Windows 7 RC on Motion J3400

[engtab]

Has anyone installed Windows 7 on the new Motion J3400?
I have installed it on a separate partition on the 60Gb SSD drive, works fine but no Motion Buttons drivers installed-is there a way to install drivers/activate the buttons?

[Henk Poley]

You ran windows update? Looked at: http://www.motioncomputing.com/support/driver_download_3400_vista.asp ?

[engtab]

Yes, I ran Windows Update but the Button Drivers were not loaded. I downloaded the Button Drivers file but it does not have a Settup .exe in it so did not know what to do-tried manually installing the individual files where they are located in Vista but no result.
I may do a Windows 7 upgrade over the Vista install to see what happens...

[Henk Poley]

Ah, download those button drivers (again), and unzip them somewhere. Now type Device Manager in the start menu. You will see the button device with a yellow exclamation mark, probably at "Human Interface Devices". Else look around carefully to find it.

Double click the button item. Go to the "driver" tab, chose "update driver". Click "Browse my computer for driver software" and point it to the download. The rest should be obvious.

[engtab]

Thanks for the tip. I had done a clean re-install of Vista from the Motion recovery partition, then did a Windows 7 upgrade-all buttons & sound work well, I did un-install the fingerprint reader software as that seemed to be causing problems. It seems to be working really well

[pdavsong]

it would be nice to see your general impressions of the J3400 (especially with Windows 7 which I am waiting for as an oe installation). This may not be the thread for it (motion forum, j3400 thread?) but it would be niceto see something beyond the couple of extant reviews on the Web.

Cheers! Peter

[engtab]

I'll do a better summary once I have used it more, as it is I've had a J3400 with the 64Gb SSD, View anywhere screen for several weeks-installed Windows 7 on it and most is good, had to deactivate the fingerprint reader as that was causing problems but I don't need it anyway. Running Vista on it the HD (SSD) was constantly showing activity, not so with Windows 7.
My workhorse tablet has been a M1400 with View Anywhere screen, it's been really good and durable but after 5 years it was time for a replacement.
Some initial observations:
-The screen is about 3/4" less tall and 1-1/2" wider: this will take a little getting used to but not a big deal. The screen is much brighter outdoors, but seems to pick up smudges more. Being higher resolution everything is smaller.
-It is much faster, very responsive. I also ordered the dock and use it a replacement for my old desktop PC. It stays much cooler than the M1400.
Battery life with single battery is better than the M1400, with the dual batteries it is really good. The additional batter does not add much weight.
The camera is kind of neat, but it is slow to respond and I will no doubt use my iphone camera instead when I need photo's in the field. The big benefit of the camera for me is that it has an illuminator which is basically a really bright LED light on the back: this is great for me in that I now have a flashlight with me when I do construction inspections.
-Overall form factor is good, however there is a glaring problem with it: the tablet buttons are recessed, small and stiff to activate, and the 4-way navigation button is almost impossible to use (too small and stiff) for a normal sized finger. I have had to glue some plastic strips to the buttons to use them, which is pretty sad on such an expensive machine. I don't know how Motion went through all the steps it takes to design and go to manufacturing with such an error on the basic human interface buttons-sort of like buying a BMW and finding an interior from a Yugo. I've sent them comments about this, perhaps they will fix it in future models. Unfortunate, but it kind of spoils an otherwise great machine. If I were doing it again I might instead go for the LE1700. Perhaps this will change with use, I will post a review in a few months.