I’m also a hardcore Tablet PC user. I had a TC1100 for a little over a year and switched to an Electrovaya SC3100 a few months ago. With the TC1100 I used the keyboard regularly for the first 4-5 months, then had a 1-2 month separation period, and now I can’t even remember where I left the keyboard..

I didn’t even consider buying the Electrovaya keyboard, in the months I’ve had it, a generic USB keyboard and mouse have been attached for a total of about 2.5 hours.

The issues I have with Tablets are mostly minor things. For example, my SC3100 is thickest at the bottom. That’s silly; put the thicker components at the top so that there isn’t such a gap for your arm to cover when it’s lying on a desk.

How about ergonomic pens? The TC1100 was reasonable, but the SC3100 stylus feels like it came in a 20 pack from the dollar store.

Other issues include the Intel Graphics adapter, my SC3100 gets choked up from the smallest things like moving a window that has a video playing in it. It’s 2006, come on! Even the TC1100 was better than that with its GeForce card..

With AMD and Intel fighting over performance per watt instead of raw power, why are so many slates still using Celerons and Pentium M’s? Give me a 2.6 GHz Merom underclocked to 1.8 or 2.0 to match the voltage, I’ll pay the difference. Or at least use current chipsets so that I can do the upgrade later.

A hybrid hard drive would be nice, true SSD drives would be great (some benchmarks make me drool, but the price is a serious splash of cold water), but I’ll take a 40 Gig 7200RPM drive over a 160 Gig 4200RPM drive any day.

As for the screens, the resolutions definitely need to go up. Like others have mentioned: when the display is so close to the user, things like bad anti-aliasing and choppy pen lines become very disillusioning.

The last thing I’ll post about is Vista. It is a huge step forward from XP-TE (I use Vista almost exclusively since RC2 5744) but it still needs work for handwriting recognition. Written text is good, but throw in some model/part numbers, a couple of symbols, and the recognition goes out the window.

I’ll never buy a laptop again, but I’m not ready to get rid of my desktop yet.

I do what I can to spread the adoption, as a student at an engineering school I’m surrounded by interest and have converted a handful of people, but it’s the marketing teams of manufacturers that need to get a kick in the right direction.

-Martin

I Just had to comment on this as a user and evangelist of the tablet format.

It took me 18 months as chief techie in my organisation to get tablets recognised. When we finally did a “hybrid” design was chosen, in case people didn’t get on with the tablet format they could we it like a regular laptop. Lots of my colleagues chose to do this, but being busy they chose to “Use it like a laptop until we have time to learn how to use the tablet”. Herein lies the problem with hybrids they dissuade people from making the change! I stopped using my keyboard day one and I changed my way of working to suit the device, my colleagues use theirs as laptops unless they are bored in a meeting! I am now more productive and better organised than I have ever been before, simply through making a commitment to a new computing paradigm.

Tablet use is not helped by the poor performance of the tablet OS (no longer an issue in vista) the result is hybrids are both promoting and minimizing tablet use. My hopes lie with the next generation who will hopefully really take to tablets, when they can afford them….

For many people the best argument for a slate is mobility – if you are carrying a Tablet PC around with you having the lowest weight can be very important. The best combination for many people is a slate with a dock at your desk, allowing the best of both world: mobility on the go, and full function at the desk.

There are some times in which pen input for activities such as Web browsing is preferable, for example when sitting on a sofa or showing something to someone else at a table. However, it is preferable not because it is easier to do but because it is often easier set up or carry one tool (a pen) instead of two tools (keyboard and mouse).

If you need to carry around a keyboard, get a convertible. If you don’t, get a slate and a desktop dock.

I’m currently using a convertable tablet (Acer Travelmate C204) and while I love it, I can really see the use of a slate tablet now that I’ve used this one for several months and have really seen my work habits. Before this tablet, I’ve only ever owned desktops so this was a big leap into the unknown for me.

My next tablet will be a slate if I can get the performance of a near-desktop replacement computer in it. I say near-desktop because desktops will always be better gaming machines and bigger powerhouses. However, my needs aren’t too demanding and hey, they’ve already crammed most of them in this convertable I have now. This is what I want to see on my ideal slate:

1. Resolution, resolution, resolution. I’ve got a 12.1″ screen on my current tablet at 1024×768 resolution. I haven’t used a resolution that low since our ‘98 machine and, since it was a 12.1″ screen, I figured that would be an acceptable resolution. It is for every day computing tasks but when you get into ink (be it writing or drawing), the low resolution kills it. I like to do sketching and was looking forward to it. I don’t do much beyond doodles because the pictures are very pixelated as I’m working due to the low screen resolution.

