First Tablet PC - Looking for Quality

[cassetti]

Hey All!

The idea of buying a tablet pc has been in my mind since i started playing with PDA's 6 years ago. I even went as far as getting an HTC TyTnII (cingular 8525) - however was completely amazed at how horrible activesync works. And how crappy the phone was. Eventually it was stolen, but that didn't upset me too much - the battery life was horrible!

Anyway i've been using a Dell 700m laptop for the past 4 years (bought one when they first came out). And It works, but its finally starting to die on me. The speakers are going after fixing them twice (design flaw). And the headphone jack is now going bad!

Ive been spending a few hours (at work!) the past few days shopping around for tablet PC's but i keep hitting road blocks.

I love lenovo, but the mono speaker is a bit of a flaw for me! I REALLY think i need dual speakers, what do you guys think? How important is dual speakers for you? I'm a bit of an audiophile so i think the mono sound would really get to me.

I really am open to suggestions for a quality tablet pc with bluetooth capability (if not included, one that i can buy the chip for it), a keyboard, lightweight, and reliable.

(Note i do intend to dual boot it with linux)

Please give me some input, I know i'm forgetting some details about what i'm looking for but give me some input.

Things that don't matter to me:
- Drive size (anything over 40 gigs will be fine for me)
- Screen size (currently have a 12.1" widescreen - love it)
- Price (really doesn't matter)
- Optical Drive (don't care if i have it or not, can always download movies/music over web)

Thanks for the help guys, I'm looking to buy one by the end of the month!

- Mike

[minimage]

My HTC Mogul had rather poor battery life, too, until a ROM update.

I'm no audiophile, but I think a portable is going to sound tinny, whether it has mono or stereo. It might make a difference if you're going to be playing back meetings you've recorded in OneNote.

James Kendrick fairly gushed about HP's 3.7-lb 2710p (http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF04a/321957-321957-64295-304455-306995.html) Tablet. Linda Epstein said that the 4.3-lb/4.9-lb (depends on whether you go with the weight saver or the optical drive) Fujitsu T4220 (http://store.shopfujitsu.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=T4220) is an excellent choice for anyone. According to Ctitanic, the 3.5-lb Fujitsu T2010 (http://store.shopfujitsu.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=T2010) would be a student's prefect companion, if not for the price. Tiffany Boggs reported that the 4.7-lb Toshiba M700 (http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cmod.to?coid=-34917) had a solid design, nice battery life and did not lack for features.

All appear to have Bluetooth.

[cassetti]

Thanks minimage for your input

As far as stereo verses mono, there is a world of difference. Sound waves can be measured in terms of distance. The lower end frequencies around 20hz can be extremely wide, over 40 feet. But higher end frequencies near 20khz can be less than an inch between waves. Meaning unless your ears are 40feet appart, you will have a hard time locating the source of the sound. (left or right speaker) but in the higher tones, you can distinguish left from right. Listening to a song or watching a movie looses a lot of the experience when removing one speaker. That is why i care about stereo haha.

I had looked at the 2710p, but its a compaq and I swear i will never own a compaq after seeing so many of them fail. Don't know much about fujitsu, but i do know they have been building tablets for YEARS but the price tag is a bit high for what you get (nothing wow about them for the price). I did like the toshiba one since it can do Active Digitizer with Pen and Touch Screen Input if you add that option, however it is a bit heafty.

How important is Touch Screen Input? I think that would be a good feature to have, but i wouldn't know never owning one.

What about the HP tx2000z I know the TX1000 or whatever the old classic one with the removable keyboard was an extremely popular tablet pc a few years back, and still continues to maintain its value on ebay.

[demingy]

I think that when you're looking at laptops and tablets (especially as an audiophile) you should plan on getting external speakers and/or headphones so I'm not too sure if the mono vs stereo should be too much of a concern unless the tablet isn't capable of any stereo output at all.

Sorry, being fairly new to the TPC world myself I don't have too much else to give for advice, but I wanted to put that out there.

