Windows 7 will be released soon, and it promises to bring an enhanced experience for PCs with digitizers. The Tablet and touch features have generated excitement, especially in the area of multitouch capability. Netbooks and UMPCs with touchscreens are starting to appear in greater numbers, and owners are already planning to install Windows 7 on these devices. Some intrepid folks have already done so, and are discovering that all of the fancy tablet/touch bits don’t automatically come along for the ride. Here’s what I know about the tablet and touch capabilities of Windows 7, along with the requirements to get them going on today’s devices.

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Hector Gomez is a longtime reader who Kevin and I had the pleasure of meeting early this year. He may be the only person who buys more gadgets than I do, and a recent purchase he made was the Viliv S5 UMPC. I have made it clear how much I like the S5, and Hector says he is enjoying it, too. The only area he thought it lacking was in not being a real Tablet PC, so he’s rectified that.

Hector has installed Windows XP Tablet Edition on his Viliv S5 to give it the full Tablet PC functionality. It’s not something everyone can do, as the Tablet Edition version of XP cannot be purchased. Hector got his hands on it and finds the S5 makes a fine 5-inch Tablet PC. He’s documented it on a video, and he’s kindly given us permission to share. Have a look at Hector’s little Tablet PC.

A lot of people are very interested in the new netbooks that are getting touchscreen capability. The Asus T91 is attracting a lot of attention as a “Tablet PC” with netbook pricing. Since the convertible nature of the T91 means the screen can be swiveled around into a slate form, one could make the assumption that this device (or any other convertible) would be good for inking on the screen. I hear from people all the time wanting to know if these types of devices will be good for inking and I need to set the record straight. The correct answer to that question is: almost certainly not.

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First spotted as a non-working prototype at CES in January, the ASUS Eee PC T91 might be shipping this week. Earlier this month, the convertible touchscreen Tablet PC/netbook appeared in the FCC database, which is generally indicative of product availability. Today, The Netbook Market caught wind of an EeeUser forum post that states shipments are starting today. ASUS has also added the T91 to their ever-growing Eee PC Comparison List as well.

The official listing shows the T91 with Microsoft Windows XP, but I’d expect Windows 7 to appear as an option due to the 8.9″ resistive display. The device only comes with a 16GB SSD option, but includes a 16GB “disk expander” SD card and 20GB of online storage from ASUS as well. ASUS figures the device should run for around five hours on the 28.5Wh battery paired with an Intel Atom Z520. It’s worth noting that the tablet includes 802.11n support like most of the newer Eee PC models and weighs only 2.12 pounds. That’s one light Tablet PC, perhaps the lightest convertible tablet yet!

We first peeped at the Fujitsu Stylistic ST6012 last September, but I haven’t seen one in the wild yet. In fact, I see very few slates these days. Rob Bushway has a review unit and just started sharing his impressions. From what I recall, the ST6012 was due to weigh in between 3.5 and 4 pounds, but Rob says it’s “extremely light.”

Overall, the device appears more sluggish than Rob expected. It has a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo ULV CPU, 1GB of RAM and 80GB hard drive, which ought to offer reasonable performance in a portable slate. Rob found 88 processes running at startup in Microsoft Windows Vista, so maybe some optimization is in order. This model is worth looking into for field workers, as the 1,280 x 800 display is outdoor viewable. It also offers solid battery life, as the standard 6-cell battery is netting four to five hours of run-time for Rob. Fujitsu also offers an optional 9-cell power pack, but of course, that’s going to add to the weight.

Rob said he’d consider installing Windows 7 on the ST6012 to test the ink and touch capabilities of the newer OS. I suspect that if enough of us visit GBM and ask real nice, he’ll give it a go.

The CrunchPad appeared again this week, with news that a launch prototype is getting very close. The photos of the prototype show a massive improvement in the web tablet dreamed up by the TechCrunch folks. The Linux-based tablet is designed to surf the web, and not much else, but that was originally deemed to be a good enough reason to keep the price below $200. As the work on the prototype progressed, that price kept growing, as skeptics thought it might, and if this new model is analyzed, I suspect we’re looking at $400 or more. That puts it way out of the “restricted web appliance” territory and into the “I can buy a laptop for that much” realm. It’s a nice-looking device in any event; let’s hope it makes it to market.

