use, I really like the gateway, for our organization, the toshiba is the best fit.

If you don't mind using a relatively expensive powered pen, you open up additional options, and if you don't mind (or even like) the idea of a keyboard only at a docking station then there may be other choices.

Brian
"There are 2 kinds of people in the world, those that divide people into two groups and those that don't. I belong to the second group." - tag line I stole

 

[itcamefrommars]

if anyone is interested....

i use the toshiba.
it is a traditional slimline laptop with rotating screen and tablet ability.
fairly powerful and decent battery life.
pcmcia cd/dvd drive standard - good for booting from cd for restore or bootable OS distros...

BUT the screen comm ribbon connects to the main board through the rotating hinge, which is ok but sometimes the tablet functionality is flaky (very rare) from having to move the screen. im very rough with mine though... it bounces around alot... it's the brain of my evolution robotics ER1. (i wow my clients having it follow me into their offices for fun!)

i used the compaqs tc1000 series when they were about to offer them publicly... good, but slow.... that was right over a year ago though. screen is on same unit as main board (no physical video ribbon problem potential).... but no cd drive came with it.... and could be a pain when a user screwed up the sys and we wanted to do a restore. very good for end user applications. caruso processor powerful enough for client apps, but not for my personal computing use. (deff wouldn't code on it)

toshiba is my choice though... so i can have a more full powered PC capability and multiple OS boot linux with tablet features and such. it's actually the half of my brain that's missing!

 

[daveoasis]

I am very impressed & pleased with the service I get with a Toshiba 3505 Tablet PC. It has a 12 inch swivel screen with CF Compact Flash Card & SD Flash slots, 2 USB ports, PCMCIA slot, external audio volume, small speaker, wireless 802.11b, Cat 5 connector for Network 10/100 MBs, V.92 fax modem port, 40 GB HD, 512 RAM, stylus, 3 hour battery Lithium.

The screen is a good compromise for portability & display & allows dual monitor support for external monitors, projectors which I have used very well. It allows extended dual monitor display for extra large desktop, so twice the display for power use is possible.

Keyboard is very good on tactile response, with inverted T cursor (up, down, left, right).

System performance is very responsive. I have used VNC for remote access on networks & wireless networks, Gotomypc, Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, TurboCAD, Audio & Video applications & watched DVDs. I also use Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Dragon Naturally Speaking, Digital cameras, Irfan View & Gimp with excellent results & performance. The multi-lingual function works quite well for both Windows & Office.

I listen/view streaming audio & video.

I look forward to the Toshiba Tablet Portege M200 with docking station & rotating option.

See this page & award links:

http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cmod.to?coid=-26373&sel=0&rcid=-26367&ccid=1291021&seg=SMB&sel=1

Find a dealer you trust. Local Toshiba factory authorized support I feel is very important. Don't skimp on a support contract since screens are expensive.

Consider Acronis or Norton Ghost 2005 (was V2i Protector) & external USB drive for full system backup. This allows full recovery in the event of catastrophic failure, or theft/loss, etc.

See these links for more info:

Google: toshiba tablet forums; microsoft tablet forums; tablet PC forums; respectively.


Good hunting & best regards,
Dave

 

[BHGDRN]

Have Motion M1300. Works Great. Used the keyboard at first but now mostly pen or talk into Word. XP sp2 has really improved performance.
Check it out at motioncomputing.com.