[cassetti]

I think that when you're looking at laptops and tablets (especially as an audiophile) you should plan on getting external speakers and/or headphones so I'm not too sure if the mono vs stereo should be too much of a concern unless the tablet isn't capable of any stereo output at all.

Sorry, being fairly new to the TPC world myself I don't have too much else to give for advice, but I wanted to put that out there.

Very true, but when it comes to portability, if the speaker sucks so bad that you have to lug around a spare set of speakers, it becomes a pain. And headphones work for single user but when you have a group watching you cant. And in my case with my current dell that had crappy speakers that died and were repaired and still sounded like junk, the headphone jack starts to wear out! haha

[minimage]

Demingy's response, and the many I've read like it, were the reasoning behind what I said about stereo vs mono. If it were a desktop PC, there's no way I'd wonder if mono could be acceptable. I just don't see that many people who say they love their portables' sound; most say they go out and buy nice headphones. Even my MacBook, which cost quite a bit more than a regular laptop and is supposed to be so wonderful for multimedia, doesn't sound that great. If you find that your chosen tablet sounds great, do let us know of your experience, because I think a lot of people would want to support that manufacturer and encourage such design.

As for the HP tx2000, Tiffany said it was "going to be a hit." If you go with the weight saver option, it's 4.3 pounds. I must admit it sounds attractive, being both a multimedia machine and a tablet. Tiffany also said the Altec Lansing speakers sound good for music and movies, since HP's focus was on entertainment.

The touch screen thing is purely a personal preference. How will you be using the device? Some people don't want to even consider using a touchscreen, since it doesn't (yet) track your movements when you're not touching the screen, and grabbing/resizing items can be tricky. Also, the response and smoothness of the writing is often better with active digitizers. There are tableteers, still, who don't want to be bothered with having to keep up with and reach for the pen that active digitizers require; they want to be able to use their fingers (since those are almost always handy, no pun intended) or a 4-in-1 stylus, or any available stylus, for that matter. I've lost a lot of Wacom pens, and those puppies are expensive; I could buy 20 styli at CompUSA for what one of those costs (not saying the Wacom pens aren't worth it). Still, I can deal with either (well, a passive digitizer needs to have palm resistance, if I'm going to use it).

[cassetti]

Very good points minimage. The sound quality of most laptops is horrible at best. But i just can't stand mono sound. It's almost painfull to my ears haha. So unfortunately that rules out the Lenovo tablets, are there any other brands of tablets that have only mono speakers that i should avoid? For the most part every other tablet aside from lenovo has stereo speakers. Definitely expect a full report on the tablet when i make a decision and purchase one.

I too had heard that the tx2000 was going to be a hit, but have heard very little about it. The tablet does have a remote control it looks like. does this fit inside the tablet like you see on some laptops?

I have no clue about touch screen verses active digitizer.... I guess the thought of browsing the web and using my hand to push buttons seemed cool haha. But good point on tracking the pen, That could be of some use. Any idea how well tablets work with active digitizers in linux? I'm not too worried about loosing the pen, i'll keep a spare or two around, but generally if its important i never loose it.

It looks like i'm narrowing it down to either the Toshiba M700 or the HP TX2000z. The toshiba however is a bit heavier than the HP it looks like, so I'm a bit worried. My Dell 700m comes in at 4.3 pounds, i'm sure 5 pounds won't be an issue for me.

Another question is where should i buy it? Should i shop around online stores? Do i go straight to hp and customize mine? (like i said i'm not toooo picky on the specs, since the day i get it i'm dual booting with linux)

Really this laptop is going to be used as my personal computer. Sure i have a work horse server in my basement that i can VNC/telnet into and perform all my resource/power intensive work. but browsing the web, sketching up new database layouts, working on my patents, and writing notes will all be done on this lil guy.

I really despise compaq, but how do these compaqs compare to the crappy uber cheap compaqs that last about 6 months before the power plug breaks and the thing falls apart literally in your hands? I kinda like the one that has a digital camera built into it. (though the TX2000z does have a webcam... can that webcam rotate around to face the other way? it looks like it might??)

[sbtablet]

Sorry, the webcam on the tx 2000 doesn't rotate.