2. Dedicated video memory. My tablet right now has 64mb dedicated, 256mb shared. This is good for the gaming I do (mainly World of Warcraft) but isn’t asking a whole lot since I don’t need a ton of dedicated video memory for that. 64mb – 128mb would be ideal.

3. Hard drive speed. Who the heck puts a 4200RPM, Fat32 formated hard drive in a powerhouse of tablet PC? Honestly! The Fat32 partitions were easily converted over but I’m looking at around $170 for a 5400RPM, 160GB hard drive replacement of the 4200 100GB drive the machine came with. I understand that Acer probably gets these drives cheaper and that can account for the lower prices, but they’re putting these in some higher-end machines (Ferrari series my friend got had a 4200 too). You know the old saying… “A computer is only as fast as it’s slowest part.” It unfortunately shows. I don’t need a monster hard drive on a slate but the more the merrier. 80GB – 100GB should be fine. It just means I can’t store quite so much junk on here. A hybrid drive would be nice, with it’s little bit of flash memory to speed up startup time.

4. Battery life. My convertable gets about 3.5 hours when I have it unplugged with it’s 6-cell battery with the power saver settings I have on it. I think 5 hours of battery life on a slate would be perfectly fine.

5. Weight. Thankfully slates tend to weigh less since there’s less of them but this has been one of the key factors that has me leaving my tablet at home, plugged in on the desk quite a bit. 5.5 pounds is actually a little heavier to lug around with you than it sounded on the spec sheet.

Why would I give up the attached keyboard? Because I pretty much already have. I barely use the keyboard on my convertable unless I’m sitting on the couch and need to reply to a forum really quick and have a bit more to say than I feel like writing. I don’t use the built in keyboard on the tablet while it’s at my desk but instead a USB external keyboard that rests on the keyboard try. Why? Well, because the keyboard tray is at a more comfortable level for me to type. I also had to move my mouse down to that keyboard tray (bluetooth mouse from Logitech) because I’m right handed and the exaust port for the CPU is on the right hand side of the tablet. My hand gets to hot using it up on the desk so the mouse moved down first. They keyboard followed. The only reason I have the keyboard showing on my tablet right now is because I have to have it at that angle to see the screen. A docking port and a slate tablet pc could easily replace this with my current setup provided it has the specs I need to make it my primary computer.

I love this impassioned advocacy of a failing form factor. I reckon similar arguments must have kept the Hindenburg and Graf Zeppelin aloft for so long.

The future of the slate is down to the manufacturers, the UK at the moment is an open market.

I work in the building trade as an electrical estimator, my M1400 is a god send it has saved me so much time, i can now do quotes on site rather than gathering the info and then doing it at the office.

My M1400 is my main pc via a dock when i am in the office and my mobile pc out of the office.

No matter what site i visit in the UK and some of them are new and fairly high spec offices the IT department look at me as if have just been beamed down from the Enterprise.(no i havnt got ears like spok)

You guys in the US have got it good at least you can see the goods before you by, in the UK there is only 2 number Motion Dealers and they a small companies and dont stock much.

So you manufacturers pull your fingers out, the UK is an un-tapped market, we may only be a small island but there are a lot of people over here.

I should have stayed in sales

Kev…

In my opinion, the reason why slates don’t sell beyond niche market is resolution. All slate you see now are at maximum XGA. With convertible doing SXGA+, why can’t slate do it to. I thing that most people will look that that spec and thing why buy that when I can get a higher res laptop of convertible for the same or lower price. That’s what stopping me righ now. Same with the UMPC, if UMPC would have come out at 1024×600 native, I would have been an early adopter. Also it would require a lot less software adaptation for it.

I don’t have a tablet or UMPC yet, but isn’t the fact that your are inking on the device, your are holding it closer then a regular screen. Wouldn’t be better to cram the most pixels your can so you won’t see those pixels? It would probably also help those who don’t have a John Hancock size handwriting , smaller pixels would follow their small handwriting.

