Art History Grad Student

[Trismegistus]

Hey all,

I am a grad student in art history, which is to say that I do a lot of Word and Powerpoint work, a lot of web-browsing on Java & Flash intensive sites, and I also need to be mobile. I've been considering a tablet pc for a while, and now I have a chunk of change I can invest.

I want something that is small and light, so under 5 lbs (not a problem for tablets I guess), with good screen resolution for looking at/displaying images, enough power to handle graphics and web apps, and it has to stay whisper quiet or less.

Any suggestions?

[Spotsalots]

I don't have recommendations on a specific tablet (am trying to get up to date on current offerings myself), but as a fellow art historian who has had a convertible for about a year and a half, I'd say get something that gives you plenty of hard drive. Unless you're primarily working at a desktop computer, you'll want lots of space for scans and similar stuff. This is especially true if you leave the country to do research. I digitized a lot of books and articles before spending two years in Europe on archival research, and it was invaluable to be able to be able to look things up in a flash. Also, I was taking digital photographs of thousands of documents, and it was great to be able to put them all on my computer and organize them for study. You need a lot of space to do this--I ended up with a main HD of 60GB and a swappable second hard drive of 100GB. Since I also digitized music to take with me, both drives are fairly full. I realize this doesn't address the tablet issue, but think about what you need in our discipline, and if you're going to use this tablet in teaching, too.