Image courtesy Techcrunch

This morning I spent five hours at the doctor’s office having some routine tests, and it gave me the opportunity to observe how the practice is run. My doctor is a very tech-savvy guy, and he uses a Fujitsu Lifebook convertible notebook in the office. I observed him going all over his office with the Lifebook in hand, and it was common to see him standing with the Lifebook sitting on a counter in front of him typing away. The problem with that picture is the Fujitsu is a fine Tablet PC, yet he uses it as a notebook all the time.

I spoke to him about it, as he is familiar with my work here; in fact, he pointed out to me that my from-the-heart chronicle in which he is mentioned is in the top 10 results he gets when he googles his own name. I asked him why he doesn’t use the Fujitsu as a Tablet PC, and he actually got sad when he responded. He likes the Tablet PC and enjoys using one with the pen, which makes a great deal of sense, given how he works on his feet and is constantly on the move. The problem he has doing that is the special software that runs his medical practice, while written for the Tablet PC, is not easily user modifiable. The software uses templates for all of the modules provided, and those templates do not fit the way his practice works for using the Tablet PC.

This really irks him, as he specifically chose a software package (I don’t know which one) for use with the Tablet PC. He told me that in the beginning he spent a lot of wasted time trying to use the software templates with the Tablet, and he eventually had to give up as it wasn’t practical. He gets annoyed every day that he is using the convertible strictly as a notebook due to these templates. He said that maybe someday he will spend big bucks to hire a programmer to modify the entire system, but if he does that, then he opens himself up to having to provide his own support for the modified software. I suspect this happens more than I realize, and it helps explain why the Tablet PC may not be used even in vertical markets that are a good fit for the technology.

TechFlash has a reliable source that says that Microsoft is may be working on a project that is “reviving the Tablet PC.” As a big fan of the Tablet, this is exciting to me on a number of levels. While this is just a rumor, it could easily happen, although there is no question that Microsoft let the Tablet PC languish to the point that it needs reviving. If Microsoft is indeed planning something to revive interest in the Tablet platform, it may be the strongest indicator yet that Apple is working on a consumer Tablet.

The Tablet PC is one of those products that should be more popular than it is simply because of the utility the form provides. The reason the Tablet never took off in the first place was largely because of the insistence that they be regular computers that could also do inking. This caused the evolution of the slate Tablet to be directed to the convertible laptop form, which negated much of the advantages a slate brings to the table. Convertible notebooks are too expensive and too heavy/bulky to be Tablets that appeal to the consumer.

The rumors that Apple is working on a consumer Tablet just won’t die, and if Microsoft is seriously trying to revive the Tablet PC, it might lend credence to those iTablet rumors. Apple knows how to play in the consumer space as well as anyone, and a large iPod-like Tablet would be a ground-breaking device. Microsoft would be left with a lot of egg on its face if Apple were able to bring out a successful consumer Tablet, given that the folks in Redmond invented the genre.

We’ve been yapping about on-screen touch keyboards of late, but let’s not forget our first love: ink! The Engineering Windows 7 Blog reminds us how easy it can be to ink in Windows by sharing all of the new and updated Tablet developments in Windows 7. I’ve already seen and made use of the new gesture “cheat sheet” animations, which come in handy when you’ve forgotten how to take action on some handwriting.

Microsoft has also incorporated smart word prediction, much like they have in their Windows Mobile platform. This feature is not only usable with text creation, but also comes into play with word correction as well: By changing one letter in a misrecognized word, the Tablet Input Panel will try to predict the word you intended. This reduces the number of characters you might have to re-ink.

The on-screen keyboard gains some additional functionality as well, not the least of which being support for multitouch. Yes, you can finally hold the Shift key plus another letter, for example. Of course, this assumes that your hardware is multitouch capable, and with these and other touch enhancements, I suspect that 2010 will bring multitouch to more portable devices.

Image Credit: Microsoft