I bought an early NEC slate, no longer made, ten inch, 2 lbs. A bit slow and not very stable, but I love it, keep using it fr reading, and wish it had a repalcement. I’ve got the q1 as a tolerable replacement but still use the NC for reading in bed because of the larger screen.

A 2lb or less 10 or 12 inch slate would wonderful. easy to hook up to my 24″ dell monitor (i run the q1 on it)and it would be as good as the q1 for dictation. If it were a duo with 100G and speakers as god as the Q1 it would be my only machine.

Do slates have a future? I’d answer with a qualified yes. The qualification is not about whether they ought to have a future, however. It is whether the inertia is too great to be overcome broadly.

I compare the Tablet PC to the early days of Windows itself. I brought one organization onto Windows/386 way back when. (We need to add another line to that mail that floats around about kids today, designed to make us feel old… Windows was always the operating system that ran most computers.) Back then I saw a lot of the same inertia and slow acceptance that we see with Tablets, especially slates, today. Windows was used mostly to multitask DOS apps and few people saw enough worth in Windows apps to switch away from WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. Then along came Excel, Word, and a number of other great Windows apps, not to mention Windows 3.0, and there was a sudden change in the computing climate.

But a lot of that change came from new users jumping directly to Windows and bypassing DOS altogether. Now, most people already use computers and are married to their keyboards and mice.

I agree with the other posters that we need the killer apps for the Tablet. But I think the change will come when new users (meaning children these days, I guess) learn on that platform. I’ve watched a lot of kids and they get the pen right off the bat. I’ve watched a lot of adults and even teens, and they don’t get it more often than not. Much more often. It will take a lot to overcome that inertia.

Convertibles are a mixed blessing. They get Tablets into the hands of users who wouldn’t buy a slate. But then they give them the ability to not learn to use the pen too readily.

I haven’t yet seen the killer apps. OneNote is good, and 2007 might well be great. PlanPlus/GoBinder are good but not yet great. DyKnow is great, but its focus is narrow (education). ArtRage is great but is looked at as entertainment mostly. MindManager is great, but how many really use that functionality?

And really, what the world is lacking is a great hybrid. The always-there keyboard is an unremoveable set of training wheels. The TC1100 was oh-so-close, but just missed the mark in too many ways. (It’s still my favorite Tablet, though.) We need a similar machine with a larger screen and the bells and whistles (e.g., indoor/outdoor screen, extended batter option), and a real keyboard–that can be disconnected and left behind but is solid and useable when connected. Everyone I’ve seen at school/work who has gotten the Tablet has done so because the decided to forego the keyboard for a while–knowing they could always put it back on if it didn’t work out. Most of them left it off and didn’t look back. That is how training wheels are supposed to work.

Slates are great. But the price needs to come down. For most people slates are not a desktop/laptop replacement, they are a suppliment. Most people are not willing/able to drop 2K on a main PC and another 2K on a slate. UMPC prices are doing a good job so far, but have thier own challenges (performance, battery, etc.)

Give me a $1000 slate with 4-6 hour battery and decent performance.

I’d say that slates, of course, have a future. There are some things you can do better (annotations if nothing else!) just like a mouse introduced new things to the Apple and Windows worlds, and the mouse was thought of as too much trouble so it wouldn’t get used because you’d have to keep taking your hands off the keypad. (Sound familiar!?)

But I would say that slates without a keyboard have a limited future relative to convertible tablets. Contertibles (or various form factors with a coneected built-in keyboard) are what I think will be most popular. It’s just too easy to type text compared to writing it, and I enjoy typing better than voice input. Others might go with slates only if voice recognition and control software starts to excel.. not everyone prefers to type.

I can definitely see the beauty of the slate. In fact, one of my main hopes is that the writing recognition (or speech) gets so good that I don’t ever need a mouse or keyboard again.

As you guys know, I own a convertible. I like the keyboard because I still type faster than I write and I don’t like my hand getting cramped. But, with better technology (as it’s coming) comes less reliance on keyboards.

Here’s the interesting question: As our children progress through school, and as technology changes our necessity for computing or paper devices, which technology becomes more prevalent for learning? Does the keyboard replace the need to write, or does writing and penmanship become important again? Do rule out writing for more focus on speech? There are some fundamental questions beyond personal and business need in the balance of how technology progresses.

I think progress points to Slates with better text recognition and a finer focus on writing and pointing with the pen, along with some speech for dictation of long texts.

My $0.02.